Mmmm. I just finished a few cookies from the Immaculate Baking Company called Sweet Georgia Brownie Triple Chocolate Chunk, and boy, were they good. Known for their creative flavor combinations, like Key Largo Lime, Leapin’ Lemon and Pumpkin Gingerlies, all are made with natural ingredients, are 70% organic and are kosher.

Immaculate founder Scott Blackwell, also a folk art collector, decided to combine his love of food and art and created the Folk Artist’s Foundation to help deserving folk artists maintain the integrity of their lifestyle and the sincerity of their unique vision by providing encouragement, support (financial and otherwise) and exposure.

Blackwell also founded the Soul Food Fund “artreach” programs to inspire kids of all ages to stretch their imaginations. The fund provides artists with materials for their craft, contacts between artists, collectors, galleries, and museums, and holds events that unite folk artists with children of all backgrounds. Each bag and box of cookies features an original work of folk art and a short bio of the artist. Now there’s one cookie company we hope will never crumble!

We all know that buying fair trade items aids underprivileged communities across the world, but what exactly does this entail on the other side of the transaction? According to the basic standards enforced by the International Fair Trade Association, these organizations must:

Generate opportunities that will help producers who suffer from an economic disadvantage.

Exercise transparency and responsibility in areas of management and commercial affairs.

Work towards the independence of its producers.

Offer its producers reasonable pay.

Ensure that both genders are empowered.

Provide a healthy and safe setting for work.

Enforce the laws of child labor.

Utilize environmentally responsible materials and means of production.

Maintain reputable trade relations.

Promote the practice of fair trade.

For a more comprehensive understanding, visit IFAT.

Like the label “organic”, “fair trade” can be complicated, however. We’ll be exploring this issue further, so sign up for our RSS feed to stay in the know.

Image: James Jordan

It takes the inhabitants of rural villages in Bolivian regions like Alto Plano or the Central Highlands two hours to walk to the nearest town. Because of this isolation, these people must rely on a craft that doesn’t require goods from distant urban areas. Fortunately, they have everything they need right at their fingertips.

These skilled artisans, members of the environmentally responsible organization Circle of the Sun, share the remote expanses with herds of Alpaca. The soft fur from these gentle mammals is the perfect material for weaving, as it is warmer than wool and hypoallergenic. Plus, with 22 natural shades to choose from, there’s no need for toxic dyes. (Although occasionally plant dyes are used, but those are eco and safe.) Stay warm this winter while supporting fair trade with the handmade Absolutely Alpaca scarf from Original Good.

“Cut metal work represents the wealth of Croix des Bouquets. This is what has made the city famous,” he says. “This is what God gave me to live; I support my family, I am building a house and I am providing work for others.” You can find handmade candleholders and wall hangings from Augustin and other members of the Comite Artisanal Haitien at Ten Thousand Villages.

With over 1,000 artisans under its wing in 150 workshops around the globe today, it’s hard to believe that Mahaguthi’s Craft With a Conscience began with one man’s determination to help those in need.

Born to a middle class family in Nepal in 1896, Tulsi Mehar was never afraid to speak his mind, openly protesting the oppression of the caste system. The Rana Prime Minister considered these sentiments anti-national and banished Mehar from Nepal for life.

Discouraged but never defeated, he traveled to India, where he joined Mahatma Gandhi in the quest for social reform. Touched by Mehar’s devotion to his beliefs, Gandhi personally wrote to the Rana Prime Minister on his behalf. Granted permission to return, Mehar immediately began the spinning and weaving project known today as Mahaguthi. Current artisans craft anything from lamps to singing bowls to shawls to earrings.

There’s trash on Mount Everest in Nepal and Machu Picchu in Peru is crumbling under the weight of 2,000 visitors a day. The Costa de Sol in Spain is paved over with concrete, while Cambodia has a full-time job shielding its children from sex tourists. It’s easy to despair when thinking about the effect of mass tourism on the planet.

But believe it or not, travel can also be a force for good even in some of the world’s most remote beauty spots. Gabon in West Africa is setting an example in how to do it right with Africa’s Last Eden in Loango National Park.

In this case, tourism is small scale, low-impact and directly funds conservation. As Rombout Swanborn, director of Loango National Park, says: “We will never have 20 Jeeps around a waterhole shining lights into animals’ eyes.”

Until recently, the country was not on the tourist radar at all but in 2002, Gabon’s forward-thinking president set aside 11% of his country as national park. With the ethos that “ecotourism pays for conservation,” the government started a small pilot tourism project in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society and a private investor. Loango National Park officially opened for tourists in 2007 and the park is also used as a base for scientific research.

