Starter Kit. Idea 66 of 500. Cluster 3
Elephant-dung paper, which exists, branded properly and sold at every park gate
The mechanism, from the book
The Zermatt water bottle. Sigiriya has not got a stone with its own name on it.
The first step
Buy a sample batch of elephant-dung paper from a producer and have it made into notebooks and cards with a clear, well-designed label. Take them to the shop at one park gate and ask to sell them on commission for a month. Weekly sales are the proof, and the gate's reorder settles it.
- Who pays first
- Families and visitors leaving a national park who want a light, surprising souvenir that tells the park's own story.
- What leaves today
- The paper already exists but sells as an unbranded curiosity; proper branding at every gate captures the price it deserves.
Ask first
- Department of Wildlife Conservation. Ask whether selling at park gates needs their permission, and how to apply.
- National Crafts Council. Ask which makers produce elephant-dung paper and supply shops.
Check before you spend
Whether selling at the park gates is allowed and on what terms, and that the paper is cleanly made with an honest label.
Find out these three numbers
- What will visitors pay for a notebook at the park gate?
- How much paper can the makers supply each month?
- How many visitors pass each park gate in a day?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"And there is nothing to buy that is from there."
Paper from the park's own elephants is something truly from there.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.