ABSTRACT
Tokyo is filling with the sub-politics that precedes a gathering of the leaders of the world's richest nations. The NGOs have invited Japanese companies that trade in and use imported timber to a seminar on due diligence and the risk of illegality in Japan's timber supply chain. Speakers include US- and Europe-based environmental and human rights activists from the groups, Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency. The chapter emerges from continuing research conducted in Australia, Japan and Malaysia that has included analysis of media texts, direct observation and interviews with journalists, activists, trade officials and corporate executives, all of whom operate across national borders. It focuses on the activism that increasingly follows transnational trade of natural resources. It argues that the political attention applied to this trade now often takes the form of revelatory, investigative information, often alleging human rights breaches or unsustainable environmental practices, and carried within and by various forms of media.
