Early in 2002 Rainforest Relief took on the town of Ventnor, NJ after finding out that the town had gone out to bid for a massive amount of tropical hardwoods for an entire renovation of their coastal boardwalk.

Ventnor, like Asbury Park, was partly using state money for the repairs.

Calling in our campaign partners from Ocean City, NJ, just south of Ventnor, we met with the mayor, commissioners and city engineer to tell them of the problems with using rainforest wood and the best alternative - recycled plastic lumber.

They didnít respond as we had hoped and so we took up the campaign. Within two months, we had raised enough of a media buzz, including a supportive editorial in the Atlantic City Press, the largest paper in south Jersey, that the city council took voted to spend the extra money to purchase independently certified tropical woods.

While this is not a complete victory, as even so-called "low-impact" logging in the tropics has been shown to reduce biodiversity, it is a far cry better than the illegal and often murderous logging that usually takes place in the Amazon for ipe.

As the order was for nearly 100,000 board feet of wood, this victory spared the logging of thousands of acres of pristine Amazon wilderness.