Churches help southern neighbors, environment with support of ‘eco-Palm’ Sunday

The palm fronds, imported from Mexico and Guatemala, are being certified as environmentally sustainable by Rainforest Alliance under a project of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Integrated Natural Resources and Agricultural Management (CINRAM).

Dean Current, program manager for CINRAM, says 282 congregations paid up to double the normal price for chamaedorea palm fronds to ensure that they were harvested in a sustainable manner to avoid damaging the palms themselves, as well as to provide improved income to the harvesting communities.

“We are getting the word out with the help of organizations like Lutheran World Relief that there are measurable environmental and social benefits to supporting environmentally harvested palm. And, to the credit of these congregations, very few churches that called for information about our ‘eco-palms’ balked at the idea of spending more money to help the environment and another community.”

The certification and improved quality empowers harvesters to negotiate with wholesalers like Continental Floral Greens—a partner in the project—extra funds that stimulate local job growth and contribute to community funds allocated to educational scholarships. This year, the second of the project, 20 temporary jobs were created and an extra US$4,000 contributed to two community funds.

The palm fronds, which symbolized triumph and victory in ancient times, are gaining new significance in rainforests of Mexico and Guatemala. “Palms harvested in the forest add value to the forest for local populations,” explains Juan Trujillo, a former harvester of chamaedorea palms and project manager for the Rainforest Alliance effort. “Because the community is able to extract a valuable product from the forest, they protect the forest to protect their income.”

Current says the industry for chamaedorea palms, estimated at US$250–300 million in the United States, has its biggest sales on Palm Sunday. The first day of Holy Week accounts for roughly 10 percent or more of the total annual demand of chamaedorea palms.

The CINRAM project began as an initiative of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, an international organization created in a side accord to NAFTA. The organization aims, in part, to demonstrate that freer trade among the NAFTA countries can yield environmental benefits.

“We are happy to have passed on this project to our partners, whose success has helped demonstrate how trade can green our economies,” says Chantal Line Carpentier of the CEC.

Note to photo editors: professional, high-resolution images can be downloaded from our web site at www.cec.org/palm.

For more information, please consult www.cinram.umn.edu/projects/stewardship.html or contact: