Word: lumber
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...years environmentalists and loggers have quarreled over the fate of "old- growth" forests in the Pacific Northwest. Conservationists contend that cutting the ancient trees on federally owned land in Oregon and Washington State threatens the habitat of the endangered spotted owl, which lives only in old-growth forests. The lumber industry objects that a ban would devastate the timber-based economies of the region. Last week George Bush signed into law a compromise hammered out by a congressional conference committee. It prohibits sales of timber from areas where the spotted owl dwells, but permits 7.7 billion board feet of wood...
While the Penan are fighting the local loggers, the tribe's real antagonists are some 2,600 miles away, in Japan. Most of the trees cut in the Malaysian part of Borneo (the rest of the island is controlled by Indonesia and Brunei) are shipped to Japan, where the lumber is most often made into throwaway plywood construction forms used to mold concrete. Nor is the situation in Borneo unusual. Japan's heavy demand for wood has led to the deforestation of vast tracts in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Last April the Japan Tropical Forest Action...
...lumber business is only one of many Japanese industries that have had far-reaching impact on the global environment. A combination of traditional crafts and consumer tastes for the exotic makes Japan the world's largest market for many threatened species and the products created from them. Over the years, elephants by the thousands have been slaughtered so that their ivory can be used, for example, in Japanese signature seals, and wedding ornaments are fashioned from the shells of endangered hawksbill turtles. Japanese fishermen have drawn impassioned criticism for their use of huge drift nets across vast expanses...
Nearly 90% of the lumber now comes from Sarawak and Sabah, the two Malaysian states on Borneo. On paper at least, Malaysia, a well-off country with a relatively small population (17.4 million), has a model plan for the "sustainable development" of its forests. The reality is that neither the overall plan nor specific regulations have had much impact, and logging operations continue essentially uncontrolled. "In theory everything is fine," says S.C. Chin, a Malaysian forestry expert. "But 20 years ago, Thailand and the Philippines said everything was fine too, and now they have largely been stripped...
Nakashima's bench mark is the wood itself: form follows grain. He has gathered an extensive collection of lumber that includes slabs of Carpathian elm, Oregon myrtle and French olive ash. Nakashima says, "I'm something of a Druid," and he sallies into the woods to check promising trees himself. "I use logs that would be almost useless to commercial furniture makers, with their concern for regular grain and thin veneers," he adds. "If a tree has had a joyful life it produces a beautiful grain. Other trees have lived unhappily -- bad weather or a terrible location. We use both...