Creating Sustainable Livelihoods in the Peruvian Amazon

Dr. Campbell Plowden, Founder and Executive Director of Amazon Ecology, will share the evolution, highlights, and challenges of this non-profit group’s work to create sustainable livelihoods for native artisans, strengthen traditional communities and promote forest conservation in the Amazon rainforest.

Amazon Ecology works with hundreds of artisans in 18 native and campesino communities in the northern Peruvian Amazon to help them learn to make and market innovative and high-quality handicrafts, including ornaments of birds from the Amazon and North America.

Their workshops and other activities focus on craft-making, training community workshop leaders, building effective artisan organizations, and reforestation of chambira palm trees used to make woven crafts.

Amazon Ecology is a member of the Fair Trade Federation and reinvests part of its craft sales to improve health, education, and conservation in its partner communities.

The presentation will be followed by a sale of crafts made by Amazon Ecology artisan partners from Peru.