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Published in Summer 2003
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Unsustainable palm harvest prompts survey of churches
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By Jamie Bowman
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At 6 a.m. in a tiny village in Oaxaca, Mexico, José Charro and some of his family set off on a 21/2-hour hike to an area of chamaedorea palms, growing in
the deep shade of the tropical rainforest.
Harvesting palms is subsistence work and Charro
is forced further and further afield each year to find enough plants to supply the demand for palms, destined for floral arrangements, funerals and
Easter week celebrations throughout North America.
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© Dean Current
A laborer sorts chamaedorea palm fronds in a warehouse prior to packing, refrigeration and transportation to wholesalers. |
For Christians, the use of palm fronds the week before Easter is symbolic of Christ’s fateful entry to Jerusalem. Unfortunately, the use of unsustainably harvested fronds is widespread in churches even though some species of the chamaedorea are threatened.
But a move toward sustainable, fair-trade harvesting could convert that eco-threat into an important tool in the preservation of the disappearing rainforest. Only about 10 percent of Mexico’s original rainforest area now remains, primarily because forestland has been converted to extensive livestock raising. Faced with few options, more and more people take land from the rainforest to raise animals.
Harvesting chamaedorea sustainably presents an excellent alternative, since the palms require the natural deep shade of the tropical treetop canopy.
“If you can provide an alternative that will add value to the forest, that will in turn lead to more protection of the forest by the local people,” said Dean Current,
a research associate at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Integrated Natural Resource and Agricultural Management. “They then have a vested interest; their livelihood comes from the forest.”
While some believe no commercial enterprise should be allowed in protected rainforest, Current is convinced that such limited activity actually works better. Guarding such valuable areas “has never been all that successful, just because the resources aren’t available to have enough people on the ground to protect the forest,” he said.
Meanwhile, proof of the ‘vested interest’ theory has come from above. Satellite pictures of Guatemala show the least amount of forestland burning are in areas where locals harvest timber and non-timber products such as palm, under government-granted ‘community concessions’. Much less environmental degradation is taking place in those areas than even in national park areas set aside for full protection.
“Those images show fires burning all around those community concessions, but nothing or very little inside,” said Current. “So there is some good evidence that it is actually working there.”
To help identify opportunities for sustainable chamaedorea production and trade, the CEC published In Search of a Sustainable Palm Market in North America. When that study identified an interest from Christian congregations in the United States, the Secretariat commissioned Current to follow up with a more detailed survey of churches.
The survey results, expected to be published this summer, show that most congregations are not only interested, but willing to pay more for palms
harvested by fairly-paid workers with environmentally friendly methods.
The survey also extrapolated that churches in the US consume as much as 45 million palms for the
Easter period alone, worth about US$4.5 million. Current cautions, however, that not all the palms used in churches are chamaedorea, as some survey respondents did not know the type being used by
their church.
Dale Jeffrey at Christ the King parish in Courtenay, British Columbia, said his congregation would “most certainly” be interested and willing to pay more for fairly traded and sustainably harvested palms. And Becky Sechrist, a United Methodist Church minister in Minneapolis, liked the idea so much she assisted in developing the survey questions.
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© Dean Current
Sacks of chamaedorea palm fronds await sorting in a warehouse near Flores, Guatemala. |
Now that market demand is better understood,
the next big step would be to examine and arrange
for certification of the harvesting operations, ensuring fair trade and sustainable practices. A number of independent certification agencies already exist, but given the long-term ramifications, choosing the most appropriate system will be an involved process.
Chantal Line Carpentier would like to see something started sooner. As head of the CEC’s Environment, Economy and Trade Program, she has proposed a meeting this summer between church groups and representatives of existing Mexican ejidos (community groups working with common land) in hopes that a pilot project can get underway.
“We would start with that,” she said. “For now it would be direct buying and marketing.”
Currently, wholesalers, middlemen and contractors are all first to get paid, leaving only minimal pay for
the harvesters. Dealing directly would cut out at least some of the intermediaries, so the local harvesters can reap a more fair return for their labor.
That’s similar to what the CEC did with its shade coffee program; in fact many of the ejidos producing organic, sustainable coffee under the program are also in chamaedorea palm areas and could be encouraged to do the same for palms, she said.
Fulvio Eccardi, a wildlife biologist and photographer, fully approves of the CEC plan to directly connect palm consumers and harvesters. And he suggests micro-loans and advisory consulting could further help harvester groups, allowing them to invest in small tractors, trucks and shelter facilities for sorting
and shipping.
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| © Fulvio Eccardi |
But the system must be organized at the grass-roots level, he said. “The people must have a consciousness. The people need to understand that they must organize themselves.”
Current believes that if harvesters could be paid
by quality rather than quantity, the gathering would be far more sustainable. “As it is now, up to 50 percent of the fronds are discarded in the sorting.”
The CEC has already received substantial interest in the project, but more is better, Carpentier said. Interested churches and floral retailers can contact the CEC to get involved. And if certification is implemented, buyers can further the cause by requesting only certified palms.
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