A CASE STUDY:

THE SANI WARMI PROJECT

By: Rainforest Partnership • 800 W 34th St Suite # 105 • Austin, TX 78705

Summary 3

1. Introduction: Why Protect Tropical Rainforests? 5

2. Background - Rainforest Partnership and the Sani Isla Community 6 2.1 The Rainforest Partnership Model 6 2.2 The Sani Isla Community 8

3. Previous Efforts 9 3.1 Activities and Results in the Sani Isla Community 9 3.2 Impact of Previous Activities in Sani Isla 9

4. The Sani Warmi Project 10 4.1 Project Identification 10 4.2 Project Due Diligence 11 4.3 Funding – The Role of an Early Mover Foundation 12

5. Project Outcomes 13 5.1 Project Activities and Timeline 13 5.1.1 Phase I: 2010-2011 13 5.1.2 Phase II: 2012 16 5.1.3 Phase III: 2013 18 5.1.4 Phase IV: 2014 20 5.2 Threat of Imminent Oil Extraction, 2012-2014 21 5.3 Role of Technology 23 5.4 Economic Analysis 23 5.5 Social Impacts 24 5.6 Environmental Impacts 26 5.7 Role of Our Unique Model of NGO Partnership 27

6. Conclusion and Lessons Learnt 27

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Note: Appendices provided separately.

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The Partnership Model: If a rainforest is to be protected, it must be valuable to the people who live there. This usually means that the forest provides the local community with sustainable social and economic benefits. Rainforest Partnership (RP) works directly with rainforest communities to find opportunities in the forest to improve their standard of living and grow their economy sustainably. In partnership with local governmental and non-governmental organizations and working through established contacts that have already gained community trust, RP employs a collaborative, results-driven work model that provides these communities with an active role in the design and implementation of projects.

Project Description and Objectives: The Sani Warmi project, based on the traditional craft-making techniques of the women of Sani Isla, was developed in 2009, in collaboration with with the Ecuadorian indigenous community of Sani Isla and local nonprofit partner Conservación y Desarrollo (CyD). This project combined small business development, communication and outreach, and environmental education to provide the community with a basic income while promoting the recovery of native species and protecting the rainforest.

Project Outcome: The project has helped foster the sustainable production of elaborate and traditional Kichwa crafts made from seeds and fibers; increased community income; boosted the personal development of the women and empowered them; and strengthened the community’s resolve in standing up to outside forces that would extract oil on their community owned and titled land. It continues to play a large role in protecting over 50,000 acres of pristine rainforest lands from continuing threats from such outside interests that would otherwise damage and destroy their forest and their way of life. Further, the women of the Sani Warmi project earn a steady income, filling in the gaps for a community whose other income sources are highly seasonal.

Innovation in the Project: The project was developed with a relatively low cost-to-outcome ratio. Before

this project was developed, the women of Sani Isla had never before earned an income. Rainforest Partnership’s project-related expenditures over the course of 5 years totaled just over $200,000. By the 5th year the women collectively were earning almost $25,000 in annual ecotourism visitor fees and thousands more in the sales of their products. This income appears to be sustainable for the foreseeable future.

SUMMARY

INNOVATIONS AND NOTABLE STEPS

Finding the opportunity. The Sani community already owned Sani Lodge, an ecolodge located on the Napo river, about two hours by boat from Coca. As it is fairly accessible from Quito for those wanting to visit a rainforest and stay at an indigenous community-owned ecolodge, this had the potential to provide a steady stream of customers interested in local handicrafts. Lodge tourism is strongly seasonal, but artisan goods could also be sold in Quito and other cities. Thus handicrafts represented an opportunity for both increasing the community’s income and diversifying its income sources. In addition, the lodge only employed a few members of the community, and tourists had long asked why the women of the community were not working.

Making the agreement. RP worked as an equal partner with CyD and the community. The partners negotiated and signed multi-party agreements that

voted on in general assembly by the Sani Isla community. The vote considered both the nature of the project (a women’s artisan project managed by the women) and the partners (CyD and RP). This is common practice in RP projects.

Community management. The women had a strong say in the management structure from the beginning and insisted on making decisions as a group (some of which had to be revisited). Most of the women could not read, write, or do arithmetic consistently, but had natural leadership and organizational skills. Their lack of education or prior experience did not prevent them from managing themselves effectively. They made sound decisions on a variety of issues, including profit-sharing among program participants and travel for participants to improve marketing opportunities. They also created their own leadership structure. Once the women started earning stable incomes, the men gave them noticeably more support and respect.

Managing the partnership. There was mutual trust and respect between CyD and RP and this allowed for a very different relationship than the norm which is that of a funder and a subcontractor. In particular, it allowed RP and CyD to give most of the decision-making authority to the women themselves.

For example, although shy and indirect in their communication, the women made it clear that they could not start making or selling handicrafts until an artisan house was built. This would give them a place of their own to gather for meetings, cooking, working, and taking care of their children. The house was eventually used to display and sell artisan products and receive ecotourism guests on cultural visits. It took a leap of faith for RP to fund this ahead of any other indication that the women were committed to this project.

Some decisions required negotiation among the partners but more importantly, it required listening to what the women wanted. At the beginning of the project, CyD and RP agreed to fund a community-

based project coordinator – a woman from the community with some basic education – to work closely with the women. The women later voted to reduce her role and pay due to her lack of respect for the group of mostly older women. After careful observation and consideration, CyD and RP staff supported the group in making these changes. Similarly, in December 2012, the women asked for a project coordinator that would spend a majority of her time working with them in the community so that outsiders wouldn’t confuse them. CyD and RP agreed to do this by changing the project management model even as it meant phasing out CyD’s role in the project. This eventually gave way to a respected and trained project coordinator from the community to start working with the women in 2014.

Although largely self-managing, the women still needed some help. When CyD and RP found that the women were having difficulty pricing their goods, CyD obtained permission for each woman to visit Quito (most of them for the first time) to learn about the market for their products and their competitors, and to learn the appropriate cost of their wares. This alleviated the pricing problem and improved decision making.

Changes in practice. RP’s experience with the Sani Warmi suggested some changes in practice for future projects, including:

• Providing leadership training for project leaders;

• Requiring that formal agreements with the elected chief of the community be reviewed on an annual basis, and more often during times of crisis or intense pressure and following new elections; and

• Providing a community-based project coordinator who is able to work with both the community and with government agencies and other NGOs and communicate effectively and help connect products to markets.

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1. INTRODUCTION:Why Protect Tropical Rainforests?

Protecting tropical forests is a global imperative. Making up less than 2 percent of the surface area of the planet, tropical rain forests play a disproportionate and outsized role in stabilizing climate, regulating water cycles, and hosting rich biodiversity including nearly 80 percent of plant species. Forests are a crucial “carbon sink” that absorb and store carbon. The Amazon alone is estimated to contain 90-140 billion tons of carbon, which is roughly equivalent to 9-14 decades of global human-created carbon emissions.

Deforestation of rainforests simultaneously releases carbon and removes the immense carbon sequestration ability of these dense ecosystems. Almost 17 percent of global carbon emissions come from the burning and cutting of these forests; this is higher than emissions from the entire transportation sector including planes, cars, trains, and ships. Unless there is a drastic reduction in the release of these emissions, it will be difficult to keep global average temperatures from rising. Furthermore, the Amazon alone is responsible for approximately 8 trillion tons of water evaporation each year, which has a critical influence on global atmospheric circulation.

The Sani Isla forest is located at the borders of two protected areas, the Yasuní National Park and Cuyabeno Nature Reserve. This area is recorded as one of the most biologically diverse areas in the world. The Yasuní National Park in Ecuador is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and has more biodiversity per hectare (2.47 acres) than there is in all of the USA and Canada combined: 644 species of trees and 100,000 species of insects. The region is home to 550 species of birds, 80 species of bats, 105 species of amphibians and at least 20 threatened species of mammals.

But this area, like the rest of the Ecuadorian Amazon, is threatened with deforestation. Ecuador loses 3% of its rainforest each year – at 300,000 hectares per year, one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation. Current threats to the Sani Isla forest area include oil exploration and production resulting in damage to the forest and water resources; building of roads; inefficient land use and in-migration of people who practice unsustainable agriculture.

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2.1 THE RAINFOREST PARTNERSHIP MODEL

Rainforest Partnership, founded and headquartered in Austin, Texas in December 2007, is a U.S.-based international nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect and regenerate tropical rainforests by working with the people of the forests to develop sustainable livelihoods that empower and respect both people and nature. This direct work with rainforest communities is supported by increasing awareness globally about the importance of tropical rainforests and actions taken by people around the world to reduce deforestation and degradation.

RP helps the people who live in the rainforest find a way to make a living while preserving the forest. If we are to find long-term, sustainable solutions to climate change, then conservation and economic development must work hand in hand.

RP’s objective is to support projects that simultaneously address the protection of forests while also reducing the detrimental effects of deforestation and degradation and support long-term sustainable economic growth. The approach is bottom-up, results-driven, and above all, collaborative in nature. By working at the community level, the organization is best positioned to support activities that are cost-effective, impactful, and respectful of local culture and interests.

We help the communities revive and create products made out of raw materials endemic to the forest and develop services that are unique to the region. The culture and expertise of the community, the market opportunities for their products and services locally and beyond, as well as the community’s desires and existing economic practices all guide our exploration of potential income sources.

Community Selection

Prior to selecting this specific project, RP engaged in its community selection and project selection process. This included:

1. Identification of an indigenous community looking for a basic, alternative and sustainable income source rather than a devastating (although sometimes more lucrative in the short term) income source;

2. Getting to know the community and other potential partners, to ensure common goals that were aligned to allow all to work together;

3. Identification of an income source that (1) would draw on the resources of the forest itself, (2) and were consistent with the community’s culture, experience, and skills, and (3) that would provide opportunities for sustainable markets;

4. Negotiation and acceptance of a formal partnership agreement among all parties;

5. Development of the project itself, including funding and implementation.

Between steps 1 and 2, RP used its community selection criteria before advancing to stage 3. There was an extensive evaluation of the Sani Isla community based on the Community Selection Criteria (see appendices) devised by RP as the organization began to actively seek out partner communities with whom to work. These criteria followed many of the same principles as the project design standards set out by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA).

The most critical criteria addressed included:

• details about the geographical location of the community, basic physical parameters, current land use and location in relation to protected area; community ownership of the land or control over activities on the land;

• level of threat to the existing forest from land use changes and in-migration from surrounding areas;

• basic socioeconomic information and community buy-in to a potential project;

• existence of a mechanism for members to express concerns and objections about a project;

Rainforest Partnership and the Sani Isla Community2. BACKGROUND:

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• potential for positive impacts on social and economic wellbeing;

• local, regional and national political environment;• ability to measure and monitor project activities

and outcomes;• existence of local partners with established trust

relationships with the community;• whether the community was considering a

project not undertaken before.

The RP model is to partner with the local community at every step of the process, from project design through implementation and beyond. Local decision- making processes are respected and incorporated into the development process. This type of bottom -up approach is more effective and it also ensures that the communities RP partners with are fully committed to the project’s success. Forming strategic partnerships and leveraging the knowledge and resources of its staff, partner communities and partner institutions, and strategic experts in key program areas allows RP to achieve high-impact results at low cost.

This approach emphasizes effectiveness in achieving impact over expedience in getting a project started and in action quickly, and stands in contrast with top-down approaches that begin with a specific solution already in mind, and focus on implementation of that solution in different locales, with minor customizations to fit local conditions.

This evolutionary, adaptive approach is of high importance where proven, replicable solutions are not yet available. Top-down approaches in these situations are considerably less likely to be adopted by the local community, and thus more likely to fail to achieve the full impact intended.

A collaborative approach addresses this pitfall by (1) customizing the solution to the needs and capacities of the specific community, and (2) preparing the group for implementation of the solution by building trust and incorporating their input and ideas into the design.

Although specific performance measures vary from one project to the next, the principal objectives are the same for all RP projects:

• Earning an income for the rainforest community in a sustainable way, while

• Protecting the rainforest from deforestation.Thus in all projects, RP must ensure that the project is providing the residents of a community with enough of a basic income that the community would find it in their economic interest to protect the rainforest. This would allow them to reach their stated goal: not remove or deplete the forest themselves, and successfully resist efforts of others to remove or deplete it.

For this case study, a number of methods were employed to collect information. Along with a review of all the archived files and records related to this project, a series of in-person and Skype interviews were conducted. These interviewees included Niyanta Spelman, RP’s executive director; Hazel Barbour, RP’s board chair who had visited the project site in person; Dave Lyon, The Tomberg Family Philanthropies’ board member; 2013-2014 project coordinator Liz Andrade; Jose Valdivieso, executive director of CyD; and Fredy Gualinga, a male community member of Sani Isla who was a great proponent of the project and who managed Sani Lodge. A detailed literature review was also conducted in order to put the Sani Isla project in the proper regional and global context.

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2.2 THE SANI ISLA COMMUNITY

Sani Isla is a small indigenous Kichwa community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It is located between Yasuní National Park and the Cuyabeno Natural Reserve in the Orellana Province, in the farthest eastern corner of Ecuador, not far from the Peruvian and Colombian borders. Sani Isla rests along the Napo River which flows away from the eastern slopes of the Andes through the Amazon towards Peru. The Sani Isla community has legal land rights to 20,567 hectares, some of which lie in the Yasuní National Park, and have informal claims to another 42,000 hectares. The Kichwa were traditionally a nomadic culture relying on a mixture of hunting, fishing, foraging and agriculture. Once resources began to diminish in an area, the group would move on, allowing the forest to close in once again. With the establishment of primary schools and health centers in various indigenous communities, the nomadic behavior decreased over time as people began to concentrate around community centers.

The Kichwa economy has now shifted from hunting and foraging to agriculture, which is centered on chakras, or small family plots. The chakras are planted on a rotating basis, with production continuing for 2 to 7 years before the chakra is abandoned, allowing soils to recuperate. Chakras provide

products for consumption, medicine, construction, art and ornaments and are celebrated for their high agrobiodiversity and natural resource recovery.

It was not until 1972 that the area we now know as Sani Isla was named after Sani (a brown colored seed) and Isla (a small island) on the Napo River where the tree bearing the seed grew. Initially settled by three families, Sani Isla today boasts 75 families and 550 inhabitants.

Among those 75 families, like most rural populations of the world, gender is a large factor in the division of roles, responsibilities, and skills. Cultural traditions are very important to the Kichwa and those traditions often exclude women from the decision- making process. Community-wide decisions are made in a general assembly in which everyone has a vote. Nevertheless, women are often in the shadows of their husbands and do not provide opinions easily. In addition, hunting and fishing, collection of structural materials and fibers, and the sale of any surplus are all male-dominated activities. Women are primarily responsible for raising children, tending chakras, cooking, and taking care of the home. They also typically collect seeds and fiber for ornamental purposes on an individual basis. Thus, the ability of women to create forest income in these traditional roles is very limited.

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3. PREVIOUS EFFORTS

3.1 ACTIVITIES IN THE SANI ISLA COMMUNITY

In 1998 Sani Isla community leaders made an agreement with Occidental Petroleum, a U.S.-based oil company, to accept $1.5 million for construction of an ecolodge. In exchange, the oil company would gain the right to explore for oil within the Sani Isla community-owned territory. The funds were used to build Sani Lodge with much of the labor provided by the community itself, and the lodge was completed in 2000 and was for many years the only ecolodge in Ecuador that was owned, operated, and managed by an indigenous local community. Fortunately for the Sani Isla community, Occidental Petroleum did not find oil in Sani Isla and moved on.

Before working with Occidental Petroleum, the community, by their own admission, did not fully understand the detrimental effects of oil exploration on sensitive rainforest lands, their health, and their way of life. Although the Occidental agreement had little effect on Sani Isla, other similar agreements in adjacent communities had a devastating effect. New roads brought colonists and land developers; drillers released toxic by-products into rivers; pipelines leaked oil into the forest. The worst effects were oil spills into the Rio Napo, the main source of drinking water for Sani Isla and other communities in the region.

At the same time, Sani Isla’s income became increasingly tied to the community-owned ecolodge. Many of the young community members became guides and became increasingly aware of the risks of oil extraction to their forests and their livelihood through their interactions with visiting ecotourists.

The Sani Lodge thus ended up being a fortunate outcome to what could have been a more detrimental agreement. The funding from the oil company was invested in the lodge itself, shepherded by a few visionary and respected elders in the community. The lodge’s business plan depended on keeping the area’s natural resources intact, and signified a concrete commitment to conservation. Despite the environmental degradation nearby, the lodge was successful and its revenues were used for the

benefit of the entire Sani Isla community, as they continue to do so to the present time.

CONSERVACIÓN Y DESAROLLO

Conservación y Desarrollo (CyD) is an Ecuadorian nonprofit with 23 years of experience in conservation and social project management. They have trained over 15,000 farmers and since 2006 the organization had been working with the people of Sani Isla in building capacity in ecotourism and cacao production.

With funding provided by the Initiative for the Conservation of the Andean Amazon (ICAA), a program financed by the USAID, CyD has worked with Sani Lodge, training its employees in hospitality. By 2010 the lodge had 20 men working in positions such as tour guides and wait staff and 4 women taking care of the laundry on a rotational basis. The community decides as a whole as to which members hold these positions and rotates them on a six-month to one-year basis.

CyD has also played a large role teaching the community about sustainable agricultural practices. Research suggests that cacao (the product from which chocolate and cocoa butter are made) is thought to be one of the most biodiversity-friendly crops in the tropics. When grown in shade, it can also serve as a critical buffer zone to pristine forests. This serves as a way for communities with land rights living between and in protected areas, like Sani Isla, to develop economically while maintaining high rates of biodiversity in their landscape. CyD worked to create a cacao cooperative in the community, training them in production methods, offered technical assistance in the building of drying facilities and storage centers, and facilitating market access.

