Abstract:

In the late 1980s, rain forest conservation groups and individual environmentalists, alarmed at the rapid deforestation of the Amazon rain forest, decided to employ eco-commerce as a tool to direct purchasing dollars away from industries harming the rainforest in favor of those practicing responsible rainforest policies.

Environmentalists characterized United States (US) consumers who purchased “Rainforest friendly” products as moral, charitable, and eco-conscious, while portraying the Amazon rain forest and its peoples as exotic and full of vitality. Initially, conservation groups, such as the non-profit Cultural Survival Enterprises, saw this glamorized version of the “Rainforest” as an effective branding tool to build a demand for the sustainable harvesting of rain forest products, creating a profitable alternative to deforestation.

However, rather than exclusively spurring interest in the conservation of the Amazon rain forest, this romanticization of the rain forest led to a wave of exoticism centered around the conceptual “Rainforest”. US brands with no real ties to the conservation of the Amazon rain forest, like Rainforest Cafe, quickly learned to exploit the public’s fascination with the Rainforest. The result was a market oversaturated with “Rainforest” products and experiences.

Environmental groups, such as the Rainforest Alliance, responded with efforts to demand transparency and make genuine eco-commerce easy for consumers to recognize. These efforts had to cater to the image of the Rainforest that had enchanted the imaginations of US consumers. However, NGOs’ efforts also had to work within the new expectation of “comfortable environmentalism” - meaning, people expected their efforts to “Save the Rainforest” to coincide with a favorite shampoo or ice cream.

Unfortunately, the original eco-commerce failed to create a practical system for harvesting non-timber forest products (NTFPs), with a negligible return on its promises of preventing deforestation. The three phases of eco-commerce - Emergence, Corruption and Adaptation - ultimately resulted in the over-simplification of the issues facing the Amazon rain forest, and a consumer base invested in the conceptual idea of the Rainforest, rather than the Amazon rain forest as an inhabited, vulnerable place. Consequently, the focus of environmental efforts shifted away from the Amazon rain forest, which has continued to decline, despite the best intentions of the conservationists who had launched eco-commerce to save the rain forest.

Relevant Definitions and I³:

The following phrases appear throughout the paper: eco-commerce, non-timber forest product, rain forest, Rainforest, exoticism, greenwashing, and comfortable environmentalism.

• Eco-commerce is sale and purchase of products that benefit the conservation and economy of the rainforest, either through donated profits or supporting a local producer of non-timber forest products (known as NTFPs).
• Non-timber forest products are products that are local to the rain forest, as opposed to an imported crop such as soybeans, that can be grown without deforestation and have historically been harvested by indigenous peoples.
• The phrase “rain forest”, as two separate words and lower case, refers to the rain forest as a physical region. For this paper, it refers to the Amazon rain forest. “Rainforest”, as one word and capitalized, refers to the marketed romanticized image of the rain forest.
• Exoticism is “the quality of being unusual and exciting because of coming (or seeming to come) from far away, especially a tropical country.”¹
• Greenwashing is the use of images or branding that the public associates with environmentally responsible businesses, by a company with no or little environmental commitments, in order to profit off of the public’s false assumption.
• Comfortable Environmentalism is an act of sustainability that is easily incorporated into one’s day-to-day life, giving the customer the satisfaction of “doing good” with little effort, sometimes even getting a treat for themselves in the process.

This paper will evaluate the three phases of eco-commerce: Emergence, Corruption and Adaptation. Each phase will be considered in terms of intent, image, and impact, in order to track the evolution of the marketing and degradation of the Amazon rain forest. Intent refers to the formal reasons behind movements and business decisions. Image addresses what vision of the Rainforest was used to market that phase of eco-commerce. Impact include shifts in the evolution of eco-commerce, public perception and interest, along with the real impact on the Amazon rain forest.

+ Notes

1. Colin McIntosh, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus, (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2013)

Historical Background

The Amazon rain forest has a long history of exploitation in both its resources and people. When Spanish explorers first arrived in south america in 1492, they established the “Pristine Myth”. This is the idea that the Americas were largely untouched before Spanish discovery and assumes that native people had not tapped into the rain forest’s potential as a large resource up for the taking.² This myth is analogous to the myth of “El Dorado”, another story that hints of untold riches at the heart of the forest.

In the 20th century, the United States perceived and used the Amazon rainforest as a seemingly boundless resource for the production of raw materials such as timber, rubber, soy, beef, and more. During WWII, the United States took advantage of the cheap price of rubber from Brazil and financed a boom in the Brazilian industry. Wealthy Brazilian rubber barons transported workers (often indigenous people), to rubber estates, told the workers they were in debt from travel fare, and forbade them to leave until they had paid off their impossible debt. Thousands died in this position, while the US funneled millions of dollars into the industry.³ In the 1950s, Brazilian agricultural research organization EMBRAPA partnered with US agronomists to engineer a soybean hybrid that could thrive in the Amazon’s soil.⁴ Soybeans became a major crop and required land clearing in order to grow. Farmers growing soybeans burned down trees to clear the land, as the minerals of the ash were necessary in order to make the Amazon soil arable.

