100 Million Acres of Forestland Certified!
The Rainforest Alliance is pleased to announce that we've reached an exciting milestone: our forestry program has certified more than 100 million acres (40.7 million hectares) of forestland in 58 countries. Lands certified by the Rainforest Alliance meet rigorous environmental and social standards that protect the rights of indigenous groups, workers and their families and conserve biodiversity.
"We are working hard to support a global transition to more sustainable forest management for social, environmental and economic reasons," said Richard Donovan, Rainforest Alliance chief of forestry. "These numbers reflect the impacts we are having on a broad scale in different types of forests, from an area of tropical rainforest managed by indigenous people in Brazil to multi-million acre industrial forestry operations in the boreal forests of Canada and Russia."
The leap in Forest Stewardship Council/Rainforest Alliance Certified acres means that a growing supply of wood products from responsibly managed forests is becoming more widely available to companies and consumers. Leading retailers including ABC Carpet & Home, Lowe's, Home Depot and IKEA and paper giants like Domtar and Tembec all use wood from FSC-certified forests.
Celebrating 20 Years: Interview with Rainforest Alliance Founder
The Rainforest Alliance has turned 20! Throughout 2007 we will feature personal remembrances and accomplishments, which have inspired and shaped the organization. This month we speak with Daniel Katz, Rainforest Alliance Founder and Board Chair.
How does the Rainforest Alliance of today resemble the organization you founded twenty years ago?
Today's Rainforest Alliance has the same spirit and passion as it did then. And we're still concerned with safeguarding biodiversity. But today we're a much more professional organization, peppered with seasoned professionals. Twenty years ago, we didn't have field programs, for example, and now we have some of the best field staff of any conservation organization in the world.
Did you anticipate that certification would eventually become the successful conservation tool that it is?
I did. In 1988 when we started talking about developing a timber certification program, most conservation organizations were calling for a boycott of tropical hardwoods. But we wanted to offer solutions. Even though we were told by everyone from timber and retail executives to other NGOs that we were too small and too idealistic to make a timber certification program work, I was confident it would.
How has conservation in general changed over the past two decades?
It's become more sophisticated and conservation organizations have become less rhetorical. We have become smarter about using a limited amount of money and labor effectively. We've also become more inclusive. Many more people consider themselves conservationists now than ever before. The environment is a subject we're all involved with and is no longer a fringe movement. I think the Rainforest Alliance has played an important role in making conservation more mainstream.
Read the full interview.
McDonald's UK Serves Up Rainforest Alliance Certified Coffee
Sustainably grown coffee took a giant leap forward this month when McDonald's UK announced that it will be sourcing all of its coffee beans from farms certified by the Rainforest Alliance.
All 1,200 McDonald's restaurants in the United Kingdom and Ireland began selling exclusively Kenco coffee, a Kraft Foods high-quality Arabica coffee containing 100 percent Rainforest Alliance Certified beans. McDonald's is the first major retailer in the United Kingdom to source all of its coffee from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. Prices will be locally competitive ranging from £1.09 ($1.43 US) for a regular coffee to £1.59 ($2.08 US) for a large cappuccino or latte.
At the same time, McDonald's signaled its intention to extend this commitment to serving certified sustainable coffee in all of its European restaurants during 2007.
The beans used to brew the more than 143,000 cups of coffee, cappuccino and latte sold every day in McDonald's UK restaurants are grown on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in Colombia, Brazil and Central America. The increasing coffee sales will directly benefit thousands of farmers and farm workers while protecting the environment. The premium that McDonald's pays for its coffee is plowed back into improved farm management that conserves ecosystems and ensures access to clean and safe living and working conditions, schools, healthcare, job training, potable drinking water, decent wages and better markets for crops.
At a Glance
Rainforest Alliance in the News
The Rainforest Alliance kicked off 2007 with some important news:
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© 2007 Rainforest Alliance
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