With a quick response to our Nyatoh Day of Action and floowing two years of letters and postcards, Crate & Barrel today became fhe firest company to announce that they will end the sales of furniture made from nyatoh, a wood logged from the rainforests of Indonesia.In a telephone conversation yesterday, company spokeswoman Betty Kahn stated that as of next year, Crate & Barrel will not carry nyatoh.

This is a substantial victory in Rainforest Relief's nyatoh campaign, quickly following the first Nyatoh Day of Action that took place April 30th and saw over a dozen demonstrations at retailers across the country selling nyatoh outdoor furniture.

Crate & Barrel will sell out of it's current stock by the end of this season and will not order more nyatoh. According to Ms. Kahn, the company "shares [our] concern for forests," and has elected to work with the Tropical Forest Trust to find suitable alternatives. Tim Keating offered the help of Raifnorest Relief as an additional resource in finding more environmentally sound alternatives for outdoor furniture.

"Recycled plastic is the most environmentally preferable material for outdoor furniture," said Tim Keasting, Rainforest Relief's director. "It remains to be seen which company will step up and set the bar for environmental concern by choosing to sell recycled plastic."

Other wood alternatives exist, such as black locust (sometimes referred to by its Latin name, Robinia), oak and second growth eastern cedar. Any one of the companies targeted in the campaign could also work with suppliers to create a market for other alternatives that don't yet exist, such as coconut palm hardwood.

Other companies targeted for selling nyatoh including Target, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Eddie Bauer and Cost Plus World Market haven't yet committed to ending their sales of this wood from the endangered forests of Indonesia. As well, there are a few dozen companies selling nyatoh on the internet.

Other companies are selling outdoor furniture made of other rainforest woods such as balau, kempas, kapur, jatoba, teak and mahogany. These include retailers such as Plow & Hearth, Treasure Island, GardenFurnitureStore.com (Avonlea International) and others.

Still dozens of others continue to manufacture, import and retail teak from Indonesia such as Gloster, Country Casuals, Smith & Hawken, Gardenside, Wood Classics, Seaside Casual, Westminster, The Cedar Station, Kingsley-Bate and many others. Old growth teak from Burma's dwindling forests also makes its way into the US and European market, sometimes through India, Thailand, Singapore and China.

For now, Rainforest Relief will continue to bring pressure to bear on companies selling nyatoh and other old growth woods from the endangered forsest of Indonesia, where large-scale illegal logging is still widespread and where the rainforests are estimated to last only until 2010.

For more information or to get involved in this critical and exciting campaign, contact us.