Africa’s Last Eden recently won an award from the British Guild of Travel Writers so it won’t stay a secret for long. Guild member Sarah Monaghan, who nominated the project for the award, describes why it’s so special and how it benefits the local community.

“A mosaic of grassland, rivers, forest and mangroves, Loango offers a unique safari experience because the wildlife is so spectacularly varied – with whales, elephants, hippos, leopards, reptiles and primates galore,” Monaghan says. “Visitors are accommodated in the eco-friendly lodge and satellite tented camps and wildlife viewing is small-scale with pirogue trips, forest treks or savannah drives.”

She adds that 500 Gabonese live in the area and nearly 100 have gained employment in roles such as tourist guides. The local farmers sell produce to the lodge and their children study in a new school built by the park.

Gabon is a little tricky to get to but depending which tour you join, there are flights from Paris, Brussels, Zurich, Casablanca and Johannesburg. The tours aren’t cheap, but going on safari to Africa never is. If you’ve always dreamed about it, do it with a clear, green conscience. And where else would you see wild elephants and other large mammals on the beach?

Image via National Geographic

When disabled daughters of India are deemed unfit for marriage, many are condemned to a life of suffering. Unable to support themselves, they struggle to survive in a culture that does not accept their differences. In 1994, a group of Franciscan nuns founded Assisi Garments to help these women find their place. In this supportive atmosphere, they are trained to produce clothing from organic cotton, compensated for their efforts with fair wages, and given food, accommodation and, most importantly, encouragement. After five years of hard work, these gifted artisans are granted a lump sum to start a home of their own. Interested in supporting their cause while enhancing your style? Check out their Capsule collection at People Tree.

Feel guilty about reading books because they are made out of paper that come from trees? Well, there’s something you can do about it. And I don’t mean give up reading.

Read up on creative ways to be a green bookworm, and then check out Eco-Libris, an organization dedicated to finding a way to balance out our need to read with our desire to prevent further damage to the environment through tree logging. The answer, Eco-Libris believes, is in the use of recycled paper and eco-friendly paper. But that’s still a long way off.

Meanwhile, Eco-Libris is challenging publishers, bookstores, and readers to balance out the paper used for books by planting a tree for every book read. They’ve set a goal of balancing out half a million books by the end of 2009 by, you guessed it, planting half a million trees. And that’s where you and I can help. Eco-Libris has joined with planting partners throughout the developing world who will plant trees on your behalf, based on the number of books you want to balance out.

Starting at 5 books at $5, you can balance out as many books as you like, guaranteed that the equivalent number of trees will be planted. It might seem like not much – but if we all balanced out the books, half a million trees would be planted in no time at all.

Image: Faeryan

When the late Father Arnold Grol first encountered a parking boy in Nairobi, the boy’s story broke his heart. Grol learned that many children spend their days guiding motorists to parking spaces for tips and rely on the small change they accept to survive.

Vowing to aid these street children, Grol set up a number of youth recreation centers, and his continued endeavors blossomed into the Undugu Society of Kenya, aptly named after the Kiswahili word for camaraderie. Here, girls and boy in need are fed, sheltered, educated and rehabilitated.

Recognizing that many more Kenyans were struggling, Undugu extended its efforts to help small groups of artisans in Kisii, Turkana and Machakos market various crafts, such as necklaces, key chains, baskets and more.

Image: CAFOD

6 million trees can’t be wrong, especially if they are all being planted in one day by thousands of people joining together, united by visionary, inspired activist and opera singer, Boris Trajanov – and even more so if they are replacements to forests that have been claimed by wildfires two summers in a row.

1000 soldiers were included in the good works alongside of thousands of civilians in a collaborative effort to bus the busy seedling planters to the hillsides of Balkan Macedonia. If John Lennon were alive today, I imagine a song or two would come forth from this real life metaphor for the global environmental awakening taking place all around the world. More soldiers planting trees, please!

Speaking of imagination, Boris planted a few seeds for the minds and hearts of the world at large by saying, “If Macedonia, a country of two million people, can plant six million trees, we can only imagine how many trees can be planted in other, bigger countries.”

Somebody send Boris an eco-friendly airline ticket to the (new growth in need) forests of the world and tune up the veggie oil buses! How long would it take with that kind of peaceful tree-force to reseed the forests of the world?

Source: Reuters
Image: nzgabriel