3.2 IMPACT OF PREVIOUS ACTIVITIES IN SANI ISLA

The Sani Lodge continues to be a dynamic asset for Sani Isla. An average of 1,200-1,300 visitors come to the lodge every year with the desire to experience the Amazon in a pristine setting.

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4. THE SANI WARMI PROJECT

need for additional sources of sustainable revenue.

Sani Isla has historically produced cacao for both its subsistence and more recently for outside markets. The production of cacao plantations in Ecuador is rising and the country has been recently applauded for some of the best chocolate in the world. It is however a very volatile commodity due to world market factors and due to the impact of infestations of Moniliophthora perniciosa (the fungus known as Witches’ Broom). Furthermore, Sani Isla’s local markets have proven to more widely accept rice and maize over cocoa. As a result, Sani Members have been reluctant to widely adopt a crop that has the potential to surpass local demand.

However, the income from the lodge is limited in the number of families that benefit from employment there in any given year. In order to maintain continuous quality service, it is impractical to rotate employees faster than the current rate. This has created two sources of strain: 1) Just 32% of households a year see income from the project while 100% of the community is expected to make larger considerations to protect the area’s wildlife and forest (an opportunity cost in terms of potential forest products for sale); 2) A disproportionate number of employees are men and for years women were not allowed to participate at all. These two facts created some conflict and also opportunities surrounding economic and gender inequality. The community has long recognized a

4.1 PROJECT IDENTIFICATION

Sani Isla was ready for the implementation of a new project with a more inclusive scope. After the construction of the Sani Lodge the majority of community members did not have a sustainable source of income. Uncertainty around providing proper food, clothing, and education still posed a consistent threat for those without sustainable incomes in the community. Men were left with the choice to make small incomes from growing cacao or other crops or work in nearby oil fields by moving away for periods at a time. Women had even fewer options to create independent incomes due to their responsibilities at home. In fact, before their inclusion in the Sani Lodge the women of Sani Isla had never earned incomes.

The Sani Lodge programming included a variety of different guided exploration opportunities for tourists to take advantage of. Visitors could engage in bird and other flora and fauna watching, hikes, sight seeing, and cultural heritage activities. A large draw to the ecolodge was the ability to experience an indigenous community-owned ecolodge in such a pristine setting. Guides for the lodge also recognized the attraction for tourists to understand their culture and at times took visitors to their family’s homes to try new foods and learn about their lifestyles. The lodge offered culture tours to the nearby Napo Wildlife Center to their Sani lodge visitors to. Tourists

often asked where the women worked and what they did. This collectively seeded the idea for this project.

A few guides had the idea to more formally organize the women around activities associated with demonstrating culture through song and dance, food, and crafts. Just up the Napo River at the Napo Wildlife Center, the Kichwa community of the Añangu, was having success with their project that promoted cultural preservation, conservation, and tourism. Sani Isla wanted to develop a similar project. A women’s group already existed in the community, however its members had never dedicated themselves to any business development activity before. The group had always collected forest products for themselves, but never for sale.

Internally, the ad hoc nature of home visits in Sani Isla from tourists was creating conflict. Only a few homes were receiving visitors that would pay for food or artisanal products while the rest of the community was left out of the potential income stream. Meanwhile, pressure for a new agreement was growing from other oil companies, eager to continue exploring where Occidental had left off. The community quickly realized that a women’s project would solve the unequal nature of the home visits and they voted to implement the project.

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Independent of earlier developments in Sani Isla, Niyanta Spelman, Executive Director of Rainforest Partnership, was building relationships with potential partnership organizations while visiting Ecuador from February-April of 2008. After speaking with Luis Felipe Duchicela of Rainforest Alliance (RA), the ICAA-funded project, Rainforest Partnership was introduced to Conservación y Desarrollo, a subcontractor to RA. Both RP and CyD found common interest in preserving primary rainforests, managing secondary rainforests, and reducing poverty and supporting sustainable livelihoods for those living in or near those areas. On April 25, 2008 the two organizations signed an agreement to work together leveraging CyD’s project

management history and relationships in Ecuador with RP’s funding and project support in search of a new venture that supported each organization’s common goals. After reviewing a number of communities, CyD identified Sani Isla as a community where RP’s partnership model could have the potential for a successful outcome. While looking to identify communities that wanted to partner on a project such as one that the CyD and RP partnership envisioned, the Sani Isla project made the most sense from among others that were earlier considered and rejected. Suddenly there was an alignment between each entity’s respective goals and the Sani Warmi project was born.

4.2 PROJECT DUE DILIGENCE

As a requisite for involvement with the project, Rainforest Partnership performed an analysis of the community’s political, socio-economic, and environmental circumstances. RP also considered the needs, knowledge, and goals of its partners before any agreement was formed. Initially, any project RP adopts must meet these 4 criteria before a more in-depth study of the community could be undertaken:

• There must be either an immediate or future threat posed to the natural rainforest or an opportunity to reforest/regenerate without threat to the primary forest;

• The community’s members must explicitly express support both for the project and partnering with RP;

• The community must have legal rights to the land or control over the project area land to be protected or control over the land in some respect; and

• There must be a sustainable and marketable product or service available to generate income.

After an assessment of these merits RP was able to make recommendations to its board of directors for project approval. The initial RP visit to Ecuador and ongoing communication with CyD helped identify many of the necessary requirements for project execution; however, a community visit was deemed necessary to assure consensus. After the Executive Director and a board member visited the community in July of 2009 RP had assurance that the necessary conditions existed to execute the project.

During the visits made by CyD and RP the women in the community expressed their desire to focus on revitalizing traditional handicrafts. The art of making these products was in danger of being lost due to the availability of less expensive plastic goods on the market and a loss of interest amongst the younger generation. There was also a shame in being associated with their identity of being a native individual from a forest indigenous community, long imposed by outside society. The handicrafts could provide a new income stream from sustainably sourced forest materials and help promote traditional artisan practices of the Kichwa while bringing pride back into their self identity, forest home, way of life, and knowledge.

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4.3 FUNDING: THE ROLE OF AN EARLY MOVER FOUNDATION

A crucial component of any successful project is funding. This is especially important for a small international nonprofit such as Rainforest Partnership. RP’s model is “bottom-up” and “results driven” and allowed the organization to implement the Sani Warmi project at relatively small cost. Low overhead, combined with effective project management and investment was the overall strategy for economic success. RP is dedicated to long-term, capacity-building project delivery in Sani Isla and the ability to do so was dependent on a consistent funding source. The cornerstone for successful implementation of the project was the dedication of The Tomberg Family Philanthropies (TFP) to RP and the community of Sani Isla. By making dependable grant funding over the course of 5 years, TFP enabled the project to come to fruition.

The steady infusion of funds from the TFP allowed the project to grow and continuously evolve to its

successful current state. TFP was an early mover in the case of RP, a new organization with a new model. The model of working at the community level, in direct partnership with the community might seem the most logical straightforward model. However, in practice few NGOs implement their own projects. For example, most U.S. and European NGOs subcontract to local in-country NGOs. The difference in RP’s model was the partnership aspect where each partner had a specifically outlined role to play and each was equally responsible for the successful outcome of the project. In addition, each partner also provided in-kind support in various forms to make the project successful.

This in-kind support greatly enhanced the effectiveness of the funds provided by the TFP grants. RP also had to raise funds from other sources for funding the Sani Warmi project but having the crucial anchor funding from the TFP allowed the project to succeed. In fact, the first grant was essential in getting this started. All the other preparatory work had been completed and only the RP funding piece remained to be completed. The visionary and entrepreneurial nature of TFP’s decision to fund this project was crucial for this reason. It began by RP executive director Niyanta Spelman meeting the three board members of TFP and being invited to submit a proposal. Subsequently, the TFP designated one of its board members, Dave Lyon, to work directly with RP, offering advice and guidance from his own rich experience. It eventually led TFP to make grants through five funding cycles, something that was unusual for the foundation. But it was also prompted by the immense success of the evolving project over the years, and the high rates of return it saw in the results.

Most foundations are cautious about new and unproven models and new NGOs. It takes an enlightened foundation to do the kind of evaluation that RP and CyD did in their exploration of a new model of working. And TFP, by supporting the Sani Warmi project, in essence did the same kind of analysis and risk taking to allow for this successful outcome.

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5. PROJECT OUTCOMES

5.1 PROJECT ACTIVITIES AND TIMELINE

The partnership with CyD in Ecuador allowed RP to make use of local coordinators to most effectively manage the logistical elements of the project. Leveraging CyD staff meant the presence of individuals on the ground skilled in cross- cultural communication and economic development who already had relationships with the Sani Isla artisan group and community members.

RP’s role was to provide and monitor project funds; CyD provided project coordination and administrative support and training in business skills and environmental impacts; both collaborated on project management. Ultimately, project management role shifted to just RP working directly with the project coordinators and the women of the Sani Warmi project.

5.1.1 PHASE I: 2010-2011

On March 15th 2010, CyD and RP signed an agreement to work with the Sani Isla community, shortly followed by a memorandum of understanding signed by representatives of the community itself. The first phase of the project was to build the necessary infrastructure and develop the basic skills necessary for the women to begin the organized production of their goods. The three initial objectives of this phase were to build a studio where goods could be manufactured and sold, identify and rescue plant species traditionally used for making artisan products, and develop the fabrication and negotiation techniques of 25 Kichwa women. The Tomberg Family Philanthropies also gave its first grant of $15,000 in March, 2010 to the project, which funded these first critical steps.

The women were a mixed group. They ranged in age from 13 to 60 years old, although most of them were over 40. Almost all of them had children; the average was seven children. Most women had some basic education, but only a few of the youngest ones had been to some high school. None had engaged in a business enterprise before; a few had earned a sporadic income from the Sani Isla ecolodge, but none had worked for money. All were more or less skilled in the primary roles of Kichwa women: gardening, cooking, and childrearing. And all had internalized the Kichwa cultural norms for women when around outsiders: Stay quiet, defer to the men, avoid conflict when possible and don’t look anyone in the eye.

The Completed Studio

Although the completion date of the studio was originally slated for December of 2010 as part of the initial project plan, the women made it clear that the studio was absolutely critical for the rest of

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the project to function. If the women were to be working on the artisan project they needed a place to continue their other responsibilities of cooking and looking after their children. They also wanted a place of their own over using the community center that would always belong to the community and not them. Taking this feedback into consideration, RP realized that without a communal space to operate in outside of their households, it would be impossible for the women to devote the time necessary for the project. For RP, it was a leap of faith to fund this ahead of any assurance that the women would rally around the project but it was a necessary step that had to be well considered to establish trust and also provide what the women needed to make the project work. So the community, RP and CyD rallied around this necessity and the studio was constructed and equipped with the necessary tools for craft production by July 2010, five months ahead of schedule.

The sustainable use of plant species necessary for the handicrafts was a critical element to the future success of the women’s enterprise. The women realized early on that their current foraging techniques could not meet the needs of production. October of 2010 was the beginning of planting season and CyD and RP took the opportunity to develop a plan to build a nursery of plants solely devoted to the project. These included plants that were traditionally used for making crafts such as Calmito, Tahua, Pita and Shinguago muyu. The CyD project coordinator created a systematic database of species and their biological information in both Spanish and English in order to educate both the women’s group and future visitors about how the handicrafts were made. The nursery could not hold all the plants necessary for production so each member of the group was responsible to cultivate and care for the plants in individual plots, for which they were given a workshop to help them understand the techniques. Between the nursery and the new plots around 2,000 plants were being cultivated by the end of the year.

In July 2010, CyD arranged the first introductory workshop for the women’s group; it went on all day. This was attended by CyD, RP, and the women of the Sani Warmi project as well as some men from the Sani Isla community. All morning, the men did the talking. The women barely spoke. They were in their newly built artisan house which they took obvious pride in. They had arrived with their children and with food supplies and were cooking for everyone in one half of the artisan house. They had seemed ready to participate but they wouldn’t speak.

Then came the afternoon and the consultant leading the workshop asked the women what made them rich and what made them poor; what was their five-year vision. A few women ventured tentative opinions. They said nobody had ever asked them what they thought; they didn’t know whether they even had opinions. Then, suddenly, the floodgates opened. Why were they poor? Too many children, old houses, not enough chickens. Women in their 50s and 60s wished they had an education. What made them rich? Their forests and the plants and animals in it. Some of the women couldn’t read or write, so they drew pictures. The five-year visions were grand and simple. Swimming pools vying with beautiful flowers around their artisan house. For the first time, the women had found their voices. It was a remarkable watershed moment for the project, and for the women owning their project and their destiny. RP’s executive director was able to witness this critical workshop and this monumental breakthrough. (Workshop storyboard available in appendices, and the video of the women group’s five year vision is linked here).

There was no turning back now. The women created their own governance structure for the Sani Warmi project. The women’s group would have a president, a treasurer and a secretary. The president, an annually elected position, would play an important role in the success of the Sani Warmi project. RP and CyD began with a community-based project coordinator who was also going to be in Quito. The women voted for this project coordinator since she had

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basic education, ability to use computers, ability to communicate and do basic project management functions. The project coordinator worked directly with the CyD project manager. However, it wasn’t long before the women asked for both a reduction in her salary and eventually voted to have her removed from the project; this was mainly because of her lack of respect for the mostly older women. The women came up with a new model. They would have a rotating president of the Sani Warmi project that would be paid a very basic income to do the coordination activities.

Over the following months, 12 workshops were held on different topics related to manufacturing, negotiations, and the environment. The women were instructed how to improve their manufacturing skills and how to better work with seeds, fibers, wood and other natural products from the forest used to make necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Environmental education focused on the role of the nursery in protecting the rest of the forest from overuse.

Workshops also addressed price-setting for products, negotiation with tourists, selling skills, and general rules for dealing with foreigners. During this time RP also evaluated the workshops and actively solicited and participated in getting and responding to the community’s feedback working with CyD.

In 2011, the same year that the women started selling their products at Sani Lodge, it also marked it as the year when the women’s products were represented to a larger audience at an international level. Apart from being shown at RP’s Second Annual Fundraising Dinner in Austin, the products were also sold through RP partner PanamaBoutique.com on a small scale and they were received well. In fact, RP was able to completely sell out the small inventory of the products (shigras or bags, necklaces and bracelets) that had been sent from Ecuador. This provided feedback to the project process in ensuring that the women got adequate training in understanding how national and international markets function.

Sani Warmi products Products on display

The year 2011 consisted of an expansion of business- related objectives and the continued support for the care of the nursery. New objectives for the year included strengthening administrative skills and creating a better understanding of the craft supply chain in Ecuador.

In January crafts were put on display in cases and marked the first time tourists were invited

to the studio to observe and purchase crafts. Workshops held in March and July continued to focus on price setting while exploring the importance of reinvesting profits back into the women’s group. The women started implementing a mixed economics model, where they could sell crafts as both individuals and as a group. The profits from the group sales were saved so they could be used to buy more materials

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and travel as well as petrol for the canoes that transported the women from both sides of the river to the artisan house. Defining ownership of the nursery and demonstrating how to collectively create savings as a business were the precursors to large gains in project sustainability made later.

For the remainder of the year, workshops were held on pricing, price negotiation, project administration, and simple accounting as well as team building. The women learned to express their ideas more openly and understood the importance of internal communications between themselves and the group president. It was important to continue to support this development of internal communications in the group as well as communicating externally with the rest of the community.

A considerable amount of time was spent on discussing the valuation of products. Trips were made to the nearby town of Coca (a 3-hour boat ride) to understand the price and quality of similar products. The women began considering the amount of time each piece required in terms of material collection and assembly when setting their prices. They slowly began to realize that they were undervaluing their work. Steadily the quality and rate of production increased in 2011 and the group nearly doubled in size from 15 to 29 women.

In order for the artisan studio to serve the women of the project, a kitchen had been included so the women could cook while they were working. As the

studio began to attract tourists, the tourists began to sample traditional Kichwa dishes such as the maito. Eventually, this evolved into an expanded cultural experience with cooking demonstrations and full meals. Amidst these accomplishments the group found limitations in basic addition, subtraction and multiplication. These became key skill sets to address in future project planning.

In June, members of the Sani Warmi project traveled to Quito to participate in the Socio Bosque (“Forest Partners”) conference and present their craftwork to a larger audience. Leonor Zambrano from CyD created a promotional video on YouTube during the conference. The video highlights the artisan crafts, the partnership with RP and the conference. Videos like this were important as Sani Isla worked to develop a web presence.

In 2011, CyD worked with hotels in Quito that, as part of their Smart Voyager ecotourism certification, needed to sell sustainable products. A number of these hotels expressed interest in having the Sani Isla artisan products on display and for sale. CyD also worked with the Municipality of Quito as it passed an ordinance that required all hotels to sell artisan products.

RP also had an opportunity to partner with the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Agriculture to collect plastic bags so that they could be brought to Sani Isla for making recycled plastic bag shigras. This initiative continued in 2012.

5.1.2 PHASE II: 2012

In February of 2012, CyD and RP signed an agreement to begin the second phase of the collaboration between the two organizations in Sani Isla. After two years of work it had become clear that business acumen was one of the largest hindrances to the sustainability of the project. One of the greatest challenges was that the women had been marginalized from economic activities in terms of managing cash flow and making connections outside of the community. The updated objectives for this phase were to expand workshops for the women on business and personal development, improve and increase artisan craft production, develop larger-scale

relationships in national and international markets, and further promote the group’s autonomy.

