In 1997 Rainforest Relief teamed with the Action Resource Center of LA to stop the use of tropical hardwoods (in this case, ipê) for the decking of a marina in San Diego, CA.

Although we were unable to stop the use of tropical wood for that particular project, that campaign led to one of our largest successes at the time. The marina was being built by Atlantic-Meeco, the world's largest marina builder. All parties agreed that A-M would cease to use tropical hardwoods — but the existing project, for which the wood had already been purchased and cut — could go forward.

(Since then, Atlantic-Meeco was sold by it's founder and the company has not lived up to the agreement — you can send them a message from our Atlantic-Meeco campaign page).

After this victory, a project in Long Beach, CA came to our attention. At first, we heard numbers for massive amounts of rainforest wood, but these were overblown. However, the Queensway Bay project was a large waterfront redevelopment project that would eventually include nearly 90,000 board feet of wood. Again, the wood of choice was ipê.

After four months of campaigning by the two groups, an agreement was reached that included, among other things, the passage of an ordinance that would end any future use of uncertified tropical hardwoods by the city of Long Beach. Long Beach officials also agreed to send letters to every municipality in southern California, informing them of their decision and why using uncertified tropical hardwoods was a bad idea (this letter led to Disney shifting to certified second-growth hardwoods for a project in the Bay Area).

As well, the city agree to place educational panels along the walkway, two of which would talk about rainforests and the town's decision to shift away from uncertified tropical hardwoods.

Finally, the city agreed to shift 23% of the wood for the project to wood certified by an organization accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (Rainforest Relief no longer supports the use of tropical hardwoods if they originate from old growth forests, certified or not).


Queensway Bay Aquarium


The Aquarium of the Pacific. Activists agreed to not demonstrate
the opening in response to the thirteen points
to which the city of Long Beach and Queensway Bay Development
Corporation agreed.


The ordinance was passed within a month of the agreement, before the opening of the Aquarium of the Pacific, and with the other changes, the two environmental groups areed to call off the planned demonstration at the grand opening of the aquarium being built as part of the redevelopment project.