Trouble in toy land

Greenpeace has launched today a world wide campaign against Mattel, maker of Barbie dolls. Greenpeace accuses the company of contributing to the destruction of Indonesian forests causing irreversible damage to the habitats of endangered species like Sumatran tigers.

The campaign accuses Barbie of “destroying Indonesia's forests for those pretty pink boxes she likes to wrap herself in.”

The campaign was launched after Greenpeace investigated the origins of Mattel packaging. This led them to APP (Asian Pulp and Paper), which Greenpeace argued is “committed to rampant deforestation.”

The video campaign features Ken, Barbie’s boyfriend, as he is shocked when the truth about Barbie is being revealed to him. Ken leaves Barbie and the headline says: "I don't date girls who are into deforestation."

This comes as Mattel announced earlier this year the “re-uniting” of Ken and Barbie after their “breakup” in 2004.

Bustar Maitar, Greenpeace Indonesia campaigner said: "Barbie destroys natural forests and pushes rare species such as tigers to the brink of extinction."
Greenpeace accused Mattel of not having effective policies to exclude products from “companies linked to deforestation from their supply chains.”

Greenpeace accused the Sinar Mas group, which owns APP, of undergoing a “schizophrenic crisis”. This is because the group announced just a couple months ago that their palm oil refinery company E Palm Oil will implement an environmental policy that would ensure that its palm oil operation had no deforestation footprint.

Last year Greenpeace released a report called “How Sinar Mas is Pulping the Planet," critising the group’s environmental policies and their responsibility for deforestation.  

They want Mattel to follow Nestlé, which implemented such policies after a similar successful campaign last year.

Other major conglomerates that implanted such policies are Unilever, Kraft, Adidas and Tesco and stopped trading with Sinar Mas.

Greenpeace said it had been lobbying Mattel for months on the issue but had received minimal response.

Mattel has released a statement saying that the company was “disappointed” with the Greenpeace campaign and that “playing responsibly" is one of its basic business practices.

Phil Radford, head of Greenpeace USA said that Mattel should “get a grip” and change their policies immediately. He wrote: “The toy industry is still living in fantasy land, assuming that parents and children won’t care if they’re throwing tiger habits into the trashcan on Christmas morning.”