Amazon Ecology

Parrots and baskets by Amazon Ecology

Amazon Ecology banner

Campbell Plowden founded the non-profit Amazon Ecology in 2006 to help people from traditional communities in the Amazon sustainably harvest and market value-added non-timber forest products like handicrafts so they could make a living without damaging the forest.  Visit our website: www.AmazonEcology.org

We now work with over 300 artisans from 18 native and campesino communities in the northern Peruvian Amazon. We regularly host skill-sharing workshops so artisans can use traditional materials to create innovative fair-trade handicrafts. We train veteran artisans to lead these workshops so their peers can improve their craft-making skills, confidence and self-esteem. We help artisans form their own associations, tell their own stories and use technology to better market their products to tourists and wholesale buyers. We support artisans to carefully harvest and plant more chambira palm trees to increase the supply of the key plant used to make woven crafts. We host Alternatives to Violence Project workshops so our partners can improve their abilities to communicate, cooperate and resolve conflicts through respectful means.

We market our partners’ crafts at special events, fair trade stores, and online. These include a wide variety of woven and carved ornaments that feature wildlife designs, bags, belts, baskets, barrettes, bracelets, bottle carriers, earrings, guitar straps, hat bands, hot pads, maracas, and necklaces. Beyond our programs that help artisan families increase their income, we reinvest part of our sales to support health, education and conservation in our partner communities. During the peak of the pandemic, we provided medicine and food aid to almost 600 families. We are a member of the Fair Trade Federation which commits us to comply with all nine fair trade principles.

 

 

Madita Sinarahua with basket by Amazon Ecology

Madita Sinarahua with basket by Amazon Ecology

 

Morpho and monarch butterfly ornaments at artisan training workshop by Amazon Ecology

Morpho and monarch butterfly ornaments at artisan training workshop by Amazon Ecology

 

Amazonite and ayahuasca necklace on orchid by Amazon Ecology

Amazonite and ayahuasca necklace on orchid by Amazon Ecology

 

Amazon Ecology birds - purple gallinule and owl

Amazon Ecology birds – purple gallinule and owl

A happy customer!

 

Shop:

 

Client:Amazon Ecology
View Project
000

Comments (0)

Questions or feedback? Leave us a comment!

%d bloggers like this: