GOOD BUSINESS December 2004

SEASONS GREETINGS

I hope you are all well, happy and content this Christmas. In the New Year may all independent retailers and small-scale wholesalers prosper and do good!

A BUSY YEAR

IN JANUARY I made a rapid return trip to Kathmandu. In February I took my ten year old son to south India. The lad took a liking to sub-continental life despite moments of drama such as the unwise forest hike/sharp sprint before an oncoming wild elephant. Meanwhile I visited our incense producer in Pondicherry and came across an interesting source of home made soap.

IN MARCH I moved house, office and warehouse all at the same time. If you are going to do it, over do it, that's my motto. The new warehouse has proved a great help. It is in a safe, well-run business centre with ample parking, 24 hour access and but a micro-commute from my new house. A warm space with lots of natural light, a good display area, easy access, excellent for trade visitors. We have had quite a number already and hope to welcome more. We are stocking very short run lines and one-offs to offer visitors alongside the main lines from the catalogue.

THE NEW office is on the ground floor of our new home. At last I have all our computer kit in the same place which enables me to generate our colour catalogues, flyers, point of sale ON DEMAND, more or less.

THIS autumn we were visited by our main supplier from Jaipur, Rajasthan, north India. The visit enabled us to share a lot of information about the current requirements of the market for textiles. You will see the results feeding through into new lines for the Spring. After a late start the Christmas season really kicked in and I am in a good position to introduce new lines in 2005.

NEPAL LATEST

THE INFLUENCE of the Nepal government is shrinking. Viewers of Michael Palin's recent Himalaya series were amused by the scene in which trekkers returning from the Annapurna Sanctuary showed off their Maoist issued trekking permits.

THE FACT that Maoist insurgents can operate with impunity, taxing the foreign visitors in popular trekking areas quite close to major towns like Pokhara is yet one more example of how limited government control of the country now is. In Kathmandu it was apparent that their influence went little beyond the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. On several occasions this year blockades have cut off the capital from the rest of the country. The city is now regularly disrupted by general strikes, student demonstrations and mediocre bombs.

I HEAR different reports as to the essential character of the Maoist movement: ideological, greedy, fundamentalist, pragmatic, stupid,  principled, corrupt.   Totally consistent is the general view that the current King of Nepal is now the major obstacle to reform, the head of the Kathmandu elite with the most to loose from change. 

OUR THINKING ABOUT SANDALWOOD

THIS YEAR a customer pointed out that another incense supplier had dropped sandalwood from their range on ethical &  environmental grounds.  Obviously I had to look into this  and consider my own position on sandalwood as part of the Fragrant Garden Incense range.

GLOBALLY sandalwood is regarded as a threatened species.  Environmentalists say that it is very close to being placed on the CITES list of endangered species.   In particular sandalwood is fast disappearing from the Indonesian archipelago.   As sandalwood is partly parasitical, unregulated removal of sandalwood can destroy other rare forest species. 

INDIA is the only country to have any serious conservation strategies and  control regimes for sandalwood.  All Indian sandalwood is government owned wherever it grows, even on private land.  The market for sandalwood is government managed.  Export of sandalwood products are severely restricted. Most Indian sandalwood is used within India where it has an ancient, revered place in many aspects of religion and culture.

OVERALL Indian sandalwood cannot yet be described as threatened but ever rising prices and the thriving illegal  market suggest that the trend is probably  toward shortage.   In the news recently, the notorious south Indian forest outlaw Veerrappan (below) was killed after many years on the run.  His criminal career began as an ivory poacher but developed into sandalwood trafficking which proved more profitable.  

SOME campaigners suggest that the only impact of the Indian conservation measures is to give the sandalwood industry cover for their  over-exploitation of the sandalwood resource. They say that the government schemes are substantially corrupt. These campaigners urge eco-activists to discourage consumption of sandalwood  - a boycott.

