GREENPEACE TO SELL COMPUTER MOUSE MATS MADE FROM AMAZON RAINFOREST RUBBER
New Amazon web animation launched today along with chance to buy mouse mats online

17 May 2000

LONDON -- Greenpeace is today (17/5/00) launching a range of computer mouse mats produced from 100% native, high-quality natural rubber from the Amazon rainforest. The mouse mats have been developed as part of a Greenpeace campaign to promote alternative solutions to the destructive logging that threatens this tropical rainforest.

In 1999 Greenpeace funded a rubber tappers project in partnership with the University of Brasilia (INB), the National Council of Rubber Tappers (CNS), the Association of Rural Producers of Carauari (ASPROC) and the National Centre for Traditional Populations (CNPT). The project has been initiated to help find and promote sustainable alternatives for the development of the Amazon region. The forest-friendly mouse mats are the result of working with 40 rubber tapping families who live in an extractive reserve in the Jurua river area at the heart of the Amazon.

The key innovation of this project is the use of a new technology called Tecbor developed by Professor Floriano Pastmore, from the University of Brasilia. Tecbor uses non-pollutant, pyroligneous acid to congeal the rubber, removing the unhealthy and environmentally-damaging smoking process.

Brenda Ramsay, Amazon Campaigner with Greenpeace UK, said: "By purchasing one of the mouse mats people will be directly protecting the Amazon rainforest from destructive logging and helping rubber tapping families to continue their traditional lifestyles as guardians of the forest. We are now ending the pilot phase of this project and looking for global markets for the mats. Ultimately we hope to provide this technology to thousands of rubber tappers."

During the next 12 months the Greenpeace Tecbor project will have the potential to produce a further 100,000 computer mouse mats, and to develop other rubber products for both national and international markets.

Greenpeace has also launched today a NEW Amazon animation telling the story of the history of rubbing tapping and a photo storyboard of the Tecbor project. These can be seen at www.greenpeace.org.uk/mousemat.htm where the mouse mats can be purchased online in four different designs at a price of £4.95 each.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

- Greenpeace press office, (London) +44 (0) 20 7865 8255/6/7/8

More information on Greenpeace's campaign to 'Keep The Amazon Alive' is available here: www.greenpeace.org/~forests/amazon/

(1) Rubber tapping is a traditional Amazonian activity that does not endanger the forest, as it is not necessary to cut down the trees to extract the latex used in producing the rubber.

(2) Extractive reserves are areas set aside by the government for non-destructive use by local communities. Rubber tapping is one of the main commercial activities in the reserves, but high costs of transport from these remote areas, combined with low commodity prices in the international markets, make it difficult for local communities to preserve their traditional activities. The Tecbor Project hopes to overcome these difficulties by using new technology and marketing products with added value.

(3) At the beginning of April Greenpeace began a four-month boat tour through the various rivers of the Amazonia and Para States to expose illegal logging in this Amazon region. The tour builds on Greenpeace's investigation last year into illegal logging in the Amazon. Follow the tour here: www.greenpeace.org/~forests/amazon/agt/agt.htm

(4) In April - Greenpeace announced a joint project to assist the Deni Indian communities of the Brazilian Amazon on self-demarcation of their traditional lands. The Deni land has been under threat from the Malaysian company, WTK, since 1995 when the multi-national logging giant first started negotiations which ended in their purchase of over 313,000 hectares of forest from a Brazilian businessman. Approximately half of the WTK land overlaps Deni Indian territories. The demarcation if successful will force the logging company off their land.