Due to our campaigning in Greenport, NY, we became aware of an impending purchase of a large amount of tropical hardwoods by the town of Long Beach, NY. Long Beach has a coastal boardwalk that is just over two miles long. They had already converted a small bayside boardwalk to tropical hardwoods, but not without some concern on the part of the City Manager Ed Eaton (Long Beach’s equivalent to a mayor).

We contacted Long Beach and began a conversation about the negative impacts of tropical hardwoods. Long Beach had already received bids for tropical hardwoods but officials were already concerned about the use of these controversial materials. But they needed some hard evidence to refute the statements of the proposed supplier, again, none other than Timber Holdings, Ltd.

Rainforest Relief director, Tim Keating, wrote a 13-page rebuttal of Timber Holdings’ propaganda, “The Truth About Logging and Tropical Deforestation”, in which Keating lambasted Timber Holdings' presumptions about the causes of tropical deforestation and its optional tree-planting program as inadequate and an attempt to "greenwash" the use of tropical hardwoods. "Timber Holdings proposes to plant a tree for every 500 board feet of wood used," said Keating. "This is ridiculous, since our calculations show that an entire acre may be logged for just 9 board feet of imported ipe. These importers should be hung out to dry for their misinformation campaigns and marketing of the products of the rape of the rainforests."

Thanks to the rebuttal, heeding our concerns, Long Beach officials rejected the proposed use of tropical rainforest hardwoods for boardwalk renovations.

Two years after this temporary victory, two volunteers, high school students Nechama Levy and Amanda Kaufman, worked with officials to introduce and pass an ordinance banning further use of tropical hardwoods for boardwalk renovations unless they are independently certified. The ordinance passed in 2001, making Long Beach, NY the 10th city to pass such a policy (for a list of cities, see Rainforest Relief’s handout, “U.S. Tropical Wood Purchasing Measures”).