OUR PRODUCER partner is well aware of the issues and has told us “we source all our sandalwood from Government controlled Forest Depots. For the past 15 years (in fact even before that...), we attend the Government conducted auctions for the Sandalwood in the forest offices and buy our yearly quota of Sandalwood. We do not buy from traders or any other agency.”   I was reassured to hear this as I would not accept sandalwood sourced from the illegal market.

REGARDING the supposed ineffectiveness of the Indian control system, I would need to see two things before I would reconsider supplying Indian sandalwood.  First I would need to see much better evidence that the system is not working and that Indian sandalwood is reaching the point of endangerment.  So far the evidence has an anecdotal and a priori character in my view.  My experience is that in India government is sometimes less corrupt,  more progressive than conventionally portrayed & that we should act on specific evidence not generalisations.  Secondly the demand for a boycott of the sandalwood trade should come from representative Indian organisations with connections to people whose livelihoods are affected by such measures.  In other words the demand should come from the bottom up, not top down.  That emphasis is in line with fair trade principles in which producer community empowerment is the prime objective. 

OF COURSE both my producer partner & WONDERWORLD  have a vested interest in keeping sandalwood on sale as in the Fragrant Garden range.  If you want to find out more there is lots of material on the Internet. Google search keywords: sandalwood, conservation, endangered.  See www.chrissie-wildwood.com  for the best pro-boycott arguments.

PONDICHERRY TSUNAMI IMPACT

COTTAGE INDUSTRIES, our supplier of Fragrant Garden Natural Incense has its main office, mixing and packing facility just 400 yards from the sea front in Pondicherry, between Chennai & Cuddalore in south India.  That coast was the worst affected Indian shoreline on December 26th so we were anxious to find out if our friends there had been involved.  We read that 12 metre high waves had killed many along that part of the coast, including nearly 400 in the Union Territory area of Pondicherry.  30,000 from a Pondicherry population of nearly 1 million were made homeless.  Fortunately for our connections it seems that, though some of the sea front houses were badly damaged,  waters were prevented from entering far into the town by the 27 ft high sea wall.  It seems there was no colossal surge inland as happened at places like Galle in Sri Lanka. The picture below shows just how close to the sea the old French buildings are.  

FAIR TRADE SOAP

ALSO under development is Kerala Cottage Soap, home made soap scented with coconut oil or lemon grass. The producers for Kerala Cottage Soap are a very small group of poor dalith (former untouchable) women from a rural area of Kerala, south India. These women are obtaining soap making kits under an Indian government village development scheme and selling much of their production locally. The soap has a pleasantly hand-made quality, is long lasting and will be attractively packaged. As such we felt that it has some potential in the UK market.

THE IMPECCABLE credentials of the women producers in fulfilling all fair trade criteria will make this product of special interest to fair trade networks. This is the first time we have been able to use the WONDERWORLD distribution network and infrastructure to benefit producers with radical political aims as their prime raison d'etre, who belong to the most disadvantaged communities, and who have a truly grassroots & democratic character (this is not a donor supported NGO run by educated, middle-class people). I have had extensive contact with the producer community over many years and will able to supply detailed socio-economic and political background as these products come on stream.

REPULSIVE NEW INCENSE

IN PONDICHERRY I again visited Cottage Industries production units for Fragrant Garden Incense, a hand rolling unit and a packaging unit. I was able to finalise a new entrant to the Fragrant Garden incense range for Spring 2005. This will be an Insect Repelling Incense, a combination of Lemon Grass and Neem. Both are natural substances commonly used in India to ward off mosquitos, ticks, etc. Rather than the usual 20 stick per packet Lemon Grass & Neem combination insect repelling sticks will be 8 sticks per packet, each stick will be considerably fatter than the normal stick, thus delivering insects a livelier encouragement to depart.

DROPPED from the Fragrant Garden range - Pot Pourri. People just didn't want to buy it from us. Under development - Lavender. Only poor quality lavender is available in India so we are conducting tests with top quality French lavender oil. We are still working on dilution calculations which we hope will result in a viable lavender incense.

PS. Product Information leaflets for Fragrant Garden are available.