Cause Related Marketing initiative raises £17,000 in first year for Rainforest Foundation
The Rainforest Foundation has raised £17,000 through a cause related marketing initiative with French wine company, Comte Cathare.
Comte Cathare, a widely acclaimed biodynamic and organic wine maker from the Languedoc region in the South of France, felt so passionately about the destruction of the rainforest and the threat to forest communities, that they approached the Rainforest Foundation to see how they could work together to highlight rainforest issues and raise fund for the organisation.
"The environmental crisis predicted by an overwhelming body of specialists continues to go unheeded. Environmental threats are directly or indirectly linked to rainforest destruction and this is a concern to all of us at Comte Cathare, “ said BERTIE Eden owner of Comte Cathare
The result was a range of wines named after rainforest medicinal plants - Una de Gato, Chincona, Catharanthus Roseus and Discorea – to highlight the medical value of forests. For example, Catharanthus Roseus, or the Madagascar Periwinkle, has been instrumental in increasing the childhood leukaemia survival rate from 20 to 80 per cent. The back of the label explains about the link between plants, medicine and rainforests. For each bottle sold, Comte Cathare donates 50 pence to the Rainforest Foundation.
It is hoped that a further £20,000 can be added to this figure in 2004. Joining the range will be two new labels, incorporating images of world-renowned photographer Brenda Eckles and animal rights activist Karl Ammann, depicting an Orangutan and a Gorilla. The populations of these two species have halved since 1980 to less than 30,000 Orangutans and only a few thousand Gorillas left in the world.
The Primate range highlights how the destruction of the rainforest, (5 million hectares burnt in 1998 in Indonesia, the final remaining home for Orangutans), is forcing these animals and many others close to extinction. The range will be launch in March through a special window display in all of Oddbins 220 stores nationwide.
