Petitions, buzz cuts, and tigers oh my! Over the past month students on campuses across the country have rallied their peers to bring attention to Asia Pulp and Papers destruction of the Paradise Forest.
The Indonesia rainforest is threatened by Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), a paper company that is cutting and burning natural rainforest to build paper plantations. APPs pulp products are found in every day paper tissue products like Livi and Paseo toilet paper. APPs forest destruction is also endangering the home of the critically endangered Sumatran tiger, of which there are no more than 400 individuals remaining in the wild.
With the help of tiger suits, students are creatively spreading the message on campuses. Greenpeace Campus Coordinators Jessica Loko Seaman (a recent Greenpeace Semester graduate) at Louisiana State University and Justin Lozano at the University of Pittsburgh held clear cut haircut events. Students were given free buzz cuts while being educated about APPs deforestation practices. Participants and onlookers were asked to sign petitions requesting their Universities move towards 100% post consumer recycled paper tissue products on campus.
As the clear cut haircut events ended, Justin and Loko shipped the tiger suits off to the next campuses. Campus Coordinator Josh Chamberlands Operation Tiger campaign has already collected over 900 petitions, the campaign was featured on the front page of The BG News! After front page fame, the suits then made their way to Campus Coordinators Caroline Hansley at North Carolina State University and Erica Kris at Arizona State University, students there used photo petitions to raise awareness and call on their campuses to shift towards sustainable forest procurement policies.
Students across the country are seeking to pile more pressure onto APP with the Operation Tiger campaign. Most recently, Danone and Xerox decide to cut ties with APP, and now you can help the students out by urging Barnes and Noble to also cut ties with APP.
