Rainforest Relief to Protest Scan Design Furniture
12/1/97
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Headline: Rainforest Relief to Protest Scan Design Furniture
Source: Rainforest Relief
Brooklyn, NY: phone/fax: (718) 832-6775 Portland, OR: (503) 236-3031
Email: relief@igc.apc.org
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/rainrelief
P.O. 150566 * Brooklyn, NY 11215 USA
Date: 12/1/97
Company refuses to disclose rainforest wood purchases
Rainforest Relief is a non-profit activist organization with offices
in New York City and Portland that fights rainforest destruction by
reducing the demand for wood, metal ores, petroleum and other raw
materials from rainforests. We have been working since 1995 to
convince Scan Design Furniture, a West Coast chain, and other stores
that selling furniture and other products made from rainforest woods
harvested in destructive ways is unacceptable and does not pay.
When we first inspected one of Scan Design's two Portland area stores
in 1995, we were shocked to find that almost all of its furniture
lines were made from the tropical forest woods teak, mahogany and
rosewood. In correspondence and meetings with the store's Danish
owner and regional manager over the last two years, Rainforest Relief
and allied organizations worked to demonstrate that none of these
woods are sustainable harvested, and their harvest contributes not
only to forest destruction but to the destruction of indigenous
cultures and human rights violations.
The harvest and use of teak wood products funds the destruction of
tropical forests and the illegal military regime of Burma. The demand
for teak is fueling massive deforestation in Burma, having been
responsible for the loss of entire forests in many other countries.
The repressive illegal regime of Burma is selling off its teak and
other hardwoods to pay for the purchase of arms to quell the democracy
movement.
The majority of mahogany on the market today is taken illegally from
rainforests in Brazil and Bolivia. Outlaw timber companies invade
indigenous reserves, park and nature preserves destroying not only the
fragile forests, but the homelands of indigenous tribal peoples. Tree
poachers punch new roads into pristine forests, cut valuable trees,
transport the wood to middlemen and exporters who in turn sell it to
importers in the U.S., Europe and Japan.
Rosewood is harvested from the fast-disappearing rainforests of
Central America and southern Mexico. Along with mahogany, it is one
of the main reasons that new logging roads are built into primary
rainforest areas.
In late 1996, Rainforest Relief supplied Scan Design with information
about how to obtain independently-certified sustainable wood to
replace the uncertified tropical woods it was using at the time. A
March 1997 inspection revealed that the vast majority of furniture in
the Northeast Portland store still was made with teak, mahogany or
rosewood content. In June 1997, members of the Seattle Rainforest
Action Group and the Seattle Burma Action Group met with the chain's
owner and regional manager. They learned that Scan Design had indeed
begun to make substantial purchases of non-tropical wood furniture
(switching to beech, cherry, maple, leather, etc.), a step in the
right direction from our point of view. The store's management
stated their intent to phase out uncertified and unsustainable
rainforest woods. However, they would not reveal how much tropical
wood furniture they planned to purchase in the future. In an August
18, 1997 letter, six rainforest and human rights organizations from
Oregon, Washington, California, and North Carolina demanded that Scan
Design state a date for ceasing purchase of furniture made with
uncertified rainforest woods by November 1, 1997.
Scan Design missed the deadline. We regret that the cooperation and
progress that has occurred thus far between a major business and a
multi-state coalition of environmental and human-rights organizations
apparently has ended for now. But Scan Design's refusal to commit to
ending the use of uncertified rainforest woods, and the emergency
situation in the world's rainforests, leaves us no choice but to go
public through the media and holiday-season demonstrations outside
their stores.
Rainforest Relief is organizing two December demonstrations against
Scan Design. The first will be at the Northeast Portland store on
December 13. We will also protest at one of the two Portland area
stores on December 20 with help from the Olympia Rainforest Action
Group. Those willing to travel to Seattle area can join a third
demonstration at the store's west coast headquarters in Bellevue on
Sunday, December 21.
Please call (503) 236-3031 for directions and car pool information.
If you're interested in the Bellevue demo, call Shannon Mayorga at
(360) 867-9880. Let's show Scan Design that the holiday season is not
a good time to sell rainforest woods!
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R A I N F O R E S T R E L I E F
Dedicated to the Preservation of the World's Rainforests
Rainforest Relief works to protect the world's remaining tropical
and temperate rainforests by reducing the demand for the products
and materials of rainforest destruction such as timber, agricultural
products such as bananas, beef, coffee, chocolate, and cut flowers
and mining products such as gold, oil and other metals.
Brooklyn, NY: phone/fax: (718) 832-6775 Portland, OR: (503) 236-3031
Email: relief@igc.apc.org
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/rainrelief
P.O. 150566 * Brooklyn, NY 11215 USA