Treetop Barbie and Other Tree Marketing Techniques
by Kyeann Sayer, Nomad on 03.10.06
Getting non-TreeHuggers to believe that forest canopies have any relevance to their lives can be a tough sell. Evergreen State College professor Nalini Nadkarni has studied rich treetop ecosystems for twenty years, knows their intricacy, and sees first hand the rate at which they're disappearing. Now she's taken on an environmental communications mission far outside of her scientific training: selling the value of forests. Nadkarni and her lab have designed tree motif skate boards, and a "Treetop Barbie." (Mattel wasn't interested in creating one, so a seamstress has styled field outfits for Good Will cast-aways.) Nadkarni has visited churches, synagogues and Buddhist temples to relate the canopies to religious/spiritual teachings. Artistic inspiration and healing benefits are other areas she's explored. She even has prison inmates working on creating and marketing sustainably harvested moss products. Imagine where environmentalism would be if every college had one of her? I would like a (nontoxic) Nalini Nadkarni doll, please. Via anonymous tipster. :: The Daily Astorian. Photo by Lori Assa
My dear old friend, or perfect enemy, Billy Boy*, depending on which way you want to look at it, wrote the book on Barbie... revived the doll for Mattel. We tried to introduce an Eco-Barbie way back when. Instead Mattel went with the pink Corvette, heralding another two decades of planetary teenage girl destruction. I still have Barbie pictures from Hustler... somewhere.
Part of the reason why Professor Nadkarni is on her mission is to promote the canopy walkway that The Evergreen State College is building in the thousand-acre forest on their campus. I'm a recent Evergreen grad, and it's an amazing project that will set apart the school in terms of research opportunities and facilities - however, it's also a hugely expensive project, and difficult to find supporters. Nalini's had an amazing success with it - her recent chautaqua, for example, was a smashing event. Go Geoducks Go!