Download full PDF - International Journal of Wilderness

Ashoka: Innovators for the Public,
which supports social entrepreneurs
who work to help communities become
more sustainable. Around the world,
Ashoka has launched over 250 social
entrepreneurs working to improve the
economic, social, and environmental
outcomes for the communities in which
they work. This cluster of environmental
Ashoka Fellows is developing a diverse
array of innovative yet practical
solutions. Maintaining a regional focus,
the Sierra Club has chosen to support
Ashoka Fellowships in southern Africa
and Mexico.
Ashoka Fellow Allan Schwar in
Mozambique and South Africa
In a region that suffers from both dire
poverty and extensive forest loss, Allan
is conserving forests by investing in,
developing, and managing the resources
in a sustainable way for the
benefit of all the forest inhabitants. He
uses a business model that focuses on
creating alternative forest-friendly income-generating
activities. Allan works
with the people who live on forestland
to take inventory of the resources and
create a forest management plan that
balances timber harvesting with replanting.
He employs workers and
trains them in sustainable, on-site,
value-added production activities that
generate income while contributing to
forest conservation.
Allan’s project produces commercially
viable honey, beeswax, timber,
furniture, jewelry boxes, and other
wood products. Local and international
businesses and organizations
commission, buy, and market many of
these products. For example, the
project produces jewelry and jewelry
boxes for Earth Africa, a South African
company, and has recently provided
chairs for a local restaurant. The
organization Aid to Artisans also markets
some of the goods in the United
States. In addition, Allan’s company is
the first local contractor to be awarded
a contract to produce doors and windows
for a new rural clinic. Allan has
proved to buyers that local cooperatives
can produce quality goods on
time. The income of the cooperative’s
artisans has increased from an average
of $14 a month to $92 a month in
the two years that Allan has been
working with them. Although the forest
communities still mainly supply
raw material to the urban cooperative
that produces the consumer goods,
Allan intends to eventually have the
forest communities producing consumer-ready
products on-site.
Allan achieves these advances in economic
opportunity while preserving
forests and developing environmentally
sustainable forest communities. In
addition to ensuring that trees are replanted
and forest resources managed
effectively within the communities
where he works, Allan’s company has
been contracted to build tree nurseries,
train timber company staff, and
advise various aid organizations and
local NGOs on community-based resource
management and environmental
impact analysis. Two years ago,
Mozambique had only two indigenous
species nurseries, both operated by
Allan’s company. Due to Allan’s negotiating
and advising, there are now six
of these nurseries. To date, Allan’s nurseries
alone have germinated over
100,000 indigenous trees.
Allan has had a significant impact
on environmental policy in
Mozambique’s Sofala province.
Through his advising and lobbying,
the provincial government has placed
a moratorium on the export of logs.
Only timber to which value has been
added can be exported. Because of this
restriction, buyer countries must purchase
products processed locally, allowing
lower impact technologies and
Zululand hills of rural KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. One of the
numerous areas in which the Sierra Club and the WILD
Foundation are collaborating. Photo by Vance Martin.
lighter taxation of infrastructure and
thus ensuring that a reasonable share
of the commodity price remains in the
community.
Ashoka Fellow Heladio Reyes
in Mexico
Heladio’s organization, Ecosta Yutu
Cuii, or Green Trees from State to
Coast, provides training and implementation
strategies on a wide range
of agricultural issues, including crop
management, forestry, organic production,
wildlife preservation, and biological
pest control. In addition, Heladio has
expanded his work to reflect the vital
social issues of financial management,
natural medicine, and nutrition.
Heladio’s program has been implemented
throughout the Río Verde de
Tutuepec region in Oaxaca, Mexico. The
program involves more than 15 communities
and 150 poor landowners. It
combines different traditional and alternative
techniques for the preservation
of endangered species and agricultural
programs that enable indigenous populations
to grow food for themselves.
Traditional woman in
rural KwaZulu Natal.
Photo by Vance Martin.
International Journal of Wilderness DECEMBER 2002 • VOLUME 8, NUMBER 3 7