Heard the news? Ken has dumped Barbie! He’s discovered that his long time lover is destroying Indonesia’s forests for those pretty pink boxes she likes to wrap herself in. You can’t blame Ken. As you can see in the , he’s just seen the results of the latest Greenpeace investigation which shows how Barbie is threatening the future of endangered species and the stability of our climate. The paper used in Barbie boxes – like palm oil which Greenpeace has campaigned about in the past – comes straight from the rainforests of Indonesia, home to rapidly vanishing creatures such as orang-utans, and Sumatran tigers (pictured below) and elephants.
Ok, maybe it isn’t all Barbie’s fault. Mattel, the company behind the malevolent mannequin, is the one responsible and this new global investigation has uncovered the links between Mattel and our old friends, the notorious Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). Which is why activists dressed as Ken have scaled Mattel’s headquarters in Los Angeles, while back in the UK Greenpeace has helped spread the word about Ken’s announcement with a guerrilla advertising campaign launched in Piccadilly Circus and with adverts on bus stops and tube lines.
By analysing the fibres in Barbie packaging and digging into the commercial links between various companies, Greenpeace has been able to link the carbon-rich forests and peatlands of Indonesia with the packaging of Make A Fort toys on sale in shops around the world. The trail leads directly from Mattel to APP and its suppliers in a chain of destruction that spans the globe.
And it’s not just Mattel; catch up with how Greenpeace has exposed Hasbro, Disney and Lego for also using paper fibre from Indonesia’s rainforests here.