16 - Empire Forestry Endures: The Development and Continuity of Japanese Forestry in Southeast Asia, 1930–1970

Summary

This chapter attempts to illuminate the continuities and linkages between Japan's forestry development in Southeast Asia before and after the end of the Asia-Pacific War. It first describes a brief history of the development of tropical forestry by Japanese corporations and Japan's state forestry policy during the wartime. Second, it elucidates how the utilization of tropical forests has been attracting attention in relation to the depletion of forest resources in mainland Japan during the war years. Finally, it examines the political and environmental context in which tropical forestry and imports from Southeast Asia were resumed by Japanese capital in the 1950s and 1960s and suggests continuities and linkages between wartime and postwar Japan's forestry development in Southeast Asia.

Introduction

In recent years, one of the most fertile areas of inquiry for environmental history has been the intertwined histories of imperialism and environmentalism. A growing number of studies have shown that modern environmentalism—from its key concepts to its practices and networks—is deeply embedded in the history of empire. Most of these studies have focused on the British empire and its colonies. Recently, however, a few researchers have begun to turn attention to the case of the Japanese empire; that is, to the distinctive interrelation between Japanese imperialism and environmentalism. For example, in her generative study of the forest policies of the Japanese empire, Tessa Morris-Suzuki contrasts the forest policies of the Japanese mainland with those of its colonial territories to bring to light the contradictory interfusion of rationalism and romanticism in the environmental vision that lay at the heart of colonial modernity. Another example is David Fedman's pathbreaking study of Japan's forest conservation practices in colonial Korea which suggests forestry and silviculture brought about by the Japanese empire functioned as a vital dimension of state power in colonial Korea. In order to understand the politics of forest management in Korea, Fedman suggests to “look beyond the peninsula itself “ and to “track the broader circulation as they were transfigured into the ligneous commodities that vitalized Japan's continental expansion.”

As Mark Peattie points out, the Japanese empire had one distinctive feature: its geopolitical structure was shaped by geographical expansion to neighboring countries to achieve the imperative of security.