Welcome to Last Forest Enterprises!
Based in Kotagiri in the heart of the Nilgiri mountains, our brand has been a market facilitator for wild forest produce that is harvested by indigenous communities since 1995. These communities are value adding forest and agriculture products, which are natural, wild and local. We believe that the spirit of the forest is about growth that is meaningful, balanced and contributing.
For the au courant seeking aesthetic and socially responsible solutions, Last Forest is a sustainable marketplace that provides eco-friendly, thoughtful and meaningful options that directly involves communities.
our mission
To pioneer sustainable living choices by connecting communities and markets
our values
At Last Forest, we prioritize providing high quality products to our clients while building a fair and trusting relationships with our producers and consumers.
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our networks and alliances
FAQs
We want to make it easy for you to find answers to any questions you may have about our products, partners, or networks!
Hop over to our FAQ page for more answers!
You will notice that sometimes your honey will become thicker and/or cloudy, and a coarse sugary texture forms on the bottle. The crystallization of honey can take place due to the involvement of various factors and is a completely normal and unalarming phenomena. Real, untampered, and natural honey has glucose and fructose present inside of it, these bind together and form the little crystals resulting in harder honey.
The crystallization process is natural and has little to no effect on the honey other than new textures, densities, and colouring. Crystallised honey is perfectly safe for consumption and certainly does not mean that it has gone bad. Nutritionally, there is nothing wrong with crystallized honey. However, after honey crystallizes, it becomes highly viscous, making it difficult to remove from its container and challenging to work with.
Each flower species has a different proportion of glucose to fructose in its nectar, and glucose crystallizes more readily than fructose, making the ratio of glucose to fructose in honey an important factor to consider. Honey essentially is made up of 70 percent Sugar and 20 percent of water, and the other 10 percent are micro-nutrients. Glucose essentially can be understood as sugar and its excess presence makes honey susceptible to crystallisation, whereas the content of fructose is known to be normal in honey.
Usually, honey can also crystallise if the water content in it is above 24/25 percent. During the process of filtration if air bubbles which form are not destroyed, they can stay trapped in the bottles and can further lead to the crystallization of honey. The timeframe for the air bubbles to set in honey is 24 hours. Crystals are more likely to form in colder temperatures and therefore the climate in which the honey is consumed in affects its properties. The remnants of pollen found in honey contribute to the binding process which makes the honey further susceptible to crystallisation, although it is a healthy sign that the honey is pure.
Last Forest prides itself on its honey filtering process which extracts impurities, although in rarer cases honey can crystallise if impurities such as dust particles or wax bits are residing in the honey.
A tip to combat the crystallization of honey: In order to de-crystallize honey, all you need to do is fill a large bowl with warm water and let your honey sit in it until all the crystals dissolve.
A tip to embrace the crystallization of honey: By using the hard crystallized honey to your advantage, you can spread it on breads, biscuits or other goodies like a jam or marmalade.
Honey often exists in different colours and shades ranging from light to dark.
The colour is determined by the flowers the bees forage on, and the nectar collected by them, in the case of darker honey the nectar collected by the bees from flowering plants directly affects its appearance. Darker honey is rich in mineral content such as iron, potassium, and magnesium.
Although the colour of the honey does not indicate its quality but rather speaks to its unique properties.
Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is one of the most commonly used mechanisms to generate market-based revenue for biodiversity conservation.
PES aims to provide benefits to landowners and land-users who preserve ecosystem services (ES). The recognition of and valuation of the ES also works to disincentivize from land use which degrades the land, such as deforestation. Payments are used to incentivize land users to properly manage and conserve their natural environment, thus ensuring the flow of ecosystem services (Pagiola and Platais, 2002).
Through PES, beneficiaries of ecosystem services, i.e., consumers, pay for the conservation and sustainable use of the ecosystems they benefit from. The concept is based on the idea that ecosystems provide valuable services to society – such as water, air, and land – and that valuable resources are reusable or regenerated. PES can allow for an ecosystem to be reused or regenerated, via natural processes and social efforts such as through water purification, carbon sequestration, soil conservation, and biodiversity preservation.
The benefits of PES are:
- Conservation and management of natural resources
- Economic benefits
- Climate change mitigation
- Improved water quality
In Last Forest’s context, the honey marketed by us is from the Giant Rock Bee (Apis dorsata), which plays an important role in the forest ecosystem. Bees pollinate many species of these tropical forests, thus enabling the cycles of nature. Many other plant and animal species thrive in these forests. Many springs and streams emerge from these areas – enabling the survival of all life forms.
When you buy the honey and beeswax products, you support the symbiotic relationship that exists between man and nature. The amount will be used to support the following activities:
- Planting tree species that increase bee habitats and colonies
- Promoting beekeeping with communities
- Training and knowledge exchange for the younger generation of Adivasis to imbibe traditional values and sustainable harvesting methods.
- Undertake Ecological monitoring in these forests with barefoot ecologists. The premium charged is not based on the actual costs of ecosystem services rendered by bees, it is a notional amount to determine willingness to pay.
Beeswax is a by-product of honey harvesting. It is a natural wax produced by individual honeybees of the genus Apis. There are two ways through which it can be extracted, either from the brood with pollen or from honey chambers.
If the beeswax is extracted from the honey chambers, most often they are split into three parts out of which the central portion containing the wax is taken out, resulting in the collection of beeswax.
Beeswax has been used for centuries, instead of throwing it out and generating waste, it’s used as a base for our value-added beeswax products. It can be derived from a variety of plants and trees and is considered environmentally friendly and does not pose a threat to the environment.
The beeswax wrap has no expiry date and is not usually susceptible to damage unless it is handled roughly. It can be reused 20-30 times if taken care of and used properly according to the instructions.
It is suggested to squeeze and dry the wrap after every use as that helps in retaining its long-lasting effect.
Last Forest is directly involved with the community and contributes first-hand on the ground with communities through partnering with our sister producer company Aadhimalai who have established production centres in the villages.
Last Forest carries the local indigenous produce from communities into the market and therefore bridges the gap between ideologies, production and business-oriented thought processes.
Last forest does not just function or see itself as a business but rather consciously tries to provide livelihood support to women and communities through our work. We have never sold a product without considering the social responsibility we carry; we don’t just sell products we stand to empower women and communities through our enterprise. There has and will always be a thoughtfulness behind each business transaction we initiate.
In relation to processes undertaken, we have held quality improvement trainings and awareness sessions with community members over the years.
Last Forest supports indigenous communities to sustain themselves by empowering their skill sets and bringing economic growth. By reinvesting over 30% of our profits in community development, we ensure improvement of health and education and generate pride, dignity, and sustainable income for producers.
In numbers, Last Forest impacts over 6,500 indigenous persons in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. The Aadhimalai producer company, who are our primary suppliers, has a total membership of 1609 producers, all of whom are indigenous people.
Each employee in the producer company is a shareholder, encouraging them to make decisions on behalf of the company.
The production and value addition take place at village level production centres. These centres are completely run and operated by women who now, do not have to go out of their villages to work in nearby estates. They are now able to earn an income in their own village while taking care of their homes and children.