In March and April, CyD and RP developed a project program, which introduced commercialization and marketing with a focus on conservation. The project combined market tours and methodology developed by CyD to give the women tools to understand how prices, product quality, and demand play out in a variety of different potential retail scenarios. Just as a program that was originally developed by CyD for cacao producers, it made sense to apply this methodology to the women’s project.

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An initial visit by a marketing consultant with expertise working with indigenous communities working with CyD was made to the community to give workshops on the hidden costs (i.e. conservation, health, and quality of life) associated with the overproduction of crafts. This marketing professional came along with the CyD team to familiarize himself with the community and the products they were creating.

The following week, 20 women made a learning trip to Quito, to familiarize themselves first hand with the craft goods supply chain. The project coordinator was careful to obtain permission from each woman’s husband or father; for most of the women, this was their first trip to a big city. This trip took a lot of effort to plan while managing the sensitivity of taking indigenous women out of their community as a group. The intention was to expose the women to places where goods such as theirs were sold and to help them understand pricing, quality, and competition.

In Quito, they visited craft stores in Mariscal (the main tourist center in Quito) and vendors in the Centro de Artesanias (Quito’s craft center). This visit was critical for the women in seeing that there was competition for their products and to see how their prices compared with those from other communities while also introducing them to a world outside of their jungle homes. This allowed them to see the price difference between low and high quality crafts, form opinions about where they would like to see their products, and create relationships with future clients. This was enlightening to them in many ways and it made conversations about pricing, evolving designs and learning new skills easier in the future.

In June, twelve of the women were also able to visit the neighboring women’s group of the Añangu to compare prices, organization, and presentation of local goods and culture.

Subsequently, RP and CyD finished the comprehensive marketing strategy for the women’s group, which analyzed the state of the Sani Warmi project. By visiting the community and traveling with them on their market visit, a strengths/weaknesses and opportunities/threats analysis was conducted. The report made suggestions on product slogans and packaging, where to sell which type of products, what prices to set at different locations, and what each location was selling apart from the Sani Warmi crafts. The report was highly useful for the community, CyD, and RP alike. It served as an important benchmark to compare progress as the women continued to evolve their craft and business.

It was throughout 2012 that the women began to self-organize in meaningful ways. Without prompting, the women voted on a president and treasurer as before, but also self organized themselves into five work groups. Each week a different group, lead by a voted upon group leader, would maintain the nursery and artisan studio, receive guests and facilitate communication with the Sani Lodge. After a period of negotiations with the Sani Lodge management, an agreement was made to receive visitors from the lodge on set days and the work group for the week would receive these guests at specific times. (It is important to note that the women still didn’t have enough social power to negotiate in their own right and needed RP and CyD to do so on their behalf.)

Some of the Sani Warmi Group Members with RP’s Executive Director

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This guaranteed that prepared food and crafts would be available on time and that no waste would be created on days that visitors did not come nor would the women be waiting all day not knowing if any tourists were coming or not. The lodge also agreed to provide a per tourist fee to the Sani Warmi group so that regardless of what sales were made that day from sale of artisan products, an income was always created to pay for the food and entertainment the women were providing for their guests. This was another milestone for the women. It provided recognition by the Sani Lodge management and the

community at large of the importance of what the women were providing to visiting ecotourists: not just authentic goods, but a glimpse into their homes and their lives.

This system in turn has worked out well for the women and has served to further empower them and add to their sense of responsibility and project ownership. A huge highlight for the women was the sales of more than $600 in one day when a medical mission group of 30 people visited them in March 2012 and promised to return in 2013.

5.1.3 PHASE III: 2013

The beginning of 2013 marked the end of CyD’s direct involvement with the Sani Warmi project. Towards the end of 2012, CyD was only visiting the community an average of once per month and their proposed project coordination costs for 2013 were too high to sustain the project against available funding that RP had secured. In December of 2012, the leaders of the Sani Warmi project asked for a community-based project coordinator. The biggest reason for their direct request was for more involved support so that, in the words of one of the most respected natural leaders in the community, Guadalupe, outsiders would not confuse them. It was evident to RP and to the women of Sani Warmi that they needed a more constant and stable project coordination presence. But they also needed someone who could represent them in Quito, communicate on their behalf, help them understand and manage their bank account. The women may not have been confident in managing their own affairs, but they were always very aware of what was going on, including exactly how much money they had earned and how much was in their account.

It was important to the Sani women to continue to work with someone they knew they could trust. This led to the identification of a new project coordinator who had worked for the Sani Lodge and spent large amounts of time in the community over a number of years. An agreement was made for the new project coordinator, Liz Andrade, to spend three days a week working on the Sani Warmi project and

2 days a week at the Sani Lodge. The lodge would continue to provide office space, transportation to the community, and food and lodging for her while she was in the community.

The increased presence of a project coordinator in the community with RP providing direct project management meant that the Sani Warmi group was able to make significant progress in their business. The women were given more training on arithmetic, accounting, and strengthening their business acumen.

RP created a new marketing plan to expand the operations of Sani Warmi. Liz Andrade was able to expand the sales of their products into two stores and two craft markets in Quito and increased their chances of earning reliable incomes. The stores included Café Gourment, in the tourist area of the city in the Zona Rosa and a museum store in Museo Mindalae, run by the Fundación Sinchi Sacha.

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The markets included one market near Museo Mindalae and also another market near a landmark Cathedral.

Investments back into the business helped its operation run more smoothly and expanded the potential for personal and business development. A gas refrigerator was bought to store foods for longer periods of time. Skype workshops were held and the project coordinator created a Facebook account, a Sani Warmi section on the ecolodge’s website, and a MS PowerPoint presentation about the group. The group’s logo was improved with the help of RP’s graphic designer. More physical promotional materials were also created including posters for stores, product catalogs, product marketing and roll up posters for fairs; these were designed at the RP office but with direct coordination and input with the Sani Warmi group.

An outside educator also taught leadership and ceramic classes to diversify the crafts that the women were creating. 24 women participated in basic ceramic classes and some of them continued to develop their skills with the instructor over a period of six months.

The main coordinator for Sani Warmi, Blanca Tapuy, also had the opportunity to travel to Quito for a number of conferences and workshops held by ICAA on themes of economic incentives for conservation and women’s indigenous leadership and equality. Four women from the group were also invited to participate in a set of regional government meetings that included the Provincial governments of Orellana, Sucumbios, Limoncocha and the Ministry of Industry and Productivity who conducted weaving and dyeing courses for artisans.

A major theme in 2013 and 2014 was the improvement of hospitality and services by the women for visitors. Project coordinator Liz Andrade was spending 10-

20 days at a time in the community and had a lot of trust from the Sani Warmi women. Thus, she was able to address a variety of issues with the group that they formerly did not feel comfortable with. Learning how to guide visitors from the Sani Lodge to the studio and communicating more confidently in Spanish and English, and improving the experience for visitors were critical to expanding as a business. Liz Andrade worked directly with the women to help formalize this process. A script was developed for the women on how to explain the production process and courses on receiving guests were administered. Repairs were made to the studio and regular cleaning was implemented. The preparation and presentation of food was also improved and a demonstration of the chocolate making process was also developed for the tourists. In 2013, a fishpond was created in collaboration with the U.S.-based NGO Wildlife Conservation Society to raise endemic fish species (cachama blanca, a close relative of the piranha) as sustainable food for consumption. Overall, this period was marked by the increased capacity of the business to produce higher quality products and experiences to a larger base of visitors.

In addition, this year marked the addition of two river cruise boats and two ecolodges that started to

Right, Blanca Tapuy, attending the ICAA conference in Lago Agrio.

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bring their guests to the women on a weekly basis, improving the women’s earnings considerably. This year marked a very different model for working on the project. Direct project involvement and management occurred from Austin with RP’s project

5.1.4 PHASE IV: 2014

An important development in 2014 was the promotion of Senaida Cerda Calapucha to the designation of the project coordinator for this project. At some point, there needed to be a transition for the project to someone within the community. Senaida had already been part of the Sani Warmi project as an artisan since its inception and she had experience working for the Sani Lodge, handling operations, sales, and accounting and had relationships with other eco-lodges and tourist groups. Senaida’s new role was a testament to the growth and empowerment of the women and a large step in their ownership of the Sani Warmi project and community owned business.

The women continued to work with the major tourist lodges and operators in the Yasuní region such as their own community-owned Sani Lodge, La Selva Lodge, Sacha Lodge and the two river cruise boats, Anaconda and Flotel Orellana. They reported a noticeable increase in incomes from earlier years (particularly in the months of July and August during high tourist season), even surpassing the income earned by some of the men. The Sani Warmi group was widely considered the best woman-operated initiative in the region. By the end of 2014, 80% of local tourism operators were visiting the Sani Warmi group.

In order to cater to the increasing number of visitors to the artisan studio, the women started growing fruits, palm, cassava and greens for preparing meals. The organic chocolate they prepared for the tourists was so well received that it inspired them to eventually expand the production of chocolate for sale in outside markets along with their handicrafts.

