It's easy to think of a work of textile art as the end of a process. A culmination, an end point. Yet our latest collection from Tanana Madagascar is something different. In this collection, each piece is beautiful visual evidence of a living, growing ecosystem. And each piece represents not the end of a process, but the continuation of a relationship between the forest, the artisan - and the market that sustains them both. 

Wild silk in person does something an image can’t quite capture. The surface is luminous and matte at the same time… crackled, almost alive. It’s like those paintings where the closer you get, the more there is. A whole world that keeps revealing itself the longer you stand in front of it.

Craig’s story is one of institutional humility. She came to believe that many conservation programs falter because they fail to ask people what they need, or because they treat communities as instruments of a biodiversity plan. In her telling, respect showed up in daily choices. It meant spending money locally, working without project vehicles or boats, renting village houses, using public transport, and remaining long enough for people to believe the project would not disappear after a few years.

"I truly believe that there's dignity in employment, in earning a fair wage and having the certainty of a job that's fulfilling, that allows you to educate your children," Kramer said. Seeking a visual way to capture the work being done in Madagascar, Kramer connected with filmmaker Dr. Matthew Scott, a retired Stanford developmental biologist who now makes documentaries for non-profits.

A travers l'atelier des matières, les invites ont découvert des creations uniques, mêlant tradition et innovation : notamment des superbes tapisseries réalisées a partir de cocons de soie d'espèces endémiques de papillons, naturellement teints et tisses en raphia par l'équipe de SEPALI Madagascar.

Fulbright Dr. Catherine Craig presents her project in Madagascar that takes an innovative approach to conservation through economic development. This presentation was made at the TEDx Fulbright on April 24 2012 at the British Consulate in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

For anyone who works in conservation in Madagascar, confronting the complex difficulties of widespread poverty is a part of the job. But with the wealth of Madagascar’s wildlife rapidly diminishing— such as lemurs, miniature chameleons, and hedgehog-looking tenrecs found no-where else in the world—the island-nation has become a testing ground for innovative conservation programs that focus on tackling entrenched poverty to save dwindling species and degraded places.