MAKE A GIFT TO PROTECT THE ONLY BEAR IN SOUTH AMERICA
Forgotten Fleece: Turning Wool Into Economic Possibility
As Felicita Manayanay, SBC’s Felti trainer, walked up the winding road towards Tungula, she gazed at the animals in the pastures above the village. She now saw more than grazing sheep grazing, she saw an opportunity for local families, and ultimately for spectacled bears.
Challenging Conditions for People and Bears
In northern Peru’s Andes mountains, people and bears depend on the same land for survival. This remote region has minimal government support for basic services like electricity, potable water, health care and education. Few, if any economic opportunities exist, especially for women.
Families rely on their crops and grazing livestock in nearby forests for a subsistence living. Faced with prolonged droughts, they are forced to expand their agricultural and grazing activities deeper into forests, accelerating deforestation and increasing the likelihood of human-wildlife conflict.
Economic necessity is putting communities, ecosystems and bears at risk. This is why SBC’s Felti alternative livelihood program is crucial for bear conservation.
Felti Supports Community Wellbeing and Conservation
Felti artisans become empowered with new skills, a sustainable income and financial independence. This helps women afford medicine, nutritious food and education for their families. The program helps improve community wellbeing, creates an economic incentive for conservation, and builds trust between SBC and local villages. Protecting bear habitat becomes a shared priority.
In the Felti program, women from villages near critical bear habitat learn to create needle-felted wool ornaments 
Ongoing training workshops are a foundation of the program Making Sustainable Connections
Felicita’s weekly training workshops serve an important purpose. While the women gather to improve their craft and product quality, it has also become a cherished time to build friendships and a social support network. It was during one of these exchanges that Felicita learned a crucial insight: when they sheared their sheep, the women were only using a fraction of the wool. The rest—high quality wool, perfect for felting—was simply thrown away because there was no use for it.
This revelation struck Felicita like lightning. Here was a valuable resource being tossed aside, while SBC sourced wool from family farms in other parts of the northern Andes. What if SBC could source wool directly from Tungula, increasing economic benefits to a village near bear habitat?
Expanding Economic Empowerment
Felicita proposed the idea that quickly transformed Tungula’s wool waste into a commodity. SBC now purchases this previously discarded resource, creating economic opportunities for more people. Families without a member participating as an artisan can now become involved in the program by supplying wool.
As of 2025, the number of Tungula’s families supplying wool has doubled. We are using this success as a blueprint for expanding Felti’s economic impact in other villages throughout bear habitat.
Feltis are made of 100% sheep’s wool. SBC sources more than 300 kgs of wool for our production each year. As Felicita returns home each week along that winding road, she is inspired by the possibilities behind her on the hillside – where a simple resource like wool is helping to build a future where both people and spectacled bears can thrive together.
You can be part of the Felti program’s success because every Felti makes a difference for bears and people living near critical habitat. Visit our online store to shop and make an impact for conservation in Peru.
