Tropical Wood Causes Rift Over Long Beach Boardwalk

A June 30, 1999 workshop on green building marked the last in a long series of measures taken by the City of Long Beach, California to fulfill its part of an agreement with environmentalists over a dispute about use of tropical wood. This process began when environmental activists threatened to picket the opening of Long Beach’s new Aquarium of the Pacific because the wood used in a large boardwalk was not certified by a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-accredited organization. The area in question is a project known as Rainbow Harbor, in Queensway Bay. Left out of the resolution to this dispute, and potentially excluded from further work for the City of Long Beach, is the boardwalk’s architect, the Los Angeles office of Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn.

At the core of the dispute is the issue of what qualifies as “certified” wood. The architects specified a species of wood called Ipe that is imported from Brazil under the name “Pau Lope” by Greenheart Durawoods. Greenheart provided evidence that the wood was harvested in an environmentally sustainable manner, including an endorsement from an Audubon Society scientist (but not a forestry expert) who had visited the harvesting operation. (As an aside,