In 2014, the women continued to be invited to gatherings, fairs and conferences, now that their organization and their work had been introduced to many governmental, cultural, trade and other

Tourists at the artisan studio; Women performing for the tourists

coordinators and at some point almost entirely by the RP executive director Niyanta Spelman working directly with Liz Andrade as she went into hyper productive mode.

nonprofit organizations. Two of the women from the Sani Warmi group, Jasmine Aviles and Blanca Tapuy, had the opportunity to travel to Quito for the Kichwa Women’s Congress where they were able to attend sessions on women’s rights and progress. In Quito, Senaida had the opportunity to participate in a management-training workshop hosted by the USAID funded ICAA project and she and a few

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Participating in the GIZ workshop in Quito

women also attended a leadership workshop conducted by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

Since 2014, the business became much more self-sustaining. The necessity for ongoing funding dropped considerably, thus, RP did not apply for any additional grants for 2015. RP continued working with the project coordinator on a diminishing level through 2015.

5.2. THREAT OF IMMINENT OIL EXTRACTION IN SANI ISLA TERRITORY 2012-2014

The Yasuní National Park, which also overlaps a small part of the Sani Isla community territory lies over an estimated 800 million barrels of crude oil; crude oil forms 20% of Ecuador’s oil reserves. In 2007, Ecuador President Rafael Correa started a remarkable and unprecedented initiative called the Yasuní-ITT which specified that Ecuador would forgo the exploitation of oil on the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini oil fields underlying the Yasuní National park but with involvement and investment from the global community. The project’s official launch took place in 2010, with the motive of protecting Ecuador’s natural resources which are of global significance in terms of their biodiversity and carbon sequestration. In return for conserving this area, Ecuador asked for the payment of U.S. $3.6 billion from the international community. This was an innovative idea for both protecting an intensely biodiverse area while providing some level of economic support to the country forgoing this income. But by 2012, only U.S. $200 million was pledged towards this initiative in spite of prolonged negotiations and finally in 2013, President Correa announced that the ITT initiative would be abandoned and the country would continue to explore for oil in this region.

In parallel with the ongoing deliberations taking place at the national level, in the Sani Isla community the years 2012 and 2013 were marked with the threat of oil drilling by the state-run oil company Petro- Amazonas, which consistently sent representatives to the community offering money and goods in

exchange for exploration rights on their land. These intrusions from the oil company and the ensuing reactions from the community of Sani Isla were extensively documented in major news publications in Europe and South America, and most extensively by the UK-based The Guardian.

( h t t p : / / w w w . t h e g u a r d i a n . c o m /world/2013 /jan/13 /ecuadorian-tr ibe-die- fighting-rainforest & http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/17/indigenous- ecuadorian-tribe-oil-intrusion)

Before RP started working in Sani Isla, in 2009, and after, the community had twice considered oil exploration in the Sani Isla territory in response to the frequent overtures from the oil companies but both times, the community rejected such offers with an unanimous vote. In meetings held in October 2012, the community once again voted to keep oil extraction off their lands with an 80% majority vote. A tumultuous period ensued in Sani Isla around the time of this vote with conservation minded elders and young people alike going house to house and meeting with other members of the community as outside pressure increased. Against this backdrop, in December 2012, with these ongoing internal and external conflicts, the Sani Warmi women asked for a project coordinator that was based in Sani Isla and that would help them when outsiders were coming to their community and in their own words, confusing them.

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In early January, PetroAmazonas, with the backing of public security forces, threatened to begin prospecting in Sani Isla’s community forest land beginning January 15, 2013. When the community became aware of this and were shown the documents granting permission to begin oil exploration and extraction activities, they found that the permission had been given by their own elected community president, contrary to the community’s majority vote and contrary to Ecuadorian constitution that requires community consent before an oil company can explore or extract oil in an indigenous community’s community owned and titled land. In response to this threat, the community held an emergency general assembly on Sunday, January 13th and rejected the oil company’s proposal with an unanimous vote along with a decision and vote to replace the community elected president. The community also decided to take legal action against the oil company’s permission since the permission had not been legitimately granted by the previous president as it was contrary to the community’s majority vote.

Empowered by the on-going progress in the Sani Warmi project and having found a new voice in the community that they had not experienced before, the women were very active in organizing and educating the community about the dangers the oil extraction would bring. The women became some of the strongest voices against oil extraction in their territory. On January 16, 2013 the Sani Isla community went to court for an injunction against drilling. Avaaz, the global civic organization, also launched a petition asking President Correa to stop oil exploration in the Sani Isla community. They obtained more than 1 million signatures worldwide in support of the Sani Isla community.

Fredy Gualinga, who was then the manager of the Sani Isla ecolodge, and a former guide and community leader, commented on the oil threat (Link of the full video interview), “The Sani people have experience watching the bad experiences from oil in our neighboring communities. They (oil companies) create huge roads, like 40 meters wide. All the animals are gone. The people can’t fish – the fish are gone so the communities need to go into other areas to fish. The land is totally destroyed.

“We are so happy to continue working in our ecotourism project, which will help us to continue protecting and conserving forests for a long time. Our ecotourism project is working and the women have jobs from the artisan project. This money helps them buy food, send their children to school, and support their family.”

The powerful voices of the community prevailed and although no action was taken by a court since none accepted jurisdiction, the immediate threat was averted when the oil company stopped its immediate pursuit into the Sani territory.

But once again, this threat was upon the community . During the ensuing period, the community kept having visits from various personnel from oil companies. In the Fall of 2014, an oil company came and started clearing an area in Sani Isla creating much chaos within the community. Again, the oil company had a signed agreement with the community’s then-elected President. The community again voted to both replace and banish this president given that he, too, had signed an agreement contrary to the community’s vote during a general assembly. While the company cleared nine acres of land, some community members disabled the oil company’s equipment. The Ecuadorian government sent in personnel to stabilize the situation and also to protect the oil company’s equipment. Exploration was completed without further incident in December 2014, and Sani Isla seems to be left alone for now.

Although RP is not an activist organization and doesn’t directly work on fighting intrusions from outside forces, this threat was very real to the community of Sani Isla and to the Sani Warmi project as well as against the ideals and mission of RP. This is more so since the oil company was clearly coming in with letters of agreement granted by Sani Isla’s own elected presidents contrary to the community vote and contrary to the community’s governance structure and authority granted to an elected president of the community and hence ultimately and most importantly, contrary to the protections provided by the Ecuadorian constitution to an indigenous community over its community owned and titled land. RP played a significant role throughout this ordeal in supporting the community

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as it faced the threats from outside interests. RP remained actively engaged during this time via Skype, phone calls and emails, sometimes on a daily basis.

5.3. ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION IN THE RP WORKING MODEL

Technological advances in telecommunications have been the corner stone for success for RP’s projects and it is just as true for RP’s Sani Isla project. Working across the globe and across countries as RP does could have not occurred even ten years ago. Fast evolving technology and easy access to various modes of communication via Skype, Google Chat, Facebook messenger and a myriad of other platforms allows for daily and constant communication as necessary. Satellite internet has extended communication to the middle of the jungle where there aren’t any basic services or telecommunications.

Much of the success of RP’s model of working directly with rainforest communities and through in-country and community-based project coordinators is due to our ability to communicate efficiently and effectively. This includes the integrated project management structure at RP with project teams composed of members based in various places including RP’s headquarters in Austin, Texas; Lima, Peru; Quito and within the community or close to the community. It has also allowed the communities to be better connected to others outside of their own communities and become aware of their place in the global challenges against deforestation and efforts to protect forests. There is no longer a sense of isolation as before and it has also allowed the community to feel renewed sense of pride in their identity and indigenous roots. Ultimately this has been empowering to the communities like Sani Isla as well as the women.

Just as importantly, it is difficult for RP project coordinators to take on ivory tower mentality and attitudes when they have to work closely and almost daily with their counterparts across languages and

cultures and communication modes. It has allowed for cohesion in project coordination when RP also ensures certain characteristics and traits in its team members such as openness and humility and respect and acknowledgement of different kinds of expertise other than just educational ones afforded to its more college educated team members.

5.4. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

The Sani Warmi Project was widely considered a financial success by The Tomberg Family Philanthropies, Rainforest Partnership, Conservación y Desarrollo, and the community of Sani Isla. The project would not have been possible without the combination of low costs, major in-kind support by all three partners, cost effective work, and consistent funding. Resource allocation, both in terms of funding and personnel, was shared between RP, CyD, and the Sani Isla community, especially Sani Lodge.

Overall project cost was kept as low as possible through a variety of measures. RP spent a total of $204,431 from 2010 to 2014 in project-related expenses, coordination and monitoring, and direct project costs in Ecuador (Table 1). Large differences from year-to-year in terms of expenses and monitoring can be attributed to changes in RP staffing assigned to the project and the ratio of pro bono versus paid staff in a given year as well as changes in project management model as well as the evolving nature of the project. For example, in 2013 the RP executive director was responsible for a large portion of project management for Sani Warmi but her salary of a symbolic $1.00 a year made project management costs very low that year. The two years in terms of highest costs in Ecuador were 2010, when the studio was constructed, and in 2014, when RP began funding its own project coordinator on the ground; 2014 however had the most significant advances due to the maturity of the project and the project management model as well as the highly productive project coordinator. Monitoring costs were also kept low due to in-kind donations from the Sani Lodge for room and board for RP and CyD staff

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as well as significant in-kind from CyD and RP over the years.

