The Rainforests in the Classroom program is working with teachers and young people to empower a new generation to protect our Earth. Last week we were in New York delivering 3,000 letters from kids around the world to Credit Suisse First Boston asking the company to protect Western Gray Whales and indigenous rights on Sakhalin Island. These kinds of letter campaigns have been very successful in the past in helping CEOs rediscover their moral compass and consider values beyond the bottom line. Now, we’d like to draw your attention to the work of our allies at Markets Initiative in Canada, who are promoting the fact that the new Harry Potter book is once again being printed on 100% post-consumer recycled, processed chlorine free paper in that country. Unfortunately, that’s not the case in the U.S., where publisher Scholastic has failed to follow Canada (and Germany)’s lead.

By printing Canada’s Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on 100% post-consumer recycled paper instead of conventional virgin paper, the following ecological savings have been made:

• 28,221 trees
• 599, 330 kg of solid waste (equivalent to 147 average size female elephants)
• 45.3 million litres of water (enough to fill 30 Olympic sized swimming pools)
• 1.2 million kg of green house gases (emissions equal to taking 227 cars off the road for a year)
• 16.6 million BTUs of electricity (energy to power 192 average North American homes annually)

Author J.K. Rowling supports printing all Harry Potter books on ancient forest friendly paper. She says:

“The forest at Hogwarts is home to magical creatures like unicorns and centaurs. Because the Canadian editions are printed on Ancient-Forest Friendly paper, the Harry Potter books are helping to save magnificent forests in the muggle world, forests that are home of magical animals such as Orangutans, Wolves and Bears. It’s a good idea to respect ancient trees, especially if they have a temper like the Whomping Willow.�

Read the BBC News article and find out what you can do, icluding writing a letter to Scholastic, at www.ancientforestfriendly.com.