Mattel Inc Offices get taken over by Greenpeace

Over the last decade Greenpeace has been putting pressure on global corporations to stop supporting the corrupt destruction of rainforests in Indonesia, the Amazon and Congo.

Greenpeace International recently launched a global campaign against the World’s largest toy company, Mattel Inc who package their toys with hardwood taken from Indonesia’s vastly deforested rainforests, home to many endangered species.

Yesterday, the offices for Mattel Inc, where taken over by Greenpeace Activists, who hung a huge sign down the side of the building reading, “Barbie: it’s over. I don’t date girls that are into deforestation.” Today, Mattel’s offices in Maidenhead, London were visited by a group of orang-utan and tiger activists near the Piccadilly’s statue of Anteros- the god of unrequited love.

The aim of the campaign is to stop Mattel buying wood from the company, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) in the hope that once major customers have cut their ties, they will be forced to deforest ethically and sustainably.

In the last 50 years, over 40% of Indonesia’s rainforests have been sadly deforested meaning animals such as the Orang-utan are on the verge of extinction. It is also thought that as little as 400 Sumatran tigers remain naturally in Indonesia’s rainforests.

Last year, Greenpeace ran a successful campaign against Nestle, Unilever, Kraft, Tesco and Adidas to get them to stop buying palm from deforested areas of Indonesia. A few months ago, the palm oil company Sinar Mas announced that they had created an environmental policy, stating that its palm oil operation has no deforestation footprint.

However, APP are owned by Sinar Mas- a massive contradiction. Hopefully it will only be a matter of time before they launch a new policy and stick to it, because they’re already losing major customers.

Staples and Office Depot are two of the corporations who recently opted out and have contacted other businesses to do the same. After all, no company wants their brand to be shamed like Nestlé’s Kit Kat were last year.