The average distance traveled by timber from source to use in Japan increased by about 40 percent in 12 years, from, 5085 km in 1990 to 7,074 km in 2002. These findings were reported at a conference of the Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies held in September 2004, by Dr. Takashi Fujiwara, a Vice -president of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute.

This increase was mainly due to the rise in the import of timber from Europe, half a world away from Japan.

In the report, the comparison was made between energy consumption in manufacturing timber and that in transporting it, and the idea of woodmiles indexes including "woodmileage" was introduced as an indicator of environmental load through transportation of timber. "Wood mileage" is the total transportation distance for timber, calculated by multiplying the annual timber supplied by the distance between timber production and consumption.

According to the report, Japan's woodmileage is about 4.6 times higher than that of the United States, although its timber import volume is less. This means that Japan consumes much more energy in transporting timber. The report also says that Japan could cut about 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually if the current volume of timber consumed was taken from local forests instead of being imported from abroad.

The Wood Miles Forum, established to spread the idea of woodmiles indexes, encourages the use of timber from nearby sources in order to reduce energy consumption.
http://woodmiles.net/english/

Posted: 2005/02/17 11:25:46 AM
Japanese version

TAG Ecosystem , Energy , Global warming , Government , University/Research institute