From Mighty Forests, Little Chopsticks Grow

Thanks to the world’s rain forests, American rock star Jackson Browne has a great guitar and British do-it-yourselfers can putter in their basements.

And Japanese diners can grasp their food with some of the 25 billion pairs of chopsticks that they use--and throw away--each year.

Consumers have a significant role in the logging of rain forests.

Teak trees felled on the Indonesian island of Java go into high-quality desktop accessories, fine furniture, and decks for yachts.

Browne’s solid body-guitar originated on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Blocks of mahogany and shakte-kok wood were shipped to the United States, where they were kiln-dried and then fashioned into the instrument by Gibson Guitar Co.

From the jungles of Papua New Guinea, boards of kamarere and taun wood make a 12,000-mile trek to Britain. They are machined and sold as kits to people who like to assemble their own chairs and bookcases.

Japan is the world’s biggest importer of tropical timber. Much of the wood goes into plywood furniture and into disposal items like chopsticks, forms for concrete and construction scaffolds.