In the 1960s, the mass industrialization of trades all over the world introduced a new scale of environmental damages. This caught the attention of environmentalists and sparked the establishment of many environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as The Environmental Defense Fund, which was founded to ban the pesticide DDT, and the Friends of the Earth, which began as an anti-nuclear energy group. US congress officially established the National Park Foundation in 1967 to promote conservation in the US.

In Brazil, where most of the Amazon rain forest is located, tropical deforestation for pasture land rose as the cattle population doubled, encouraged by cheap beef exports to the US and financed by the World Bank and the International Development Bank.⁵ The rate of deforestation accelerated, when a military coup in 1964 brought to power a new government that sought to eliminate inefficiencies in industries, and cared little about labor and land rights.⁶

The degradation of the Amazon rain forest was recognized internationally as a major environmental problem during this period. The response of US conservation groups to Amazon deforestation followed the US system of land reservation and national parks. This method chose to address environmental issues only and not social issues of indigenous people, a population which was much lower in the US because of the violence of 19th century western expansion. When NGOs proposed land reservation and national parks for the Amazon rain forest, it became clear that the method would not address the social issues of the Amazon rainforest.

+ Notes

2. William Denevan, “The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 82, no. 3. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin: Department of Geography, 1992) 369-385.
3. Gomercindo Rodrigues, Walking the Forest with Chico Mendes, (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2007) 75-76.
4. Christopher Isett, The Social History of Agriculture, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) 298.
5. Tony Weis, The Ecological Hoofprint, (London, England: Zed Books, 2013) 87. 6. Isett, 294.
6. Ibid., 301.
7. Jorge I. Dominguez, Mexico, Central, and South America: Social Movements, (New York / London: Routledge, 2002), 68.
8. Jacob Bendix & Carol M. Liebler. “Environmental Degradation In Brazilian Amazonia: Perspectives In Us News Media”, The Professional Geographer, vol. 43, no. 4, 474-485, 1991. DOI: 10.1111/j.0033-0124.1991.00474.x
9. Andersen, Lykke E. "The Causes of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon." The Journal of Environment & Development 5, no. 3 (1996): 309-28.
10. “Annual Deforestation Rates in the Brazilian Legal Amazon (AMZ)”, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, http://www.obt.inpe.br/prodes/dashboard/prodes-rates.html, accessed November 29, 2018.
11. Jorge I. Dominguez, Mexico, Central, and South America: Social Movements, (New York / London: Routledge, 2002), 69.
12. Rainforest Foundation Fund (1987), The Rainforest Action Network (1985), Rainforest Alliance (1986), Rainforest Trust (1988), Rainforest Rescue International (1986), Rainforest Information Centre (1980)

The Emergence of Eco-Commerce

The plethora of new Rainforest NGOs contended that the answer to the Amazon’s struggles was eco-commerce. In order to guarantee its success, they marketed eco-friendly products in a manner that portrayed the Amazon and its peoples as exotic, innocent and full of vitality, while allowing US consumers to see themselves as moral, charitable, and eco-conscious. The romanticized version of the “Rainforest” was an instant hit in the United States market,creating a huge demand for eco-commerce. Soon, NGOs and eco-commerce brands found that both the Rainforest image and their own sustainability promises were out of their control. The original intent of the push for eco-commerce was the genuine wish to sustain the Amazon rain forest, along with excitement for community-based conservation. Community-based conservation emerged as a movement in the late 1980s that strove to also address social issues as part of its environmental efforts. The movement departed from the typical US national park approach to conservation, which separates nature from culture by displacing people from land in order to preserve it, thus ignoring and sometimes exacerbating the problems facing local groups. In contrast, community-based conservation in the Amazon rain forest focused on supporting local communities that produced products in a sustainable, small-scale way. These products were non-timber forest products (NTFPs), and local workers could harvest them in a way that did not damage the forest. NTFPs were also part of the local history, as they were native plants and trees. Chico Mendes fought for extractive reserves, which is land reserved for the harvesting of NTFPs by indigenous populations.

Many NGOs performed studies that proposed the selling of NTFPs, such as nuts, seeds, herbs and fruits, as a viable alternative to slash and burn harvesting.¹⁴ Studies also looked at active NTFP harvesting, such as the harvesting of Brazil nuts, and extrapolated that workers could make just as much money from land used to produce Brazil nuts as if they used that land to produce beef. They projected that these profits could be even greater when NTFPs producers made trade partnerships with groups promoting community-based conservation.¹⁵

The next task for environmental groups was to get the public to care about community-based conservation and the harvesting of NTFPs. An example of this is a 1992 advertisement in The Guardian, sponsored by the NGO Friends of the Earth, that explains the reasons behind community-based conservation. The advertisement is an article with the bold title: “You Want Me to Stop Killing the Rainforest. What Should I Do - Kill My Children?”¹⁶ The article focuses on a poor Brazilian farmer named Silvero. Silvero had been forced off his land by large cattle ranchers and encouraged by the Brazilian government to move to land in the Amazon rain forest. The land was almost unworkable, but he cleared 20 acres to plant maize, coffee, cacao, and grass for his small herd of cows. The article goes on to explain that people like Silvero, who need to provide for their families, are a large cause of deforestation and that in order to stop deforestation, conservation groups must provide an alternative business for Silvero, such as wild fruit harvesting or bee-keeping. While the Friends of the Earth advertisement seems to present NTFPs as a solution for small scale farmers, other articles promoting eco-commerce show that some also saw it as a replacement for mass industries, claiming that, “By creating a market for the nuts, roots, fruits, pigments, oils, and essences that can regularly harvested here, environmentalist and Indian groups hope to discourage the timber industry and rancher’s from further deforesting the region.”¹⁷

The Friends of the Earth advertisement was an attempt to capture the attention of consumers by showing them the faces of people in the Amazon. This was not typical of the image used to promote eco-commerce to the US public. In general, initial eco-commerce portrayed the Amazon rain forest as exotic and uninhabited, the consumer who buys Rainforest eco-commerce as moral, and the act of buying as a simple and convenient way to save the Rainforest.

