‘Animal Tracks’ lead villagers out of poverty

Traditional brick-makers -have found value and economic potential in protecting the jungle, the wild animals and their natural habitat under a new project titled ‘Animal Tracks’, Ajith Perera, a celebrated Sri Lankan potter and team leader of the project explained.

“Protecting the environment brings jobs and a secure future for their family,” he told IPS. The project came to fruition when International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) staffer Asanka Abayakoon was seconded to Dilmah — Sri Lanka’s largest value-added tea exporter — to streamline its environmental sustainability and charitable work in villages.

The relationship between once-struggling villagers from this small hamlet adjoining Uda Walawe National Park, IUCN and Dilmah has brought man and beast closer to a harmonious coexistence.

“These villagers who never stepped into the national park [because they were so poor] are now collecting animal footprints and learning about the animals and their lifestyles,” said Perera.

Young workers at the ‘Animal Tracks’ workshop and training centre this week were placing the finishing touches to dozens of tiny pendants made out of terra cotta.

We need a quality raw material because the pendants are exported to consumers across the world, says Dilhan C. Fernando, Trustee of the MJF Foundation, Dilmah’s charitable arm. In September, the dainty pendants — inserted into tea packets — will make their way to stores in Poland, Australia and New Zealand.

“This is a pure charity project. There is no commercial value that we seek or get. The pendants are free giveaways to our customers to show our gratitude and also profile what our villagers are capable of,” Fernando said.

Recently competition in the brick business forced Koulara residents to take jobs in a nearby sugarcane plantation. “We would make less than 3,000 rupees [below 30 dollars] a month and that too if there is work,” said Sriyani Subasinghe, manager of the Animal Tracks workplace.

“Now women and girls are making 24,000 rupees [nearly 240 dollars] a month through this initiative.

We make in two months what would take more than a year to earn through the sugar plantation and other menial daily work,” she said sitting in Animal Tracks’ thatch-roofed office. The complex employs 100 women in wattle-and-daub huts thatched with dry coconut leaves. Open spaces to allow natural light and ventilation.

A range of plates, ornaments and jewellery are also produced from clay using the footprints of elephants, leopard and other animals from the park.

Venturing into the park, with the help of park wardens, villagers look for footprints and then fill them with plaster-of-paris, turning out a mould within minutes. “Often — in the case of elephants — you need to follow the animals and look for fresh footprints which provide a better mould,” Abayakoon explained.

Perera, who regularly shuttles between Koulara and his own pottery studio in Boralesgamuwa near Colombo, says the MJF Foundation has rejuvenated the village. “From virtually nothing, the village has become a ‘somebody’.

Imagine using the hitherto-unknown skills of these women to produce delicately carved ornaments and pendants for world markets? It’s like a dream for them,” Perera said.

“This project has given hope to all of us. With the comfortable income they get, our workers are rebuilding their homes, buying other needs and also saving in the local bank,” says 24-year old Anoma Jayaratne, Animal Tracks Production Manager. Animal Tracks has been picked as one of the five best environmentally sustainable projects to be profiled at the upcoming IUCN international conference in Barcelona.

IPS