As national governments and international institutions prove unwilling or unable to mount an effective response to the deforestation crisis, rainforest activists around the world are beginning to focus their attentions on those perpetrating and profiting from the plundering of the rainforests — transnational corporations. BRENT HOARE explains the campaign for a boycott of Mitsubishi.
Mitsubishi Corporation has been singled out as the focus of a rejuvenated campaign by the San Francisco- based Rainforest Action Network (RAN) for its role as one of the world's leading corporate destroyers of primary rainforests, and because of its high visibility in the marketplace.
It is not possible for environmentally concerned consumers to directly influence the Mitsubishi- affiliated companies which are destroying rainforests. But by promoting a global consumer boycott of the group, the campaign aims to convince Mitsubishi, and all similar companies, to stop destroying the forests.
So how is a car and electrical goods company like Mitsubishi destroying rainforests? Mitsubishi is one of several gigantic Japanese trading companies known as "keiretsu". The group is involved in a wide range of economic activities, centred on Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi Bank and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. There are 29 "Kinyo-kai" (Friday meeting) or core members, and an estimated 131 affiliated members in the group.
The core members are closely tied through shared ownership, loans and credits, mutual directors, historical ties and membership of a presidential council. While only some of these are directly engaged in logging, all members of the group can legitimately be held responsible, and they are superbly placed to put pressure on Mitsubishi Corporation to cease destroying the forests.
Mitsubishi and its affiliated company Meiwa Trading were Japan's second largest importer of tropical timber, with a total of 1,253,752 cubic metres in 1990. This was only 8000 cubic metres behind Nissho Iwai corporation, Japan's largest importer that year, and accounted for 5-6% of the Japanese total. Japan consumes 30% of the world trade in tropical timber. If timber imports into other countries by Mitsubishi and its affiliated companies are taken into account, it largest trader in tropical timber products.
Mitsubishi's activities in the rainforest have been the subject of international attention since a "Ban Japan from the Rainforest Day" in April 1990. In response to this campaign, Mitsubishi established an "Environmental Affairs Department" to promote a positive environmental image and to deflect criticisms of its rainforest exploitation.
A 50-hectare "reforestation research project" in Sarawak has been widely promoted as evidence of the company's concern for the environment. However, Mitsubishi has not attempted to reforest a single hectare of its 90,000-hectare Sarawak concession, the project is due to run out of funds in just a few years, and the forests will be long gone by the time the "research project" yields any results.
In what must rate as one of the most spectacularly misjudged attempts of a corporation to defend itself from an environmental campaign, Mitsubishi distributed a comic book free to 5500 Japanese high schools in 1991. The comic blames shifting cultivators for forest destruction in Sarawak, and paints a benign image of the impact of logging. Widely condemned as incorrect and misleading, the comic was recalled and banned from further distribution by the Japan's Ministry of Education in March 1992.
Mitsubishi has refused to meet with environmental campaigners, and has displayed no intention of meeting any of the campaign's demands. Its logging operations around the world continue apace, and major new expansions into the forests of Siberia and Alberta, Canada, are proceeding.
The second phase of the Mitsubishi campaign was officially launched last December.
Following the example of RAN's successful boycott of Burger King over its importation of cheap South American beef from deforested lands, the Mitsubishi campaign consists of a globally coordinated network of local groups taking actions to highlight the destructive activities of the Mitsubishi Corporation. The actions aim to provide consumers with information about the destruction of tropical rainforests they are indirectly supporting when they buy Mitsubishi products, and to encourage an international consumer boycott of the Mitsubishi group.
Yoichi Kuroda of the Japanese Tropical Rainforest believes that a 1% reduction in sales in the US alone will be enough to bring about significant concessions from the company. The campaign goal is to increase consumer awareness enough to achieve a 10% decrease in Mitsubishi's US sales in 1993, and to block $100 million in Mitsubishi construction project bids or contracts. Any decrease in sales around the world will bring Mitsubishi to the table even faster.
To this end, Rainforest Action Groups have been working hard to get the word out. Highlights of the campaign so far include:
- banners by motorways declaring "Mitsubishi Destroys Rainforests — The word is getting around" across the US, and in Australia, England and New Zealand;
- high profile demonstrations at car shows all over North America;
- a global Blockade Mitsubishi Motors Day in January, which generated several letters expressing concern from dealerships to the corporation;
- several high-impact posters linking Mitsubishi with rainforest destruction;
- a large petition/fundraising effort now under way;
- a plane towing a large banner over the Super Bowl in Los Angeles at half time;
- a full-page ad in the New York Times calling Mitsubishi the "Worst Corporate Destroyer of Rainforests" and asking for telegrams to be sent to the prime minister of Japan, the president of Mitsubishi Corporation and the premier of Alberta.
A videotape "letter to Mitsubishi" is being compiled from footage of actions so far, and the possibility is being investigated of a documentary film being made by the producers of Deadly Deception (an award- winning film against Nestle's promotion of baby foods in developing countries).
In Australia, input to a national campaign strategy is currently being sought by the Rainforest Information Centre. It is intended to involve groups across the country in a well-planned and tightly coordinated campaign which will tie into and support RAN's ld.
Confronting, exposing and holding accountable those directly responsible for the destruction of rainforests, and the wasteful consumption of the timber being mined from them, is one of the most powerful handles available to community activists concerned about the biological holocaust being inflicted upon the planet. As Norman Myers says in his 1992 edition of The Primary Source, "We must surely beat the problem [of rainforest destruction] into submission in the next decade at latest; otherwise we may as well go to the beach until the last tree is chopped."
With around 2400 days to go, the time to get stuck in is now. What you can do:
- Write to the Rainforest Information Centre to register your group's involvement in the Australian Mitsubishi Campaign, and send $7 for a copy of the International Organiser's Manual: c/- Brent Hoare, Mitsubishi Campaign, PO Box 368, Lismore NSW 2480, or email "peg.rainfaus". Outside Australia contact Michael Marx, Mitsubishi Campaign Coordinator, RAN, 450 Sansome St, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA, fax:415-398-4404
- Write to Mr Minoru Mikihara, President, Mitsubishi Corporation, 6-3, Marunouchi 2-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100, Japan, to express your concern.
- Photocopy this article, spread it around, talk to some friends and Boycott Mitsubishi!