A long profile in the Boston Globe of a woman called Catherine Craig. She did field work at Gombe National Park in Tanzania in the 1970s, then became an expert on spider silk, before returning to Gombe a few years ago. The destruction she saw appalled her. So she did something:
In 2003, Craig founded Conservation through Poverty Alleviation International, which took its seemingly simple idea – plant trees, raise larvae, earn income – to Madagascar, a biologically rich Indian Ocean island nation where deforestation is also a problem and which had a tradition of silk production and weaving on which to build.
Which may be good news for Madagascar, but what’s happening in Gombe?
My daughter was a Peace Corp volunteer in Madagascar and last summer, while traveling with her, we got to see the whole silk process from cocoon production to weaving. Madagascar is in dire need of any cottage industry it can develop. This is a great one!