Bad books: US paper products are breaking the law and devastating rainforests

Jeremy Hance

Everyone knows books are made of paper, but few think of where that paper comes from. However, two new reports may change that. Both the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) have found that some paper used in books, including popular children’s books, is linked to forest devastation in Indonesian, even targeting endangered trees that have been harvested illegally.

Books and rainforest destruction.

The activist group RAN has found that a number of children’s books are linked to destruction of rainforests in Indonesia, which threatens an incredible variety of species from orangutans to tigers and emits significant amounts of greenhouse gases. The report find that popular titles such as Where the Wild Things Are, Baby Einstein, and Where’s Waldo are complicit in rainforest destruction. To help consumers, RAN has a guide that ranks eleven of the US’s largest children’s books publishers in terms of impact on forests.

“Kids are starting to make holiday wish lists this week. This guide is a tool to help book-loving families avoid kid’s book publishers that are linked to rainforest destruction,” said Lafcadio Cortesi of Rainforest Action Network. “The good news is that many of the country’s largest publishers, six out of the eleven in our survey, are taking decisive action to help protect Indonesia’s endangered rainforests.