Conservation through Poverty Alleviation International (CPALI) is a team of scientists, conservationists, industry experts, and passionate supporters working together to pursue a community-centered approach to conservation that enhances sustainable livelihoods by advancing locally led nature-based innovations. 

 

Our vision is a world in which people and nature thrive on community lands that are critical for biodiversity conservation by connecting fair and sustainably-produced resources to local and global markets.

 

The United States-based CPALI team works in partnership with SEPALI, a registered Malagasy non-governmental organization that is run exclusively by local staff. CPALI creates market opportunities for textile products made by SEPALI and provides technical, financial and scientific support. In 2020, CPALI established an online presence for its brand Tanana Madagascar to market local products to global audiences. These products are proudly Fair Trade and Wildlife Friendly verified.

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Our current initiatives support a locally-based organization in rural Madagascar that operates in communities bordering the largest remaining intact rainforest on the island. Over 1% of the world’s biodiversity is represented within this region. CPALI works with a network of subsistence farmers to cultivate native resources such as wild silk and raffia, and secure a market for them. 

 

Farmers involved with CPALI experience the value of conservation directly by producing new products from the land that they steward. The 400 farmers engaged in our program live along the borders of Makira Natural Park and Masoala National Park and have planted over 30,000 native trees in former clear-cut areas, intercropping them with edible plants for multi-use agroforestry systems. 

 

Native silkworms feed on these trees and farmers have raised them to produce raw silk cocoons for supplemental income. Collected silkworms are released back into the wild as adult moths after metamorphosis. Many of our farmers have become “citizen scientists”. Some have discovered that edible native mushrooms grow under silkworm host trees and these mushrooms can be sold at market. Others have found that one silkworm host tree serves well as a support for vanilla orchids that are a valuable cash crop in the region.

 

CPALI’s unique approach to conservation challenges the idea that conservation and development are fundamentally opposed and works at the grassroots level to develop a mutually beneficial way to maintain a healthy environment.

This work is done hand-in-hand with the local Malagasy non-governmental organization, "Sehatry ny Mpamokatra Landy Ifotony, Madagascar" (Association of Wild Silk Producers) or SEPALI Madagascar. SEPALI Madagascar was formed in 2009 and currently has a staff of 17 local managers and artisans. Together, the SEPALI Madagascar staff maintain a demonstration site and travel to 13 rural communities to work with farmers. Artisans are trained at the central SEPALI Madagascar workshop to sew an innovative non-spun textile and to weave raffia (a leaf fiber native to Madagascar). These products are sold through CPALI's retail brand, Tanana Madagascar, and are fair trade and wildlife friendly verified.

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