Forest friendly for Palm Sunday

From: Oakland Tribune | Date: April 1, 2007| Author: Rebecca Rosen LumSTAFF | Copyright information

Each year on Palm Sunday, Christians jubilantly re-enact Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, waving a combined 300 million palm fronds in the United States.

That makes for a green market in more ways than one.

But environmentalists say the traditional method of harvesting palms wastes more than it nets and damages valuable rainforest. While sales may shoot through the roof, middlemen consume most of the profits.

Enter Eco-Palms, an ecologically and socially sensitive frond bra...