KUCHING, Malaysia — Flush with expertise and profits from felling local rain forests, Asian logging companies have begun stripping millions of acres of timberland around the world.
Their reach extends from South Pacific islands to pristine forests in Latin America and Africa. According to an Associated Press survey, their operations are accelerating--as is the opposition they face from indigenous people and environmentalists.
With Malaysians and Indonesians at the forefront, Asian companies started moving out in the mid-1980s. They now dominate rain-forest logging worldwide.
Some of their concessions are already the size of small countries, and their sights are set on such riches as Brazil's Amazon.
"What we are witnessing today is a relatively new trend of 'South-South colonialism,' whereby southern transnational companies are making heavy investments in other 'more backward' Third World countries," said Marcus Colchester of the Britain-based World Rainforest Movement.
Along with investments, the companies transfer the political patronage systems, corruption and poor environmental practices of their own societies, he said.
Companies contacted say they practice sustainable logging that will not destroy forests. They project themselves as entrepreneurs from dynamic economies that less developed nations should emulate.
But in a clash that appears to leave little middle ground, conservationists charge that many loggers operate like "robber barons," depleting an ecologically important resource at unconscionable rates and violating native rights.
"That's not to say there aren't bad European and American companies, but Asians are the worst," said Jean-Paul Jeanreneaud of the Switzerland-based World Wide Fund for Nature. "They are more cavalier, less concerned about environmental and social issues. And they're all over the place."
A study financed by the World Bank and the United Nations warned in early August that logging is endangering half of the world's remaining 5 billion acres of tropical forest. It said the rest is threatened by slash-and-burn farming techniques used by primitive peoples.
Among recent findings by Associated Press reporters in Latin America, Asia and Africa:
* The next major targets for Asian loggers are the Amazon, probably the world's top timber source in the coming decade, and Africa, where European logging companies have tended to dominate.
