TREE SPECIES OF TIMBER IMPORTED TO JAPAN FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA

摘要

The consumption of timber in Japan greatly influences the state of forest resources in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region, because Japan is one of the greatest importers of timber from this region. The timber imported from Malaysia and Indonesia is mainly in the form of plywood recently. We examined 8,543 sheets of plywood imported in 2002, and identified the tree species of veneers on one or both surfaces of the plywood. Red meranti (Shorea section Rubroshorea spp., Dipterocarpaceae) was used in more than 55% of the plywood examined. Its share was 59.2% of the plywood from Indonesia and 51.6% in that from Malaysia. It showed significantly high, 71.4%, of the plywood from Kalimantan. We compared these results with the tree species of logs imported from this region to Japan in 1991. In spite of the decrease in the share of red meranti due to the exhaust of natural forest resources, red meranti is still the most important species for timber industries in Malaysia and Indonesia.