Barbie destroys rainforest – as do Lego, Hasbro and Disney

“Barbie is mean: she destroys the Indonesian rainforest and threatens the last tigers, orang-utans and elephants, just to make her packaging pretty.” That is, according to Greenpeace, the reason why Ken should break up with her – as should we. The action also calls on consumers to send emails to Robert Eckert, Mattel’s CEO.

The environment-friendly organisation launched their campaign in 40 countries in a larger action to save the Indonesian rainforest, that has shrunk by 74 million hectares (183 million acres) since 1950. The Asian country, with one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world, also holds one of the worst deforestation records – and Greenpeace has discovered that Mattel’s paper supplier is an important contributor in this matter.

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Lego, Hasbro, Disney: guilty too

“Mattel’s supplier is Asia Pulp & Paper, is responsible for massive scale cutting of the Indonesian rainforest. A number of companies have already cancelled their contracts with APP, but major companies in the toy producing sector have not”, says Greenpeace’s An Lembrechts. Indeed, it is not only Mattel, but also Lego, Hasbro and Disney are still working with APP to destroy endangered species. “Time is running out”, says Greenpeace, “as there are only 400-500 tigers alive in Indonesia. And elephants and orang-utans are on the highway to extinction, too…”

Last year, Greenpeace already campaigned against the destruction of the Indonesian rainforest. It forced food giants Nestlé to end its cooperation with suppliers who destroyed rainforests and bogs for the production of palm oil. Over 2 million people watched last year’s video, 200,000 of them sent Nestlé’s CEO Paul Bulcke an e-mail to urge him to end these cooperations. “That was a succes”, says Lambrechts, “as Nestlé started to work with the Forest Trust, an organisation dedicated to ban deforestation out of production chains. That was a huge step forward.”