One of the first major steps in the marketing of eco-commerce was a slight but significant change in language. The “Amazon rain forest” became the “Rainforest”. This one-word form proved more marketable and allowed for catchy branding slogans like “Save the Rainforest.” The capitalised Rainforest is also the form used in the names of Rainforest NGOs. The first use of “Rainforest” in the New York Times was in 1988¹⁸, while the use of “rain forest” goes back to 1925.¹⁹

Eco-commerce depicted the Amazon rain forest as exotic and pure. This representation built on “The Pristine Myth” by portraying the Amazon Rainforest as the last of the world’s untouched land. Even though NTFPs were meant to support the people of the Amazon rain forest, the Rainforest products rarely highlighted local people in the image of the product. If they made an appearance, it would typically be in the description on the back of a bottle.

Rainforest friendly products appealed to US consumers because they implied that buying a Rainforest product was not only a standard act of consumerism, but was actually an act of charity or conservation, as well. Positive coverage from the press reinforced the morality and exoticness of eco-commerce. An example of this is the coverage Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor Rainforest Crunch received, made with Brazil nuts from Community Products Inc. (CPI). The New York Times described how Rainforest Crunch and other products, such as the Body Shops’ Brazil nut hair conditioner and the Ralston Purina Company’s breakfast cereal, help the Amazon rain forest by using ingredients that support local sustainable industries there. The largest quote on the page is “Producing these products will not damage the Amazon Region.” Ben Cohen, co-founder of both Ben & Jerry’s and Cultural Survival Enterprises, concisely described Rainforest Crunch as a “moral reason to munch.”²⁰ Other newspapers gave praise to the ice cream flavor, running articles with headlines like "Going Nuts--Rich, Buttery Brazils and Cashews Bring Crunch to Delectable Foods--And Help Save Rain Forests,"²¹ in the Seattle Times and "Rainforest Crunch: a Sweet Way to Help Environment," in the Orange County Register.²²

Rainforest products also introduced the concept of comfortable environmentalism to US consumers. Eco-commerce was part of a for-profit system, living half in the world of conservation and half in the world of capitalism, both of which consumers could enjoy. Customers could conveniently combine sustainability with a shopping spree and save the rainforest from the comfort of their local mall or grocery store. Money could now buy entertainment, beauty, and fun, while also benefiting the rain forest. Goods included foods, drinks, and beauty products. Entertainment included concerts, movies, fundraisers, and galas for the rain forest. For example, British musician Sting held concerts to fund his non-profit the Rainforest Foundation.²³

The development of the Rainforest image to promote sustainable products parallels with the timeline of other movements, such as the Fair Trade movement. The Fair Trade movement began in the 1960’s, as developing countries were pushing for “Trade not Aid”. They wished to see a shift from the first world countries owning all industries and sharing a small portion of the wealth in the form of aid, to a system where developing countries were involved in industry and the global economy. The Alternative Trade or Fair Trade movement focused on the connecting NGOs in developing countries to ones in first world countries, primarily to sell craft products. This is very similar to the connections between producers of NTFPs and US Rainforest NGOs. The Fair Trade movement also advertised, showing consumers the faces of the producers and often including stories about them on the packaging. While this certainly had the “moral” appeal that Rainforest products had, it also humanized the producers, rather than romanticize the producers.²⁴

Eco-commerce flew off the shelf and demand soared. The impact of the marketing of forest friendly products led to a boom in Rainforest goods, fueled by the wave of exoticism and interest in the Rainforest. By 1990, US companies had twenty-one Rainforest products on the market, with seventy-five more in testing. From 1991 to 1992, sales of Rainforest products quadrupled.²⁵ Cultural Survival Enterprises, a non-profit organization “working with third world groups to establish markets for their products in the developed world,”²⁶ sold approximately 2.5 million dollars’ worth of forest products in 1992.²⁷

Small scale Amazonian NTFP businesses were unable to keep up with the high demands of US industry, leading eco-commerce businesses to reduce their commitment to conservation or face failure. In a moment of foreshadowing, Jason Clay, director of Cultural Survival Enterprises, admitted that he “may be creating a surge in demand that the Amazon’s rickety marketing system will be unable to meet,” giving the example of The Body Shop’s asking for 80 tons of copaiba oil a year, while the Brazilian Amazon only produced 60 tons a year.²⁸ In order to adjust to demands, several NTFP producers felt the pressure to overharvest, making their own practices unsustainable and sometimes causing deforestation. Some Rainforest companies mixed their quality NTFP products with products that were not responsibly sourced. As many eco-commerce companies were a percentage of profits model, they also had the option to slowly lower the percentage they committed to conservation. This gradual retreat on conservation opened the door for many US companies to exploit the Rainforest image with little to no commitment to conservation.

