Greenpeace wants you to think how many trees it takes to make chopsticks next time you order Chinese food!

Greenpeace launched last year a campaign in China to call attention to the urgent need for forest conservation in China. One of the main issues they focused on was chopsticks.

According to statistics from the Forestry Administration, China produced 57 billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks in 2009 alone. How many trees were cut down for these chopsticks? According to Greenpeace , the production of disposable chopsticks required wood from 3.8 million trees!

Last year Greenpeace and Ogilvy Beijing have teamed up to plant an eye-catching “chopstick forest” that was displayed outside The Place, a popular shopping center in the heart of Beijing.

Ogilvy explained how it worked:

Over the last several months, Ogilvy worked with Greenpeace, local artist Yinhai Xu and more than 200 volunteers from 20 Chinese universities to collect more than 80,000 pairs of used (and sanitized) disposable wooden chopsticks from restaurants and repurposed them into a forest of chopstick trees that stand approximately 5 meters tall.

Aihong Li, director of Greenpeace's Forest Protection Program, said: “These trees should have been abundantly green and vibrant, but now they are pieced together with wasteful disposable chopsticks. Our hope is that everyone in China will join us in saying "no" to disposable chopsticks to protect our forests.”

Now, 6 months later, Greenpeace is coming out with a video entitled "Disposable Project" that is showing the campaign and calling for greater awareness among chopstick users for the materials the chopsticks are made from. In other words: Trees. Their suggestion? Very simple - replacing wooden chopsticks with a plastic or metal version, a reusable and environmentally-friendly alternative. Think about it next time you order Chinese take-out.



Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

Greenpeace is using Ken and Barbie to protest against Mattel's relationship with APP

What do you think of Barbie? Well, no matter what you have in mind, Greenpeace has news for you:

"Barbie has a nasty deforestation habit - she is trashing rainforests in Indonesia, including areas that are home to some of the last tiger, orang-utans and elephants, just so she can wrap herself in pretty packaging."

Apparently, Ken wasn't aware of it either:



Greenpeace started this campaign against Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie, accusing it in contributing to deforestation in Indonesia "by using paper packaging for the world's most famous toy from Indonesia's most notorious rainforest destroyer Asia Pulp and Paper (APP)."

Not only that Greenpeace calls supporters to tell Mattel to stop destroying rainforests for toy packaging, but they also extended the protest to Mattel HQ, as our friend, Ralf Skar reported on Greenpeace USA website:

"Wearing baby blue formal wear, Ken and a few buddies paid a visit to the Mattel HQ in Los Angeles today. And, by ‘pay a visit’, I mean they climbed on top of the building, strapped on climbing gear, dangled off the roof outside the windows of awe-struck employees, and hung a 2,500 square foot banner reading “It’s OVER” for Barbie to see. I guess you could say the guy has a flair for the dramatic."

You can see photos of the protest at Mattel HQ on Greenpeace's flickr page.

More articles on Greenpeace and APP:

Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) - good or bad? ITS is saying APP is good and actually Greenpeace is bad!

Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) - good or bad? Rolf Skar of Greenpeace is replying to Ian Lifshitz

APP - good or bad? An interview with the sustainability manager of the world's most controversial paper company

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Alternative to slash and burn focus of new documentary, Up in Smoke

I just got an update that this week, on Thursday June 9, The Economist Film Project will showcase a new documentary called Up in Smoke, about a British scientist, Mike Hands, who has perfected a sustainable alternative to slash and burn agriculture in the Amazon, and is working with farmers in Honduras to put it into practice.

The Economist Film project is a partnership between The Economist and PBS NewsHour that presents documentaries that address social, economic, political, cultural and environmental issues of international importance. A segment from Up in Smoke will air during PBS NewsHour and will be featured on the project’s Web site. The segment and film bring to light a revolutionary, proven approach to deforestation in the Amazon that has shown remarkable promise, but continues to struggle to receive adequate support from the international community.

Here's the trailer of this interesting film:



You can read more about it at http://www.indiegogo.com/Up-in-Smoke

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

New report connects children's books to the destruction of forests in Indonesia

Forest destruction in Indonesian Borneo.
Photo:David Gilbert/RAN

Rainforest Network Action (RAN) published yesterday a new report with an alarming results. According to their report, significant part of America’s children’s books are contributing to the destruction of endangered rainforests in Indonesia.

The report, entitled Turning the Page on Rainforest Destruction; Children’s Books and the Future of Indonesia’s Rainforests, found that nine of the top ten U.S. children’s publishers have released at least one children’s book that tested positive for paper fiber linked to the destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests, including some books that describe the benefits of rainforest conservation.

RAN tested 30 children's books that are published by the top 10 U.S. children's books publishers (3 books of each publisher) for fiber associated with deforestation in Indonesia and found that 18 of the 30 books (60%) contained controversial fiber.

What was common to all of these books that they're all printed in China. RAN explains on their report the connection between printing children's books in China and the destruction of forests in Indonesia:

With the rapid growth of book printing and manufacturing being outsourced to China, the U.S. book industry has become increasingly vulnerable to controversial paper sources entering its supply chain. China is the top importer of Indonesian pulp and paper and much of the Chinese paper industry is linked to or controlled by highly controversial Indonesian pulp and paper suppliers, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL), which together account for 80 percent of Indonesia’s production. From 2000-2008, Chinese sales of children’s picture books to the U.S. ballooned by more than 290 percent, averaging an increase of more than 35 percent per year.

The report is making a point that 5 out of the tested publishers have public environmental and paper procurement policies that pledge to reduce the companies’ impact on the climate, protect endangered forests, increase the use of recycled and FSC certified fiber and maximize resource efficiency. However, despite these important policy commitments, wood fiber from Indonesia is ending up in children’s books. Moreover, the report found that publishers with paper policies and climate commitments had a similar percentage of books containing controversial fiber to publishers without policies.

The report checks a small sample, and the majority of children's books might show better results, but with the growing printing in China, these results are definitely alarming and should be a wake-up call for the industry.

So what can be done to stop it? I believe that it is up to the readers and the publishers. If readers (in this case, both parents and kids) will start demanding from publishers to make sure that their books are 100% Indonesian and endangered forest destruction free it will provide publishers with a great incentive to take care of it. The publishers, on their side, should demand from their Chinese printers to stop using paper supplied by companies like Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL) to print their books, as long as these companies do not change their current practices.

In the meantime RAN (and so do we) ask you to sign a petition they have on their website (http://ga3.org/campaign/books_and_rainforests) that has a simple yet powerful message: I Love Books and Rainforests. Let's make sure these two won't come one at the expense of the other!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

New video from RIPPLE Africa: Deforestation, bush burning and Forest Conservation in Malawi

Our planting partner RIPPLE Africa is working in Malawi, Africa and is doing an amazing job there. They've just published a new video, showing the effects of deforestation and bush burning, and also illustrates the woodland conservation program that RIPPLE Africa has initiated.

This film shows both sides of reality in Malawi - deforestation and frustration on one side and reforestation and hope on the other side, which we're proud to support. You can read more about RIPPLE Africa on their website - www.rippleafrica.org and learn on our work with them on the last assessment we published last year.




Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!