Japan's Consumers MUST Have Charcoal From Mangrove Forests - No Other Charcoal Will Do, You See . .

[hatrack]

The price of charcoal has risen by nearly half from about four years ago, he said, after a spike in Japanese demand that mops up around 60 percent of total charcoal produced.

Nearly half of Perak is covered with mangrove forest called Matang, the largest in the Malaysian peninsula, spread over more than 40,000 hectares covering nearly half of the state.

The government has a replanting exercise in place but there are environmental concerns about the dwindling forest that guards wildlife, protects against climate change and events such as the tsunami, by acting like a barrier against the Indian Ocean.

"I understand these mangrove trees are very dense and make good charcoal but this would be like burning the Mona Lisa to keep you warm," said Glen Barry, President of Ecological Internet Inc, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation. He said the mangrove harvest exceeded the number of mangroves regenerated, due in part to the fact that the trees take 30 years to mature.

EDIT

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-38328020090304?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

[RandySF]

1. With all due respect to the people of Japan

They get obsessively particular about things.

[kristopher]

2. Your headline is so false one has to question your motives.

In the article there is no reference to a preference for "mangrove forest" charcoal by the Japanese. They are a huge consumer of charcoal (many, many restaurants use it for cooking because of flavor) but there is no indication from the article that there is a special demand that the charcoal be of specific origin.
Since your headline takes an environmentally poor economic decision by the islanders and lays it falsely at the feet of the Japanese, I have to ask why you chose to misrepresent the clear facts?

What do you think racism in action looks like?