Most of the community-based conservation orgs I help out have some sort of alternative livelihood program to help establish businesses that bring money into the community that don't involve exploiting the local environment or wildlife.
The most obvious one is by hiring them as staff to help with the project. Every single person earning a salary helps support a whole family of people in that area, so the effect of simply employing local works is amplified.
Another common program is arts and crafts like the felti figures/ornaments for spectacled bears, the snare wire sculptures for painted dogs, or the Eco-Mochila bags for cotton-top tamarins. Or more simply just selling traditional arts and artifacts from the region.
Participating in tourism is also another option, whether as a guide, helping to run a lodge or other tourist establishment, or through performance of traditional music or dance.
One idea I just had after reviewing my photos I took with the San bushmen of the Kalahari in Botswana: life coach. I actually took a course several years back on posture and movement that is based on the fact that we spend so much time sitting, lying, slouching, leaning etc that we have essentially forgotten how to do it the way our bodies were designed. It's one thing to have Westerners who learn these techies teach them. But it might be even more impactful if people who actually spend their whole lives doing it the proper way do it. Plus since there really isn't any cost of goods, there would be higher margins. I also think there are opportunities to teach being present and mindful and connecting meaningfully and emotionally with others.
Of course there are challenges, not the least of which is connecting the people with a customer base. But maybe these could even be online courses.
I'm just brainstorming here, and haven't thought the details through. But having recently done a lot of personal explorations on true happiness, fulfillment and healthy living, I do believe that these indigenous people have a lot to teach us that we have forgotten over the generations after we began large scale agriculture, had the industrial revolution and just generally created a society quite different than the one our relatively ancestors lived in.
Comments