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Kiyoshi Matsuya, from the home of the Harris Daishowa pulp and paper
mill in the Shizukaoka prefecture, said yesterday that paper consumption
in Japan was destroying Australia's forests.
He and 39 other Japanese Greens were delegates to the Global Greens
conference in Canberra. Mr Matsuya vowed to take "more concrete action"
in Japan to campaign against woodchip imports.
Australian Greens hailed the announcement as an example of the power of the global Green movement. Peg Putt, a member of the Tasmanian Parliament, said no other political party had the capacity to work together internationally in this way.
Woodchipping in Australia is at an all-time high, with seven million tonnes exported last year, almost all to Japan. About two-thirds of the chips come from Tasmania's old-growth forests.
Satako Watanabe, from the Kagawa prefectural assembly, said Japanese Greens had been awakened to the many environmental and social troubles being caused by Japanese companies abroad.
She blamed her country's endemic "poor politics" for the situation, saying the major parties took money from corporations that wanted to maintain high consumption and water down recycling and conservation programs.
The Japanese were becoming more environmentally aware, but companies just wanted "to sell us as much as they can", she said.
Shizukaoka Mayor Yusaku Hino said Japan had many timber plantations, but they were badly managed and the timber was costly to extract, so the government had chosen to rely on imports instead.
"Seventy per cent of our land has forest, yet we end up having to import woodchips from abroad ... The forest industry has been lazy in making the attempt to use our own resource," he said.
Ammana Kimura of the Rainbow and Greens network said Japanese companies wanted to be seen to be green, and felt threatened by the prospect of any action informing the public that their paper was coming from unsustainably managed forests.
Nippon Paper recently took over Daishowa, fuelling speculation among conservation groups that the company may close the Daishowa export operation in Eden. The company has a green charter, but has also exceeded its quota for chip imports under Japanese regulations with the addition of Daishowa's quota.
Mr Matsuya said people living in Shizukaoka were already concerned about air and water pollution from pulp and paper mills in the city.
"When we return, we plan to take more concrete action to network with campaigners who have been working on this for a long time," he said.
The Global Greens conference also launched a campaign for World Heritage listing of New Caledonia's coral reefs. The New Caledonian, French and Australian Greens joined Kanak chief Senat Coutumier in calling for the reefs to be protected from land-based threats, particularly nickel mining.
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