As of April 15, 2003, Urbain Designs, an outdoor furnishing and park amenities wholesaler, ended their sales of rainforest wood furniture. The company sells benches, tables and other amenities made from recycled plastic but they had also been selling jatoba and ipê, two woods logged from the Amazon rainforests of Brazil as options.

We contacted Urbain by email on March 18 and within a week received notification of the company's decision to eliminate jatoba and ipê from their catalog, which has just gone to print without these products.

Urbain has now become a company that we can support, offering outdoor furniture made entirely of alternatives to rainforest wood, especially recycled plastic.

Send a message to Urbain thanking them for making this shift. Better yet, get your city or town to shift their bench purchases to Urbain Designs! For more on working with your local officials on a rainforest-friendly purchasing policy, click here.