The Walt Disney Company was alerted to the problem with the use of uncertified rainforest wood for boardwalks by a letter from Long Beach, CA. The letter to every city in California (!) was one outcome of the agreement between the city of Long Beach, Rainforest Relief and Action Resource CenterDisney that resulted from the Long Beach campaign.

In order to avoid a similar campaign, Disney decided up front to do seek wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for the Paradise Pier, a large wooden-decked pier they were building as part of their California Adventure Park. Disney ordered their wood from EcoTimber International. At the time, EcoTimber was another dealer of only certified woods (they've since been sold, consolidated and are also dealing in other products).

The order consisted of about 300,000 board feet of curupay from Paraguay and was at the time the single largest purchase of FSC tropical wood in history. At that time, this was considered a win for rainforests (Rainforest Relief no longer supports the use of FSC-certified tropicals from old-growth forests).

Disney has yet to put in writing a policy for avoiding woods from endangered forests in cruise ships, set construction, boardwalks and other projects. Contact us to help get Disney off rainforest wood for good.

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