Pachacuti - Panama Hats and Fair Trade Clothing

Fair Trade changes lives and makes a very real difference to the livelihoods of workers around the world in the garment industry.  We monitor our entire supply chain, carry out ecomapping, check labour and environmental standards, calculate a fair price with our producer groups and create annual improvement plans.  Our monitoring system is then externally audited, both in the UK and in Ecuador.

Many are not fortunate enough to be working in Fair Trade conditions and we have seen a tragic reminder of the true cost of fashion in Bangladesh.  A number of companies did not even know if they were producing at Rana Plaza, such is the network of contractors and subcontractors within the normal fashion supply chain.

If Pachacuti, as a very small fashion company, can monitor wages and working conditions of all of our suppliers, measure carbon emissions throughout the supply chain and provide full transparency and traceability for raw materials and components, right down to the GPS co-ordinates of each weavers' house, shouldn't major fashion brands also be accountable to the people buying their clothes and accessories and to the workers producing them? 

When one thinks of Ecuador, what often comes to mind are the stunning Sierra landscapes of the Andes Mountains or the Galapagos Islands and their endemic species made famous by Darwin.  What travellers often overlook is Ecuador’s Amazonian region, known as the Oriente, which runs along the east of the country at base of the Andes and borders Colombia and Peru. In north-east part of the Oriente lies the Reserva Faunística Cuyabeno (Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve) which was created in 1979 and is one of Ecuador’s largest reserves, encompasses over six thousand square kilometres of rainforest. The area is populated by Amazonian indigenous tribes including the Kichwa, Cofán, Secoya, Siona and Shuar who were semi-nomadic and lived by fishing, hunting and gathering. Now all have settled in riverside communities, grow crops and receive limited income mostly through eco-tourism activities in the area

Throughout the Amazon region, most protected areas are only accessible by travel along the very wide branches of the Amazon River. What makes the Cuyabeno unique is its landscape of navigable, but narrow rivers which snake their way through the jungle, yet periodically open up into beautiful lagoons. With all the rain that “rainforest” implies and endless volumes of water draining off the Andes, these rivers often flood into the surrounding forest. This allows the dense and impenetrable jungle to become accessible for travel by boat and gives the traveller the ability to spot great numbers of wildlife from the water.

 As one of the most bio-diverse areas in the world, the reserves boasts more than 165 species of mammals, including 10 species of monkeys, Tapirs, 2 species of deer, Jaguars and Pumas, Manatees, Giant Otter and the famed Pink River Dolphin. With over 580 species of birds and counting, 96 species of amphibians, more than 12,000 species of flora and seemingly countless insect species, make the Cuyabeno an unforgettable place to visit.

Ecuador has a long history of environmental disasters caused by past oil drilling. Texaco (now a part of Chevron) is still in litigation over oil drilling in Ecuador beginning in 1964. Indigenous communities and settlers allege that the documented high rates of cancer and miscarriages that they are suffering are direct results of the intentional dumping of 68 million liters of crude oil into the rainforest. In 2011, an Ecuadorean court ordered Chevron to pay $19 billion for oil contamination caused by Texaco.  In addition, oil extraction is still causing problems through toxic waste and spills that have drained into the Cuyabeno basin. Roads built into the jungle by the oil companies, also bring indirect effects such as illegal deforestation and the poaching of wild animals

But oil is Ecuador’s top export, providing one third of its revenue in a country where close to 30% of the people live below the poverty line.  Currently the government of Ecuador, headed by newly reelected President Rafael Correa plans to sell off oil development rights in the Pastaza and Morona Santiago provinces located in the southeastern region of the Amazon.  The area up for grabs is almost entirely pristine, covers nearly 10,000 acres, and is home to seven indigenous nationalities. Known as 11th Round Oil Auction, it is currently opposed by all at the indigenous groups in the affected region who have long resisted oil drilling on their ancestral lands, fearing that the arrival of extractive industries would damage their water supply and threaten their traditional way of life.

To learn more about the Ecuador Amazon and the efforts being taken to protect the it and the indigenous communities who live there visit Pachamama Alliance and Amazon Watch. Both are NGO's who are currently running campaigns to prevent 11th Round Oil Auction from taking place. 

I have been privileged over the past three weeks to have been a guest lecturer as part of Voyages of Discovery's award-winning lecture programme as we cruised down the coast of South America from Manta in Ecuador to Valparaiso in Chile.

The response to my four lectures was really quite overwhelming with so many people coming up to me either after lectures, or after watching my lecture in their cabins later, with questions about the themes, or to say how much they appreciated learning more about Andean culture. I really appreciated the many astute questions after my lectures and did my best to answer them, along with the queries of many passengers as to where to find the best textiles and crafts in our various ports of call.  I was particularly surprised at the really positive comments on my Fair Trade lecture which seemed to have made a particularly deep impression on everyone who attended.  Normally the lecture room vacates immediately the lecture is over and when I finished that one, everyone just sat still as if still absorbing everything I had said.