Year Total Project cost 2010 $35,286 2011 $45,123 2012 $46,199 2013 $27,994 2014 $49,829

$204,431

Table 1: RP Project Expenses 2010-2014

The Tomberg Family Philanthropies gave a total of $57,500 from 2010 to 2014. Project expenses on the ground in Sani Warmi slowly dropped from 2010 to 2013 as the women began to make investments in their own business. Again, the 2014 increase is due to investments made on the more hands-on project coordinator. Shared risk was also a large factor in the success of the project. In order to ensure funds were being properly managed, CyD was only reimbursed for project expenses after the tasks had been completed and reported. CyD thus ran deficits periodically throughout the project until 100% of their spending could be accounted for. CyD also gave in-kind contributions in the form of administrative and upper-level management services associated with the project. RP’s executive director also gave in-kind donations of time, administrative services, and management throughout the entirety of the project. These measures were critical in keeping overall project costs to a minimum.

The Sani Isla group steadily grew in size as it continued to gain success. Over the course of 5 years the group went from 15 to 33 contributing community members. Weekly and monthly sales vary greatly for the group according to high and low tourist seasons. These correspond with the summer dry season (July-September) and rainy season (October-June). On high volume days the women collectively could earn as much as $300 to $400 in sales, excluding the flat $5 per visitor fee (Ecuador’s currency is the US dollar). In the summer of 2013 the women welcomed 1,024 visitors earning the group over $5,000 in fees alone. 2014 marked some of the greatest achievements for the business and the

numbers also reflect this. The Sani Warmi project welcomed an unprecedented 4,683 visitors to their studio. This earned the group of 33 women over $23,000 in visitor fees alone. During peak tourist season the group earned over $2,000 a month, surpassing the incomes earned by the men of the community. With this money the women were able to create a reinvestment fund. This funnels some of the profits towards ensuring financial security, addresses infrastructural needs of the project and funds trips to promote the group’s products in other provinces. RP’s project expenses increased from $27,994 in 2013 to $49,829 in 2014. The increased investment in the project coordinator on the ground was a critical element to the gains made by the Sani Isla business and built the necessary foundation for the now substantial and sustainable income for the community.

It is important to note that due to the high level of in-kind donations from each party, CyD, RP, and Sani Lodge, as well as the evolving nature of the project and hence project investment, as well as the changing project management model, comparisons cannot be made year to year to calculate returns on investment of allocated funds. It doesn’t serve as a good indicator for understanding project output and results versus project costs. Much can be inferenced by putting a value to in-kind costs to understand the true costs in dollar terms but RP has chosen not to include that evaluation here even as RP tracks all its substantial in-kind donations on an annual basis.

5.5 SOCIAL IMPACTS

RP projects seek to find win-win scenarios for rainforests and those who live in or near them. The flexibility to form long-term partnerships with locally based NGOs, educational institutions, and local government is instrumental in the overall success of RP projects and it is just as true in this case. In fact, unlike other RP projects, here RP partnered with a local NGO in the early years, not in a contractor-subcontractor relationship, but as partners.

Above all RP values communication and respect in its endeavors and it was those qualities that gave the women of Sani Warmi the lasting trust necessary to work with an organization from outside of the

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country. Although qualitative in nature, the effect the Sani Warmi project had on the community of Sani Isla was astoundingly positive.

Social implications have been documented within the women’s group, as well as on the community level. Addressing disparity between genders is not an explicit goal of the RP model, however the shifting roles and empowerment of women in Sani Isla from 2009-2015 is staggering when placed in the context of the community’s history. Traditional Kichwa culture has defined roles in the community in which only males are allowed to participate, a division of labor amongst particular ceremonies and jobs. Though Sani Isla women had never made an income before the inception of Sani Warmi it was not culturally taboo for them to do so for this type of project. The community, independent of any external actor, was the impetus for this project. They formed a consensus in 2009 that the women should be given an avenue to make an income. The ability of the women to transform their roles in the community so rapidly is a testament to the project’s acceptance from Sani Isla community as a whole.

The women of the project gained newfound freedom as a result of participating in the project in a number of different ways. Physically they became more mobile. Extra money developed by the business allowed for more trips to neighboring communities and nearby city centers to buy and sell goods. They also were able to communicate to a greater extent with the outside world as a result of these gains in mobility. There was also a newfound sense of empowerment felt by the women of Sani Warmi as the project progressed. The studio gave them a central meeting place that was their own. It became a place where they could cook, work, and look after their children at the same time. The new source of income also allowed them to buy clothes, food, and medicine with more predictability. This has allowed the women to ensure more of their children attend school for longer. The ability to buy more small goods such as soap, salt, matches and small gifts and surprises for special occasions makes a very big difference in everyday life. When one woman was asked how she was supporting her husband she replied:

He doesn’t work now so I am providing. He told me before to leave Sani Warmi. He asked why are you working? I took $80 and lent it to my husband and he hasn’t spoken to me about not working in Sani Warmi since.

Although there may have been similar private misgivings in other households, there has never been public opposition to Sani Warmi among the men.

Along with their increased economic participation in the community the women have taken to educating their neighbors in times of crisis about the value of their forest. Although this process of sharing the importance of the environment is ongoing, in critical moments such as the 2012-13 oil drilling threat their efforts proved invaluable. This new leadership is rooted in the physical space the studio has provided. Its presence has brought feelings of ownership and pride and has been a place where the women can build up each other’s self-esteem and find consensus about community issues. This self-esteem has strengthened their resolve to resist oil companies and to implore the rest of the community to do the same.

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5.6 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

It can be difficult to monitor and objectively evaluate the environmental impacts of work in the Amazon. Indeed, the conservation movement has had trouble demonstrating economically robust defenses for protecting forests on a macro scale. One particular model offered by Costanza et al. in 2014 valued the loss of world ecosystem services (the sustainable support of human well-being from ecosystems) due to land use change at US$4.3-20.2 trillion per year and calculated the per hectare per year value of tropical rainforests at $5,382. This is a global average, which aggregates variations in regional studies. Using these figures, we could assume that the roughly 42,000 hectares of forest belonging to Sani Isla has an annual value as intact tropical rainforest of $226 million/year. The five-year span that the Sani Warmi project has been running would thus put this value at roughly $1.13 billion. It must be clear that the intent of the valuation of ecosystem services by Constanza et al. is not to privatize, market, or trade them, but to demonstrate conservation value; since monetary units are more universally understood they are can be used as proxy instead of time, energy, or land. This is about acknowledging the role of all of our assets and balancing them – people, built economies, and ecosystems. And, now, above all, climate stabilization.

The Sani Warmi project has undeniably had a positive effect by increasing environmental awareness in the community, exemplified by its overall commitment to refusing biodiversity-threatening, forest damaging oil extraction activities. Throughout the project,

the women were given workshops on environmental conservation, importance of the rainforest ecosystem on their way of life, and the detrimental impacts of oil drilling. We already had the understanding that these kinds of educational workshops will be essential to increase the community’s perception of environmental conservation. This was further validated by the women’s specific requests to better understand the state of their forest homes and the irreversible damage that can be inflicted through oil exploration activities. Although CyD and RP provided many of the early workshops, increasingly, the later ones were conducted in coordination with organizations such as Acción Ecológica, Wildlife Conservation Society, Alejandro Labaka Foundation, and the Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment.

The women of Sani Warmi have adopted over the course of this project a very active role in the community as stewards of the environment. They have become activists in their community for both social and environmental causes. The threat of oil production will continue to exist in Sani Isla for the foreseeable future, barring some change in Ecuadorian constitution or law. Petroleum companies frequently offer large sums of money for the right to explore in the area. The majority of the women involved in the project have become a united front for the preservation of their forests. They talk about the value of their forest and its effects on the physical and economic well-being of everyone living in it. The Sani Warmi Project has thus created more leverage for the community members who want to preserve their environment and their traditional ways of life. It is no longer just a few elders and committed visionaries.

Ultimately, in spite of frequent and ongoing threats to their community owned and titled land, the Sani Isla community has managed to not allow oil drilling in their community owned and titled land. Avoided deforestation and degradation are just as important as measures of success even as their quantification makes it harder for some to dismiss any such protection as valid. Just because something is difficult to articulate or calculate in an easy quantifiable manner doesn’t negate its importance. Nor is it viable for NGOs such as ours that want to protect tropical rainforests to dismiss or opt not to work on

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such projects due to the ongoing debate on how to quantify avoided deforestation and degradation. It is for this reason that foundations like the Tomberg Family Philanthropies are even more important in their ability to look beyond simplistic metrics that discount the kinds of success that the Sani Warmi project brought about.

