Guest lectures by Dr. Linas Didvalis from the Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
On Tuesday, 12 December 2017, Dr. Linas Didvalis from the Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University gave a lecture on Japan’s role in advancing regional forest governance in Southeast Asia. Dr. Didvalis started the lecture with the broader issue of Japanese international timber trade, which sparked controversy due to its participation in logging of the old-growth timber forests in Southeast Asia. In this region, the processes of clearing, over-logging and fragmenting of tropical forests are the fastest. Many drivers behind deforestation and forest degradation lie outside the tropical countries – they are the consequence of the international demand for timber or palm oil, which exacerbate the incentives to over-exploit forests or cut them down completely. Since the mid-1960s, Japan became one of the largest importers of tropical timber globally and the majority of it comes from Southeast Asian countries. There is little doubt that Japanese demand for tropical timber was among the biggest reasons for deforestation in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The lecture continued with the puzzle: why Japan, despite claiming environmental leadership especially in the field of forest protection since the 1990s, has not created a strong long-term institutional framework to promote sustainable forest management. Dr. Didvalis in this regard inspected Japan’s domestic interest groups and their attitudes towards sustainable forest management. He argued that the civil society activist groups for forest protection are not influential enough to influence the behaviour of the Japanese companies that benefit from the free trade of tropical timber and are therefore resisting any regulations on forest protection in the region.
The EARL lecture left a strong message with the participants: Japan’s ambition to be one of the leaders in the region in the field of forest protection is still not followed by strong actions to back up its environmental diplomacy.
Prof. Didvalis visited the Faculty of Social Sciences in the framework of Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility program from 11 to 12 December 2017, giving the lectures within the Master program of International Relations. He is a lecturer and the Chief coordinator at the Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. His work includes the fields of environmental studies, interest groups and regional studies of East Asia.