Forest Post

Ensures fair living wage for producers

Discloses the community being impacted

Reduces the environmental impact

Focusses on women producers

Created using handcrafted methods

Made out of responsible materials

Forest Post engages with Kadar, Malayar, Mannan and Muthuvar communities, and encourages harvest of forgotten wild resources. It is a platform for indigenous women who are trained in value-addition of beeswax and wild foods and have formed small enterprises. The brand brings you a post-box full of seasonal and handmade products – beeswax personal care, herbal hair oils inspired by their grandmothers’ recipes, rare wild foods and traditional bamboo craft. There is an additional category of macrame products from recently acquired skills from young women in these communities.

Purpose

Indigenous forest-dwelling people in the Western Ghats of India collect a range of wild resources from the forest. They are called non-timber products (NTFPs) or Minor Forest Produce, and the list includes leaves (for medicine), roots and bark of tree (for food, oils, medicine), tubers, honey, beeswax, tree resin, fruits such as jackfruit, gooseberry and wild grape. While some of this harvest is subsistence, a large part contributes to their income. Securing livelihoods among Adivasi communities that live in or near forests can contribute to conservation in the long run, for they are forest-dependent and have a stake in the wellness of its resources.

People

There are women and some men who are MFP harvesters that are part of the enterprise. They belong to the indigenous tribes of Kadar, Malayar, Muthuvar and Mannan. Their other sources of employment are NREGA and Forest Department offered daily wage jobs. The additional income generated from Forest Post activities has considerably increased their monthly incomes. More importantly, it is the women who are earning this income, which has given them more financial independence.

Planet

Most raw materials used in the production are sourced from the wild, and for those ingredients that are not locally available, such as coconut oil, sesame oil, spices for pickles, oleoresins, essential oils, they source from a familiar network of organic producers. They also use paper pouches and glass jars for food, butter paper and paper for soap wrapping and aluminium containers for body butters and balms. Other than lye, no chemical is used in any of our production units. The production units manage their waste locally, sending to recycle all plastic bags and aluminium containers.