This overload of the NTFP system was a factor in the case of Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch and the brazil nuts that it sourced from the Amazon rain forest. Ben & Jerry’s made Rainforest Crunch in partnership with Community Products Inc. (CPI) which was funded by Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen and Cultural Survival Enterprises’ Jason Clay. CPI planned to donate 60% of its profits but functioned as a for-profit business. CPI bought a Xapuri co-op’s brazil nuts through Cultural Survival Enterprises, produced Rainforest Crunch candy, and sold it to Ben & Jerry’s to make the ice cream flavor.²⁹ The long line of companies and nonprofits handling the brazil nuts hints at the potential for a break in quality or communication.

The demand for the ice cream flavor overwhelmed the small Xapuri co-op that harvested the brazil nuts. Clay spoke of the difference in production versus demand, claiming that in researching the brazil nut candy “We spoke with a large candy company about the possibility of using rain forest nuts in a candy bar. They use 70 metric tons of nuts per eight-hour shift, a year’s production of the Xapuri nutshelling plant.”³⁰ The Xapuri co-op was exporting nuts at a rate that made quality dip rapidly. When the nuts got to CPI, they sometimes had cigarette butts and shell casings in the mix, along with coliform bacteria. CPI turned to commercial suppliers for brazil nuts, making it so only 5% of their brazil nuts came from the indigenous co-op that they based their claims of social responsibility on.³¹ The ice cream flavor was discontinued in 1996 and CPI has since gone bankrupt.

+ Notes

14. These studies include “The Rainforest Harvest: Sustainable Strategies for Saving the Tropical Forests?” by Friends of the Earth, the “Symposium on Extractive Economic in Tropical Forests: A Course for Action” by the National Wildlife Federation, and “Marketing of Extractive Products in the Brazilian Amazon” by the Environmental Defence Fund.
15. Jason Clay, “Why Rainforest Crunch,” Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, June 1992, https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/16-2-theshold-a ction-guide-cultural-survival, accessed November 29, 2018.
16. Friends of the Forest, "Ad: You Want Me to Stop Killing the Rainforest. What Should I Do Kill My Children?." The Guardian, Jun 4, 1992.
17. James Brooke, "Harvesting Exotic Crops to Save Brazil's Forest," New York Times, April 30, 1990.
18. "Signposts for Exploring the State's Tropical Rain Forests," New York Times, Jan 31, 1988. 19. "Brings New Plants From West Indies," New York Times, Apr 19, 1925. 20. Brooke.
19. Larry Brown, “Going Nuts -- Rich, Buttery Brazils And Cashews Bring Crunch To Delectable Foods - And Help Save Rain Forests,” The Seattle Times, August 15, 1990. 22. “Rainforest Crunch: a Sweet Way to Help Environment,” Orange County Register, March 28, 1990, 109.
20. David Berreby, “Music’s Rock and Hard Place,” New York Times, October 6, 1991, 10F. 24. “History of Fair Trade,” World Fair Trade Organization, updated December 2015, https://wfto.com/about-us/history-wfto/history-fair-trade, accessed December 9, 2018. 25. Candace Slater, "Visions of the Amazon: What Has Shifted, What Persists, and Why This Matters," Latin American Research Review 50, no. 3 (2015): 11. DOI: 10.1353/lar.2015.0039
21. Brooke.
22. Slater, 11.
23. Brooke.
24. Ibid
25. Patricia Shanley, Alan Pierce, Sarah Laird and Dawn Robinson, Beyond Timber: Certification And Management Of Non-timber Forest Products, Center for International Forestry Research (Bogor, Indonesia: Harapan Prima Indonesia, 2008): 95.
26. Edward Welles, “Ben’s Big Flop,” Inc. Magazine, September 1, 1998. 32. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, “Annual Deforestation Rates in the Brazilian Legal Amazon (AMZ)”

Corruption of Eco-Commerce

The corruption phase of eco-commerce began as multiple brands learned to exploit “Rainforest” interest. This over-saturated the market with “Rainforest” products, creating an environment where US consumers conflated eco-commerce with any product using the “Rainforest” image. The fabricated Rainforest image became increasingly divorced from the actual Amazon rain forest, watering down the consumer's actual connection to rain forest conservation.

The intent of this phase was purely profit. Companies discovered from the experiences of rainforest friendly companies like Ben and Jerry’s that the Rainforest image was immensely popular and profitable, but that the bold sustainable promises could bring profits to an end. It was established that foregoing actual conservation measures and simply using the images and branding of the Amazon Rainforest had no repercussions and was very profitable. Companies avoiding the promise of corporate social responsibility did not break the US consumers’ association of Rainforest products with comfortable environmentalism. Customers saw the same Rainforest image and assumed the same corporate mission for sustainability.

A prime example of this is Rainforest Cafe, a themed restaurant experience, with the slogan “A Wild Place to Eat!” The first cafe opened its doors in 1995, with a prime location at the Mall of America. The founder of Rainforest Cafe, Steven Schussler, fully transformed the space to be a fabricated Rainforest, complete with live (now animatronic) animals, fish tanks, indoor waterfalls, thunder sound effects, and a conveniently placed gift shop. As of today, there are 45 locations world-wide, and the Rainforest Cafe holds the record for top grossing restaurant concept.³³ To say the restaurant was successful is almost an understatement.

