Blog: Forests

Italian fashion: stylish and sophisticated, but unfortunately may be linked to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. As cattle ranching is responsible for about 80 per cent of deforestation in Brazil, it is likely that Brazilian shoe leather comes from areas of cleared rainforest. So a team of Greenpeace activists have set up an alternative photoshoot today outside a major industry event in Italy to remind the world's shoe and leather companies that we can't walk all over the Amazon.

It should be a day to celebrate. It’s now five years since the sound of chainsaws in the Amazon went from a roar to a whisper. Some of you will have even helped to make this incredible result possible. But a change to Brazil's forest laws threatens to undermine this fantastic progress.

You read that right – following over half a million emails sent by you, Barbie has realised that toying with deforestation is no game. Mattel, the company behind Barbie, has decided that being involved in the destruction of Indonesia's rainforests is bad for business as well as the planet, and has dropped deforestation from its production line.