One woman even came up to me afterwards to say that she wondered what she had done with her life so far and my lecture had inspired her to go back home and make a difference.  I couldn't ask for a better reaction than that.  I have to say that I was incredibly inspired when researching my lecture on Fair Trade in the Andes to learn more about Café Direct's environmental work and CRED's work in bringing Fairtrade, Fairmined gold to the UK for the first time two year's ago this Valentine's Day.

Several people have asked me to post my lectures which I gave recently on Voyages of Discovery on the South America's Pacific Shore cruise.  Unfortunately the lectures are just too long to post online and I also hope to use them again at a later date, but for those who have asked for details, here is a synopsis of my lecture topics.

From Bowler Hats to Ponchos: Understanding Contemporary Andean Culture through Traditional Dress

The textile traditions found within contemporary Andean dress are a symbol of the wearers cultural identity and provide a strong link with their pre-Columbian past when textiles were the object of greatest prestige within society. This lecture explored how traditional dress worn in the Andes today provide a connection to the past and how the ritual use of textiles helps to sustain a sense of community.

The symbolism contained within traditional dress today is a significant way of passing down cultural traditions over the generations through textile symbols, use of colour, forms of clothing, and technical processes. The lecture covered the use of clothing to express membership of social groups; hats as an identifier of origin (the chola's bowler hat, the ch'ullu, the Panama); symbolism and the use of colour in contemporary textiles which provide a link to Andean cosmology, agricultural cycles and gods; the erosion of cultural identity through the westernisation of traditional dress in the late 20th Century.

Yesterday UNESCO declared that the art of weaving a Panama hat in Ecuador would be added to their list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Intangible Cultural Heritage is a term used for knowledge, traditions and rituals which permeate the everyday life of a community, are passed down through generations and form an intrinsic part of their identity and culture. Other forms of cultural expression which have already received this designation include Chinese acupuncture and Spanish Flamenco.  Whist Material Cultural Heritage is clearly visible, the concept of Intangible Cultural Heritage is harder to understand. In fact, since the declaration was made, twitter was full of Ecuadorians celebrating the fact that the Panama hat had been recognised by UNESCO and not understanding that a Panama hat is a tangible object containing an intangible heritage of great value to the country. A heritage which, sadly, is in danger of extinction if steps are not taken to preserve it.

In the small, rural community where Pachacuti works, the art of creating Panama Hats is woven into the fabric of daily life: women weave on the bus, walking to market, on their way to the fields.  Even at the General Assembly of the Association which I attended this year where large signs proclaimed Leave Your Hats Outside, the weavers carried on weaving whilst voting. 

In fact, when interviewed, our weavers were convinced that it takes around 20 hours to weave a hat as they pick up and put down their weaving all day long, taking around two days to complete an economical grade of Panama.  It was only last year when we finally decided to conduct a proper time trial with no distractions that we discovered that it only actually takes 8 hours to weave a grade 2 Panama hat.

I never see our weavers without straw in their hands, whether preparing the 'tallos' of paja toquilla before weaving or carrying a part-finished hat.  For the 165 women who weave Pachacuti Panama hats, weaving is more than an art, more than a skill, it is a way of life and represents the cultural heritage of the entire community.  Sadly, the children of our weavers do not always share the desire to participate in these traditional skills as historically the Panama hat weaver has been exploited by middlemen and young people, quite understandably, have been searching for alternatives.  This has led to our community in Ecuador having some of the highest levels of migration in the country, with 60% of children having at least one parent living overseas. The destruction of family and community life has led to high rates of alcoholism, youth suicide and teen pregnancies.

Pachacuti is trying to change this by paying a Fair Price (60% to 120% more than the middlemen when I visited earlier this year and compared prices) and providing training, not just in design development and skills, but in self-esteem, human relations, costing of products and overheads, health and safety.  On my last visit I heard that there was a waiting list to join the Association which is fantastic news.  Now Pachacuti just needs to keep growing so that we can support all of the women who want to join us!  I am delighted that our work is encouraging more weavers to want to join and proving that Panama hat weaving really can provide a viable form of income to enable women to remain within their rural communities, keep families together, and pass on their culture and traditions.

As well as preserving traditional skills, through our design input we are teaching the weavers new skills and developing new markets around the world for these beautiful hand-woven hats.  The women love to weave Pachacuti designs and we have even discovered that they can weave a brightly coloured hat one hour faster than a natural hat!

Weaving is a both a way of life, a means of income and a cultural expression for the members of our producer association and, as such, is undoubtedly worthy of preservation by UNESCO.  Pachacuti has worked for the last 20 years to help preserve and encourage traditional hat weaving skills in Ecuador and ensure that this way of life is viable for future generations, no longer at the mercy of intermediaries paying the lowest price possible. I hope that yesterday's designation of the art of Panama Hat weaving as Intangible Cultural Heritage will bring wider recognition to Ecuador's incredibly skilled weavers and ensure that their work is properly valued and justly remunerated in the future.