Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia

1998 Winner of the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout Award Peter Dauvergne developed the concept of a shadow ecology to assess the total environmental impact of one country on resource management in another country or area. Aspects of a shadow ecology include government aid and loans; corporate practices, investment, and technology transfers; and trade factors such as consumption, export and consumer prices, and import tariffs. In Shadows in the Forest, Dauvergne examines Japan's effect on commercial timber management in Indonesia, East Malaysia, and the Philippines. Japan's shadow ecology has stimulated unsustainable logging, which in turn has triggered widespread deforestation. Although Japanese practices have improved somewhat since the early 1990s, corporate trade structures and purchasing patterns, timber prices, wasteful consumption, import tariffs, and the cumulative environmental effects of past practices continue to undermine sustainable forest management in Southeast Asia. This book is the first to analyze the environmental impact of Japanese trade, corporations, and aid on timber management in the context of Southeast Asian political economies. It is also one of the first comprehensive studies of why Southeast Asian states are unable to enforce forest policies and regulations. In particular, it highlights links between state officials and business leaders that reduce state funds, distort policies, and protect illegal and unsustainable loggers. More broadly, the book is one of the first to examine the environmental impact of Northeast Asian development on Southeast Asian resource management and to analyze the indirect environmental impact of bilateral state relations on the management of one Southern resource.