This Thursday, supporters of Green Party mayoral candidate Reverend Billy and members of the environmental organization Rainforest Relief will gather at the fountain in Washington Square Park to hold a "funeral procession for dead rainforests,"(3) protesting what they see as Mayor Bloomberg's slow reduction of the city's use of tropical wood. This isn't their first prom dance.
Last month, the environmentalist group Rainforest Relief unveiled a banner near the High Line Park that read: "High Crime on the High Line! FSC Lies: Amazon Wood Is Not Sustainable," accusing the park's organizers of using wood illegally and unethically obtained from rainforests in Brazil and Peru.
The park's organizers however have long maintained the wood is FSC-certifed, meaning FSC-accredited loggers follow a set of principles that aim to respect the local forests and people near commercial logging sites.
To his credit, Bloomberg himself hasn't ignored the issue. Back in 2007, he introduced the Tropical Hardware Reduction Plan at the UN that pledged to reduce the city's use of the wood by 60% before 2020. And while the city isn't making the type of progress that groups like Rainforest Relief would like to see, the first step in any additive circumstance is admitting the problem.
The event with Reverend Billy will start at 5:30pm on Thursday at Washington Square Park's fountain.
