Our long-term goal is to build sustainable livelihoods and conserve rain forests in 18 native and campesino communities in the Peruvian Amazon. We host workshops and other activities to help artisans learn to make diverse and high-quality handicrafts, form effective organizations to market their crafts, and carefully harvest and reforest the palm trees used to make woven crafts. We reinvest part of our craft sales to support health, education and conservation needs in our partner communities.
Amazon forest loss is driving species to extinction, aggravating global warming, and robbing people of unique medicines, foods and other benefits. Cutting and burning forests is often more profitable than conserving them, so some native communities in northern Peru have illegally logged and grown coca and other cash-crops to escape poverty. They most want sustainable ways to improve their income, health and education that enhance forests, respect their culture, and strengthen their communities
This project will empower hundreds of women and male artisans in 18 Amazon native and campesino communities in Peru to create and sell innovative handicrafts made with sustainably harvested chambira palm fiber and natural dyes. Old fields will be planted with chambira to provide a long-term supply of raw materials for making woven crafts.
This project will generate sustainable income for over 200 native families by energizing their imagination, pride and traditional knowledge to create unique fair-trade crafts such as woven birds and other animal ornaments. They will learn new ways to protect their forest resources for future generations. Communities will receive ongoing benefits as CACE reinvests 20% of its net craft sales to support health, education and conservation needs.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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