Tuesday—Green Living:
Fair Furniture: Tropical Salvage

October 6, 2009 Written by Danielle Davis

With Tropical Salvage furniture, you get the beauty of tropical hardwood without the toll on trees. The folks there collect and reclaim wood that’s dotted around Indonesian islands—from old houses, from fallen or buried trees—and put it to good use (details here).

By getting a chair from Tropical Salvage, you get more than a seat to sit on. You get to support a company that:

*Eschews irresponsible logging of Indonesian old-growth forests, a practice that’s endangering ecosystems and the creatures and people who rely on them.

*Provides good jobs to an economically-disadvantaged community.

*Implements a sustainable business model and supports environmental education and efforts (like its forest restoration project with Jepara Forest Conservancy).

And of course, Tropical Salvage is a member of the Fair Trade Federation.

I’m really loving this modern bench and this fit for royalty day bed.

…

To get a sense of how forests far away in South East Asia and elsewhere end up in your home in the form of windowpanes, dressers and even tissue, check out Greenpeace’s Ancient Forest in Your Home page. It includes information about which woods to buy (FSC certified) and which to back away from, like absolute no-no tropical wood teak that, if not purchased through a company like Tropical Salvage, may be harvested from ancient forests struggling to survive.

In fact, only 20% of the world’s ancient forests are left and a football field-sized area of forest disappears every two seconds!

In light of that, let’s choose what’s fair to forests, fair to workers and fair to behold.

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