The 1997 Observer article “That’s Ecotainment: It’s A Jungle In There,”³⁴ by Andrew Harrison, takes a critical look at the growth and intent of Rainforest Cafe. Harrison explains how Rainforest Cafe Inc. spends a mere 1.25% of its profits for educational outreach, which involved employees going to local schools to teach children about nature and the rain forest. Harrison points out that children are a large driver for families to visit the restaurant, so this “educational outreach” effort likely works best as an effective marketing tactic. Schussler defends his company's commitment, or lack thereof, to the conservation of the rain forest, acknowledging that a business “can go a long way with the environmental side of it, and some people will criticize us for not going far enough. We make no apologies for making money.”³⁵ In response to the notion that the Rainforest Cafe exploits the consumers’ connotation of the Rainforest image with the genuine conservation of the Amazon rain forest, Schussler insists “it is absolute insanity to say that we’re exploiting the rainforest. We built our own rainforest. And we serve quadruple-A quality food.”³⁶

Some ventures even adopted practices detrimental to the Amazon rain forest while exploiting its image for profit. Rainforest installations in zoos, theme parks, and casinos sometimes provided education about conservation but were massively unsustainable to build and maintain, especially when it came to heat and humidity control. Lee Simmons, then director of Omaha’s zoo, described the cost of his rainforest display, saying “If you do a whole dome, you better have a 51% interest in a natural gas company.” The Omaha zoo’s bills for gas, electricity, and water added up to $355,000 in 1996.³⁷

The image of this phase is a more gratuitously exaggerated Rainforest, without any indication of an environmental connection. Derived from the image of the previous phase, this phase built on the exotic and untouched. This could manifest as an image of generic tropicality or a sense of exoticness and novelty that the company wished to apply to itself or its customers.

Again, the Rainforest Cafe and other fabricated Rainforest environments highlight this image. These fabricated Rainforests have been described as “a largely unbroken expanse of highly iconic, decidedly flamboyant flora and fauna.”³⁸ Another example is a Raw Vanilla fragrance advertisement in Vogue’s October 1996 issue, which shows a white man and woman in a Rainforest setting, undressed and kissing in a river. The ad proclaims “In the Raw Vanilla. It’s like meeting in the Rainforest.”³⁹ The bottle reads “Raw Vanilla for men. The fresh organic power of the rainforest captured in a fragrance for men. Rich vanilla, crisp leaves, teak and bamboo create a unique environment of natural warmth and pure masculinity.”

Many other brands popped up that used the Rainforest image for marketing. In 1994, Jeff Bezos settled on the name Amazon for his online book company. He thought it was perfect as it was “exotic and different,” traits he wanted to associate with his new company.⁴⁰ He also thought the name would speak to the wide range of books offered, as it implied the vastness of the Amazon. The company had no actual connection to the Amazon rain forest. In fact, environmentalists have criticized his model of shipping books made of paper in cardboard boxes, using up lots of fuel in the process, which is certainly a departure from genuine eco-commerce. Another example is Tarte makeup, which was founded in 1999, much later than the initial Rainforest boom, but its products display how the infatuation with the Rainforest lasted well into the late 90s. Tarte’s product, Amazonian Clay and Annatto Body Bronzer, was originally descripted as capable of giving the consumer “a true Brazilian bronze bombshell finish - all while replenishing and rehydrating skin”⁴¹ The Tarte website now references sourcing its Amazonian clay from sustainable Amazon co-ops, but gives no reference to the groups.

+ Notes

33. Schussler Creative Inc. “Where Dreams Become Reality!” http://www.schusslercreative.com/concepts/rainforest-cafe/
34. Andrew Harrison, "That's Ecotainment," The Observer, Jun 22, 1997. 35. Harrison.
35. Harrison.
36. Richard Gibson, "Tropical Chic: Cities Grow Their Own Rain Forests," The Wall Street Journal, March 05, 1997.
37. Slater, 12.
38. "Ad: Raw Vanilla." Vogue, Oct 01, 1996, 115, https://search-proquest-com.proxy.library.cmu.edu/docview/911878667?accountid=9902. accessed December 5, 2018.
39. Ed Reid, “The Biggest River in the World,” The Alternative Board, https://www.thealternativeboard.co.uk/the-biggest-river-in-the-world/, accessed December 5, 2018.
40. Slater, 11.
41. Nicola Shulman, “Celebrity Greens First Among Ecols,” Harpers and Queen, September 1991, 164.
42. Gibson.
43. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, “Annual Deforestation Rates in the Brazilian Legal Amazon (AMZ)”

Adaptation of Eco-Commerce

Environmental groups and Rainforest-specific NGOs were aware that the Rainforest image had spun out of their control. They wanted to create a method of identifying products that were truly part of a system that responsibly sourced NTFPs. NGOs had to adjust their campaigns and programs to the context of comfortable environmentalism and the conceptual, fabricated “Rainforest.” They also had to prove to companies that being socially and environmentally responsible was worthwhile, especially as companies already knew that they could make plenty of profits without the sustainability commitments.

