Antonia DeMatto travels the world protecting the environment and helping impoverished people in places where wildlife is threatened.
By:Susan Van Dongen
Elephants don’t like chile peppers, so much so that they won’t
even brush their leathery skin against a single chile.
That’s some odd trivia that might be a conversation starter
or stopper but it’s also a life-saving bit of knowledge for a group
of environmentalists who hope to quell problems between farmers and elephants.
"The elephants are one of the animals we’re really focusing
on," says Antonia DeMatto. Dedicated to protecting wildlife and helping impoverished
people who live in areas where wildlife is threatened, Ms. DeMatto founded the
non-profit Working Hand in Hand in 2004. Traveling to Zambia in southeastern Africa,
the former Levittown, Pa., resident found a region on the brink, where even a
small non-profit could make a difference in the quality of life.
In this particular region of Zambia, near South Luangwa National
Park, she found serious threats to wildlife, but also conflict between elephants
and farmers. Amazingly, chile peppers provided a solution.
"Elephants need a lot of room to roam and can trample on and
ruin a farmers plot, so the farmers poach them in retaliation," says Ms. DeMatto
speaking from her home in Menlo Park, Calif. "But one of the local conservation
groups came up with the idea to set up chile pepper fences to keep them out since
elephants don’t want to come near chile peppers.
"Working Hand in Hand’s profits are helping expand this program,"
she continues. "So this program protects their crops and also gives them a new
cash crop, but it also reduces the conflict between elephants and people."
The non-profit has teamed up with the Sally French Gallery in
Lambertville to assist the artisans in Zambia with an exhibit and sale of artful
beaded jewelry, hand-painted cotton accent cushions and table coverings, wood
carving and wirework.
The crafts are unusual in several ways. They merge traditional
African skills with elements of modern design to produce vibrant designs and sophisticated
colors to satisfy a wide range of décor and tastes. Each is hand-produced
and one-of-a-kind. And 100 percent of WHIH’s profits go to projects that improve
the rural area where the crafts are produced.
The all-volunteer organization works with communities in this
distant country to create and fund programs that link wildlife conservation and
assistance to local people. Its purpose is to reduce the lure of illegal wildlife
poaching by providing opportunities for employment, entrepreneurship and education.
Although she is based on the West Coast, Ms. DeMatto, a Princeton
University alumna, has friends and WHIH volunteers in this part of the country.
One of them made contact with Sally French and took a book filled with photographs
of the beautiful crafts to her place.
Ms. French agreed that the work belonged in a gallery.
"She was the first gallery (for our things) and also the first
place that has a really significant exhibit showing the range of work that the
people can do," Ms. DeMatto says. "She has the largest selection anywhere in the
U.S. of these beautiful items. They’re pieces of contemporary art and every one
is made from scratch. You don’t have to be interested in Africa and wildlife to
enjoy these.
"I found some fantastic artisans there, taking craft to the
level of art," she continues. "I wanted to help them find a market for their products,
then they would be able to grow their businesses. And because we could make a
profit from their goods, we could re-invest the profits."
Ms. DeMatto did her undergraduate work at Princeton, then moved
to California to go to Stanford University’s business school. But as a student
at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, she began studying economic and agricultural
development and even did some independent work on southern Africa.
"I didn’t know it would be a major focus of my life later on,"
she says. "Another link to this has been an interest in protecting the environment
and especially endangered wildlife. I had been working for about 15 years and
decided to take some time off to do some volunteer work with wildlife conservation
groups. That’s what took me to Africa for the first time. It was on a side trip
that I visited Zambia for the first time and fell in love with the area."
She says she simultaneously learned about the specific problems
of the region as well as the great artisans that were working there. Ms. DeMatto
also discovered some grass-roots non-profit groups that were springing up in the
area to help the environment.
"Sometimes there’s an artificial split between non-profit groups
they can only focus on one thing or another," she says. "I was more interested
in trying to knit things together, helping people and protecting wildlife. When
I got to know this area of Zambia, I wanted to find a way to help the people who
lived there."
In addition to elephants, South Luangwa National Park has an
abundance of other spectacular wildlife. Ms. DeMatto says it’s famous for its
leopards and may be one of the best places in the region to see them. There are
also lions, zebras, giraffes and a host of other wild creatures 60 different
animal species and over 400 different bird species altogether.
Unfortunately, there are no more rhinos in the area. Although
their numbers were strong as recently as the 1970s, Ms. DeMatto says they’re extinct
now because of poaching.
"It’s a reminder of what can happen when wildlife poaching gets
out of hand," she says. "That’s why we have to work so hard now, so things don’t
go in this direction."
Ms. DeMatto says Zambia is a quiet country that doesn’t get
a lot of attention in the U.S., for one thing, because it’s politically stable.
"That’s good for them, but it also means that Zambia isn’t on
anyone’s radar," she says. "That’s why I wanted to focus on it with Working Hand
in Hand. They’re extremely needy people but because the country hasn’t slipped
into the worst situations like the Congo and the Sudan they can
be helped by smaller organizations. We wanted to address some of these problems
while they’re still addressable. A relatively small effort can yield great results."
Artisan crafts from Working Hand in Hand are on view at the Sally French
Gallery, 13 N. Union St., Lambertville, through Feb. 28. Gallery hours: Tues.-Sat.
10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. For information, call (609) 773-0048. On the
Web: www.sallyfrenchgallery.com.
Working Hand in Hand on the Web: www.workinghandinhand.org