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Accomplishing Green Activities / The Furniture Industry Leading the Way |
Editorial by Masao Kiuchi The development of civilization has had a bad impact on forest resources ever since the days before Christ. Forest resources were in danger when iron was invented in the birthplaces of ancient civilization, such as China.
In order to produce iron, there needs to be fire, and in order to produce fire, trees had to be cut down. As copper began to be replaced by iron to make weapons, more and more trees needed to be cut down. It is said that although China was rich in forest resources, forests disappeared from the land.
Japan had a similar experience as well. As iron began to be used in weapons and agricultural instruments, the land rich in forest resources faced similar problems as the ancient civilizations. However, luckily, because Japan is a subtropical monsoon region, recovery of the forest was fast. Therefore, unlike China, Japan did not have a point in which many forests were bare due to the cutting down of trees.
From the 1950’s to 1970’s, plywood became one of the leading industries of the light industry in post war Japan. However, in order to make plywood, lauan was lumbered destructively from South East Asia leaving nothing of the forests. Such regions today are experiencing landslides dye to the lack of trees.
It is not only the raw material for plywood that Japan is importing but also wood for housing and paper. Japan is a country importing the most wood in the world. In other words, Japan has been consuming the world’s forest resources although possessing rich forest resources. Trees are not lumbered at the correct timing and left as they are because competing against cheap imported wood is difficult.
Under such circumstances, there have been people in the Japanese furniture industry raising voices to think about the current situation of tree consumption. However, in order to accomplish the goal of saving forest resources on a world level, housing industries and paper industries, which consume large amounts of wood, incomparable to that of the furniture industry, must raise question to the current situation. In addition, large trading companies dealing with wood on a world basis must take part as well.
When the furniture industry becomes the leader of such green activities, I believe the Japanese furniture industry would be praised from the world’s consumers.
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Post Person:JAPAN Post Date:2008-02-28 |
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