The intent of this last phase of eco-commerce was similar to the intent of the first phase, the conservation of the Amazon rain forest through community-based conservation, with the added goal of encouraging corporate responsibility, bringing clarity to which Rainforest products helped the rain forest, and fixing the structure of harvesting NTFPs. NGOs had two primary approaches that served as carrots and sticks, using certification and reports.

Certification was a way of enticing companies to incorporate sustainable practices. Certification communicated to consumers which companies delivered on promises and deserved backing, making certification a profitable investment for companies. However, there are several challenges that make certifying NTFPs difficult, starting with the diversity of NTFPs. NTFPs are a wide range of natural species, with different harvesting seasons, growing rates, forest types, and processing practices. The outcome is either certification solely for NTFPs with markets large enough to warrant a product-specific certification, or a certification for a generalized set of guidelines that establish a bare minimum rather than ideal practice. Implementing certification presents more problems. NTFPs were often “low-value goods with small profit margins whose collection and trade systems are not well suited for wide scale commercialization.”⁴⁵ These small-scale operations dealt with fluctuating markets and would likely not be able to afford the price of certification, especially if the guidelines required that they self-report data. The price of certification could be covered if the producer had a partnership with a larger company. Many eco-commerce products required a chain of partnership, which makes it unclear what entityshould be certified and responsible for sustainable practices. While certification was not involved in the case of Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch, the number of hands the brazil nuts passed through from Brazil to Vermont is emblematic of the complex trade chains of NTFPs.

One NGO that took on the task of making a certification for NTFOs is the Rainforest Alliance, with the Rainforest Alliance certification program and label in 1992 and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in 1993. The Rainforest Alliance certification includes the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture certification and the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Chain of Custody certification. The FSC certification includes the FSC certification, FSC Forest Management certification, and FSC Chain of Custody certification. The Rainforest Alliance certification started with broad guidelines for certification, because of the difficult nature of certifying NTFP practices. FSC is considered one of the more rigorous certification programs, but it is primarily for timber and forest management, only certifying NTFPs on a case-by-case basis.⁴⁶ The FSC’s initial work in NTFP certification was from 1996 to 2000, defining this phase of eco-commerce.⁴⁷

NGOs such as the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued reports, such as the “Palm Oil Scorecard,”⁴⁸ to reprimand companies that were not implementing sustainable practices, while also highlighting which companies were doing the best. Reports still use the power of consumer demand, but they require the consumer to take a more active role and demand corporate responsibility from the brands that have been identified in the report. This does not cater towards comfortable environmentalism, but UCS has reported that “this strategy has produced encouraging progress on deforestation-free palm oil”⁴⁹

Trust stamps were one of the ways NGOs were able to find a middle ground with eco-commerce. Trust stamps combated greenwashing but did not recapture the type of public excitement that was seen in the early 90s. For consumers that sought out and researched various certifications, trust stamps were very helpful in quickly evaluating a product. A consumer could simply turn around a package and look for the stamp that represents a certification system they trust, such as the FSC stamp. However, for the general consumer, the Rainforest Alliance stamp or the FSC stamp joined a myriad of other trust stamps on the back of products, making them all seem equal and general.

In creating a more niche market, there was less public excitement, but it did make reaching eco-conscious consumers easier. The scale of this niche demand was also better suited for the NTFP producers, who, without overwhelming demand, could produce quality products. This is a set back from the aspirations of early Rainforest eco-commerce, a level of ambition illustrated by Cultural Survival’s Jason Clay’s belief that the production of brazil nuts could replace beef production. ⁵²

Deforestation during this phase, 1996 to 2000, wavered from 18,200 km2/year in 1996, to 13,200 km2/year in 1997, approximately 17,350 km2/year from 1998-1999, and back to 18,200 km2/year in 2000. Later studies on how certified NTFPs impacted deforestation have mixed results, most concluding that species and place specific certification is often successful, while generic certification can range from successful to harmful, actually causing deforestation. ⁵³ The overall stagnation of the rate of deforestation during this phase, combined with the studies on the mixed impact of certified NTFPs on deforestation, hints at the potential impact of thoughtly certified NTFPs. However, it is clear that thorough certification was not flushed out in this phase. (see Figure 2)

Overall, the adaptation phase of eco-commerce involved NGOs retreating from efforts to revive the high demand and excitement of the early 90s, and instead focusing on a more niche group of consumers that were willing to do a bit of research and pay more for products they felt confident about. The creation of certifications and the smaller demand of the niche market created systems that aligned more with the nature of NTFP harvesting. “Rainforest friendly” now had the connotation of general tropical sustainability, covering issues beyond the Amazon rain forest. Without the focus on the Amazon rain forest, Rainforest NGOs shifted their own campaigns and programs to broad focus on tropical sustainability.