It is true that our Sani Warmi project doesn’t include easily quantifiable measures such as hectares protected through acquisition or creation of natural protected areas as is desired by many funders, donors and NGOs themselves. If any proof were needed in the serious shortcomings of measuring bought or protected area lands, then there is no better example than the very land that the Sani Isla community shares: Yasuní National Park. Yasuní, arguably one of the most biodiverse places on our planet, recorded and regarded as such, and a UNESCO biosphere designated site, is now open to the deforestation and degradation from oil drilling. Sani Isla land, to date, is not.

5.7. ROLE OF OUR UNIQUE MODEL OF NGO PARTNERSHIP

When RP laid the seeds for this project, it was at the very beginning of the organization. RP’s first meetings with CyD and the ensuing partnership was created between February and April of 2008, within mere months of the founding of RP in December 2007. It took visionary and outside-the-box thinking to create the partnership as envisioned and subsequently undertaken by RP and CyD. Normal interactions between U.S.-based and Europe-based NGOs and developing country based NGOs is the funder versus funded organization where the granting organization provides the funds and the receiving organization receives the funds. There is often little if any direct collaboration and it is far more typical to have top down approach to such partnerships. The RP – CyD partnership was in reality a partnership with mutual respect, consideration, cost sharing, information sharing and sharing of credit as well. This last item is very important. The granting NGOs often take credit for all the work being done by the grantee organization, sometimes even the work that

the local NGOs might have been doing for years and well beyond the funded project itself. This has often led local NGOs to resent funding NGOs, and rightly so. Local NGOs that are effective and have a lot of knowledge and credibility and aligned missions are really important for the success of a project.

Sani Isla was the only RP project where RP partnered with a local NGO. But it was the alignment between the two NGOs’ mission, the shared purpose and mutual respect between the personnel for both that allowed a successful partnership to unfold. And, this was much to the benefit of the Sani Isla community. Without such a partnership, the costs would have been far higher and the outcomes far smaller and slower.

6. CONCLUSIONS AND LESSONS

LEARNT

RP projects seek to find win-win scenarios for rainforests and those who live in or near them. The flexibility to form long-term partnerships with locally based NGOs and indigenous communities was instrumental in the overall success created in this case. Above all, RP values communication and respect in its endeavors and it was these qualities that gave the women of Sani Warmi the lasting trust necessary to work with an organization from outside of the country.

The Sani Warmi project was the second project executed by Rainforest Partnership as an organization. It is one of the longest running projects and a dynamic example of what the RP model for development and conservation is capable of. The Sani Warmi project also offered RP some valuable lessons in working with indigenous communities.

Start with a threat. We learned that it is important to establish projects with communities that are actively facing threats to their rainforest homes. And facing such threats, communities are looking for and willing to consider change. In Sani Isla, they were actively looking for alternative income sources; everyone in the community felt they needed options. Alternatives were particularly important as pressures

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from outside increased, and as internal conflicts became more evident. It also helped that Sani Isla had other continuing support over the course of the project. This gave our project the breathing space it needed to prove itself.

Establish trust – and keep it. All RP projects begin with an invitation from a rainforest community. RP staff meet with community leaders and try to develop an understanding of how we work and what our goals are so that we can figure out how to work together. Early on, the project is introduced to the community’s general assembly for approval and a formal agreement is signed. This procedure – which RP has followed from the beginning – lays the groundwork for continuing trust.

RP’s partnership with Conservación y Desarollo was crucial to establishing trust at the beginning of the project. CyD was a known entity, based in Ecuador, with an extensive record of success in the Napo river region. The project and RP staff were regarded positively from the beginning, largely because of this relationship and borrowed trust.

Establishing trust is not the end of the story, however. Over the course of this project we found it was equally important to maintain support from the community and to continually adjust our methods of working with it, especially after new presidents or chiefs were elected. The annual agreement process reaffirming the commitment of all parties was critical in this regard. When a newly elected president is reluctant to meet or to sign an agreement, it would provide a clear sign that commitment is wavering, or there is some issue that needs a resolution.

Had the annual agreement process been adopted earlier, we might have discovered that two of the community’s presidents had worked against the community’s wishes and signed agreements with oil companies. That it happened twice, and that we have encountered similar issues in other projects, suggests that communities will not always succeed in selecting leaders who uphold their decisions and are immune to outside influences and enticing offers.

Respect the culture. From the beginning, RP, CyD and the Sani Warmi women’s group respected one another’s perspectives on how the project should progress. Instead of prescribing top-down solutions for the women, RP listened to what the women had to say, what their priorities were and what was important for them to maintain project momentum. The women also listened to us, and all partners actively sought consensus. The building of the artisan house is a prime example of the importance of such an understanding. RP funded this building early on in the project as the women considered it essential to have a place that would meet both their work needs and their personal needs of taking care of their children. Through RP’s willingness to listen to the women’s needs, the women developed more trust with RP as an organization and this helped create a productive working relationship. For a community development project to remain sustainable, the community’s priorities have to remain the priorities of its work partners. Local decision-making processes also need to be respected and incorporated into the project process. This bottom-up approach may be slower, but it ensures commitment.

There is a distinct role for women in indigenous communities like Sani Isla and income generation is often left to the men. In Sani Isla it is important to note that the community as a whole voted to implement a women’s project that would bring additional income to the community apart from the Sani Lodge. The Sani Warmi project allowed the women, for the first time in their lives, to make an income and be as empowered as the men to make decisions that would affect the community as a whole. Gender equality was not an explicit goal of the RP model, but greatly helped in allowing this project to progress. There is reason to believe that empowering women may be a key element in combining economic development and environmental protection.

Provide technical assistance. It became evident as the project progressed that the women needed time and technical assistance before they could take over project management. As a group,

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they had limited opportunities to manage financial affairs or work with organizations in other towns and cities; they knew little of the politics involved in oil companies seeking exploration rights. The situation improved after RP provided a full-time, community-based project coordinator who the women were comfortable with. They began to learn marketing and finance, and more generally learned to manage affairs outside their comfort zone.

Though the women needed the support of a project coordinator to help them understand subject matters that were completely new to them, they had little need for assistance in organizing themselves effectively and creating governance structures. They also naturally adopted a mixed economic model, in which the women individually earned a profit but also channeled funds toward their shared business. We found that the project coordinator needed to adopt a light touch, supporting women to explore their potential on their own basis and allowing them to develop leadership roles in a natural way. The resulting organization was consistent with the community’s culture and traditions, dramatically increasing the potential for sustainability.

Respect the partnership. Each of the women in the Sani Warmi group had their own stories, dreams, and passions. Each participant had to feel ownership and pride about the work they were doing. This meant that the women, the project coordinators, CyD and the RP team had to work in concert. It is potentially very frustrating to work with so many different stakeholders over such long distances. The constant communication, division of labor, and in-kind donations of time made by each of the partners, the Sani Lodge, CyD and RP, helped greatly in enabling project growth and success.

Develop an exit strategy. As the project has developed and handicraft sales have increased, Sani Warmi has become increasingly autonomous. The project is now generally regarded as environmentally sound, economically productive, and socially just – a definitional case of sustainability as envisioned in UN’s Brundtland Commission. It was always envisioned that each RP project would have an exit

strategy. After the terms have been negotiated and RP involvement in a project ends, RP will of course continue to serve as a contact and counsel, as it does for the Sani Warmi women.

The Sani Warmi project is an example of how people, planet, and profit can work together to create sustainable development. If we follow the lessons learned here, there is good reason to believe RP, CyD, and others can continue to combine the values of economic development, environmental protection, and regard for traditional culture in future projects throughout the Amazon basin.

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We would like to thank the following people for their work on the casestudy and for their individual roles in the implementation of the Sani Warmi project from its inception to its

successful completion:

Sani Warmi Members:Guadalupe Gualinga

Blanca TapuyMargarita Andi

Yessica GualingaElvia Coquinche

All the Women of Sani Warmi

Sani Isla Members:Fredy Gualinga

Patricio JipaMari Muench

All Members of Sani Lodge and the Sani Isla Community

The Tomberg Family Philanthropies:Dave Lyon, Director

Charlie Tomberg, Director

Program Evaluation Expert:William Spelman, Professor (LBJ School of Public Affairs)

Rainforest Partnership Project Team:Hazel Barbour, Board Chair

Niyanta Spelman, Executive DirectorLavanya Selvam Alli, Director of Projects

Liz Andrade, Sani Isla Project CoordinatorSenaida Calapucha, Sani Isla Project Coordinator

Harris Davidson, Intern

Former Rainforest Partnership Team:Carl Guthrie

Erynn FitzgeraldJesse Hunt

Karen MagidLindsey Engelman Maurine WinkleyNicole Wagner

Conservación y Desarrollo Team:José Valdivieso, Executive Director

Alfredo DueñasLeonar ZambranoRocio Aucancela

Video and Photography:Martin Edström

Michel Scott

Acknowledgements

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