UPDATE: On October 11, 2012, Disney announced a comprehensive paper policy that maximizes its use of environmentally superior papers like recycled and eliminates controversial sources like those connected to Indonesian rainforest destruction. For more info, visit www.ran.org/disney.
“We got to wondering…who is using all the rainforest that is being destroyed in Indonesia?” - “Toying With Forest Destruction” video
Two weeks ago Greenpeace International released a YouTube video detailing how pulped rainforest trees are ending up in the packaging of toys sold all over the world. The video begins, “We got to wondering…who is using all the rainforest that is being destroyed in Indonesia?” The sad truth is that the answer to Greenpeace’s question is me, you, and probably our friends and family.
Greenpeace’s investigations revealed that several famous toy companies, including Mattel, Lego, Hasbro, and Disney, are using fiber from cleared Indonesian rainforests in the packaging for Barbies, Cinderella dolls, Transformers, Star Wars games, and more.
Two major pulp and paper companies, Asia Pulp and Paper and APRIL, are clearcutting Indonesia’s rainforests and replacing them with monoculture acacia plantations to make cheap paper for all sorts of consumer products. Last year, RAN discovered that fiber from Indonesia’s rainforests and the acacia plantations replacing them was also ending up in children’s books sold in the U.S., and in March we launched a campaign demanding that Disney, the world’s largest children’s book and magazine publisher, get Indonesian rainforest destruction out of all its paper products.
It’s absurd that children’s books, Barbie boxes and other paper products are driving the destruction of some of the world’s most biologically diverse rainforests, and it’s infuriating that everyday people are being made into unwitting participants in this travesty.
Twitter Updates
There are far cheaper and far less destructive ways to produce paper. You can make paper out of corn starch for heavens’ sake! It boggles the mind that anyone would still think that making paper would require destroying forests at all (much less forests of incomparable value such as those of Sumatra).It’s not a crime that APP makes paper–but it is a CRIME that tn this day and age APP has not advanced in its thinking and technology and cannot stop destroying forests that cannot be replaced.
APP is the sort of company that gives international trade a bad name.