+ Notes

1. Alan Pierce, Patricia Shanley & Sarah Laird, “Certification of non-timber forest products: Limitations and implications of a market-based conservation tool,” paper presented at the The International Conference on Rural Livelihoods, Forests and Biodiversity (Bonn, Germany, 19-23 May 2003).
2. Tinde van Andel, “A Company-Community Partnership for FSC-Certified Non-Timber Forest Product Harvesting in Brazilian Amazonia: Requirements for Sustainable Exploitation,” in Partnerships in Sustainable Forest Resource Management: Learning from Latin America, ed. Mirjam Ros-Tonen (Leiden and Boston: Koninklijke Brill, 2007), 171.
3. Mauro Maisiero, “FSC-Certified Non Timber Forest Products And Forest Services: Is There An Evidence Of Marketing Advantages?” (paper presented at the International Symposium Multiple Forest Outputs: Silviculture, Accounting and Managerial Economics, Viterbo, Italy, January 2011)
4. “Palm Oil Scorecard: Ranking America’s Biggest Brands on Their Commitment to Deforestation-Free Palm Oil (2014),” Union of Concerned Scientists, https://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/stop-deforestation/palm-oil-scorecard-2014#.X A0qT3RKiUk, accessed December 9, 2018.
5. “Global Warming Solution: Stop Deforestation”, Union of Concerned Scientists, https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/solutions/stop-deforestation#.W793YGhKiUk, accessed December 8, 2018.
6. “List of Certified Individual Farms and Groups,” Rainforest Alliance, October 31, 2018, https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/business/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Certified-Farm s-CoC-Operations-October2018.pdf, accessed December 8, 2018.
7. “Why Promote Sustainability,” Rainforest Alliance, https://www.rainforest-alliance.org /business/marketing/why/, accessed December 8, 2018.
8. Clay.
9. Studies include:
   • Dave Hughell and Rebecca Butterfield, “Impact of FSC Certification on Deforestation and the Incidence of Wildfires in the Maya Biosphere Reserve,” (Rainforest Alliance, 2008). - Concludes that there is less deforestation and wildfires within the land FSC certified products
   • David S. Wilsey and Jeremy Radachowsky, “Keeping NTFPs in the Forest: Can certification provide an alternative to intensive cultivation?” Ethnobotany Research & Applications 5 - Evaluates different ways of certifying NTFPs. Explains that species specific NTFP certification by the FSC has been successful but only developed for a few products.
   • Morsello Carla, Isabel Ruiz-Mallen, Maria DM Diaz, Victoria Reyes-Garcıia, “The Effects of Processing Non-Timber Forest Products and Trade Partnerships on People’s Well-Being and Forest Conservation in Amazonian Societies.” PLOS ONE 7, issue 8 (August 2012): e43055. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0043055. - Compares the deforestation caused by NTFP operations with trade partner vs without, and how deforestation was less likely with a trade partner, but increased other negative factors, such as hunting.

Conclusion

The eco-commerce of the early 1990s, despite its initial promise, at best, only had a transient effect on deforestation. Its bold promises and marketing stirred public excitement for a vision of the Rainforest that leaned heavily on the exoticism of the Amazon and the moral high ground of the consumer. This romanticized version of the “Rainforest” was effective in creating a demand for Rainforest products, but did not make a strong connection with the conservation of the Amazon rain forest. The system of NTFP harvest was not set up to succeed in the long term, and quickly crashed under overwhelming demand. Meanwhile, US brands with no impactful commitment to conservation recognized a profitable opportunity in exploiting the public’s fascination with the Rainforest, oversaturating the market with “Rainforest” products and experiences. Environmental groups, seeing the failures in NTFP systems and the over proliferation of the Rainforest image, responded by demanding transparency and creating sustainable systems through certifications, trusts stamps, and reports. Their campaigns and focuses had to cater to comfortable environmentalism and the image of the Rainforest that US consumers were drawn toward.

Ultimately, NGOs were not able to recapture the early 90s excitement for the rain forest and re-associate the Rainforest imagery to the physical place. However, they were able to learn from the early eco-commerce and begin the process of creating certifications for NTFPs. In doing so, eco-commerce was pushed to a more niche market of eco-conscious consumers.

Going forward, the image of the Rainforest seems to remain disconnected from the Amazon rain forest, while the further evolution of eco-commerce looks potentially positive, and the future of the Amazon rainforest is uncertain.

The image of the Rainforest is still prevalent, although excitement has faded over time. The makeup brand Tarte, that used Amazonian Clay in the 90s, now uses Rainforest imagery to refer to general sustainability in its newest makeup line, “Rainforest of the Sea”, which donates a percentage to the Sea Turtle Conservancy.⁵⁴ The clothing brand Rainforest, uses the name for a sense of outdoors and otherness, specializing in “Ruggedly Elegant Outerwear.”⁵⁵ The Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo, a baby toy made of up Rainforest imagery with “a bobbing elephant, swinging monkey, spinning lizard and more that baby will just ‘go wild’ for!”, is a top seller on Amazon (which is also doing quite well as a company).⁵⁶ It is possible the Rainforest image will fade from popularity before it is re-associated with the Amazon rain forest, but there is also the opportunity for a new wave of eco-commerce to piece the two back together.

The success of new eco-commerce looks promising with rising standards in certification and high demand for corporate responsibility. The certification of NTFPs has the opportunity to evolve and will hopefully be able to more precisely certify individual NTFPs. The demand for corporate responsible, along with awareness of greenwashing, is also rising. A growing number of consumers are pushing for corporate responsibility and are willing to go out of their way to research companies, rather than rely on branding. In 2017, 65% of surveyed Americans said “when a company takes a stand on a social or environmental issues, they will do research to see if it is being authentic.”⁵⁷ The growth of online access and shopping has heavily aided this, as further research mostly refers to a willingness to do a five minute google search on the company, to check a mission statement and ensure no incriminating articles appear about the company. Confusion around the terms used to communicate corporate responsibility has gone down in recent years, from 71% of surveyed Americans in 2011 to 57% in 2015.⁵⁸ This push for corporate responsibility is powerful but has not returned focus to the Amazon rain forest, instead focusing on social and environmental causes in general.

+ Notes

54. “Tarte Gives Back,” Tarte Cosmetics, https://tartecosmetics.com/en_US/explore/ about-us/tarte-gives-back/, accessed December 10, 2018.
55. “About Us,” Rainforest, http://www.rainforest.com/about-rainforest, accessed December 10, 2018.
56. “Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo,” Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/ Fisher-Price-K6070-Rainforest-Jumperoo/dp/B000LXQVA4/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8 & qid=1544454857&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=rainforest+jumperoo&psc=1, accessed December 10, 2018.
57. “2017 Cone Communications CSR Study,” CONE, http://www.conecomm.com/ research-blog/ 2017-csr-study, assessed December 9, 2018.
58. “2015 Cone Communications / Ebiquity Global CSR Study,” CONE, http://www.conecomm.com/research-blog/2015-cone-communications-ebiquity-global-cs r-study, assessed December 9, 2018.
59. “Soy Moratorium,” Forest 500, https://forest500.org/rankings/other-powerbrokers/ soy-moratorium, accessed December 9, 2018.
60. “The Guardian View On Brazil’s New President: A Global Danger,” The Guardian, October 31, 2018.

Bibliography

+ Primary Sources

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+ Books

• Dominguez, Jorge I. Mexico, Central, and South America: Social Movements. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.
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+ Journal Articles, Book Chapters

• Andersen, Lykke E. "The Causes of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon." The Journal of Environment & Development 5, no. 3 (1996): 309-28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44319228.
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• Denevan, William. “The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82, no. 3 (1992): 369-385.
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• Zimmerman, Kurt & Henry W. McGee, Jr. “The Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon: Law, Politics, and International Cooperation.” The University of Miami Inter-American Law Review 21, no. 3 (Summer, 1990): 513-550
• Van Andel, Tinde. “A Company-Community Partnership for FSC-Certified Non-Timber Forest Product Harvesting in Brazilian Amazonia: Requirements for Sustainable Exploitation.” in Partnerships in Sustainable Forest Resource Management: Learning from Latin America, edited by Mirjam Ros-Tonen, 171. Leiden and Boston: Koninklijke Brill, 2007.

+ Newspapers

• Clay, Jason. “Why Rainforest Crunch.” Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, June 1992. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/16-2-theshold-a ction-guide-cultural-survival. accessed November 29, 2018.
• Shulman, Nicola. “Celebrity Greens First Among Ecols.” Harpers and Queen, September 1991. Welles, Edward. “Ben’s Big Flop.” Inc. Magazine, September 1, 1998.

+ Websites

• CONE. “2017 Cone Communications CSR Study.” http://www.conecomm.com/ research-blog/ 2017-csr-study, assessed December 9, 2018.
• CONE. “2015 Cone Communications / Ebiquity Global CSR Study.” http://www.conecomm.com/research-blog/2015-cone-communications-ebiquity-global-cs r-study, assessed December 9, 2018.
• Forest 500. “Soy Moratorium.” https://forest500.org/ rankings/ other-powerbrokers/ soy-moratorium, accessed December 9, 2018.
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• Rainforest Alliance. “List of Certified Individual Farms and Groups.” October 31, 2018. https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/business/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Certified-Farm s-CoC-Operations-October2018.pdf, accessed December 8, 2018.
• Rainforest Alliance. “Why Promote Sustainability.” https://www.rainforest-alliance.org /business/marketing/why/, accessed December 8, 2018.
• Reid, Ed. “The Biggest River in the World.” The Alternative Board, https://www.thealternativeboard.co.uk/the-biggest-river-in-the-world/, accessed December 5, 2018.
• Schussler Creative Inc. “Where Dreams Become Reality!” http://www.schusslercreative.com/concepts/rainforest-cafe/. accessed December 9, 2018.
• Union of Concerned Scientists. “Global Warming Solution: Stop Deforestation.” https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/solutions/stop-deforestation#.W793YGhKiUk, accessed December 8, 2018.
• Union of Concerned Scientists. “Palm Oil Scorecard: Ranking America’s Biggest Brands on Their Commitment to Deforestation-Free Palm Oil (2014).”https://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/stop-deforestation/palm-oil-scorecard-2014#.X A0qT3RKiUk, accessed December 9, 2018.
• World Fair Trade Organization, “History of Fair Trade,” updated December 2015, https://wfto.com/about-us/history-wfto/history-fair-trade, accessed December 9, 2018.

+ Other

• Masiero, Mauro. “FSC-Certified Non Timber Forest Products And Forest Services: Is There An Evidence Of Marketing Advantages?” paper presented at the International Symposium Multiple Forest Outputs: Silviculture, Accounting and Managerial Economics. Viterbo, Italy, January 2011.
• Pierce, Alan & Patricia Shanley & Sarah Laird. “Certification of non-timber forest products: Limitations and implications of a market-based conservation tool.” paper presented at the The International Conference on Rural Livelihoods, Forests and Biodiversity. Bonn, Germany, 19-23 May 2003.