topic: Coffee

topic: Coffee

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Shade-grown coffee benefits birds, forests & people in Venezuela
- The Aves y Cafe program in Venezuela aids rural communities by encouraging community-centered shade coffee agroforestry, while protecting rare and migrating birds.
- The project has so far succeeded in protecting 415 hectares (1,025 acres) of montane forest, ensuring the survival of threatened endemic and migratory bird species.
- Through empowering local smallholders, the program is enhancing livelihoods, promoting biodiversity conservation and safeguarding crucial ecological corridors, including carbon sequestration.

Indonesian palm oil, Brazilian beef top contributors to U.S. deforestation exposure
- A new report reveals that the United States imported palm oil, cattle products, soybeans, cocoa, rubber, coffee and corn linked to an area of tropical deforestation the size of Los Angeles between October 2021 and November 2023.
- Palm oil from Indonesia was the largest contributor to deforestation, followed by Brazil due to cattle grazing.
- The report by Trase, commissioned by Global Witness, found that the U.S. continues to import deforestation-linked commodities while awaiting the passage of the FOREST Act, which aims to prohibit imports of products linked to illegal deforestation.
- Experts emphasize the need for action from companies, governments, financial institutions and citizens to stop commodity-driven forest loss, urging support for smallholders, increased transparency in supply chains, and the passage of the FOREST Act in the U.S.

Harsh dry season sours harvest prospects for Java coffee farmers
- Indonesia is the world’s fourth-largest producer of coffee, after Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, but the archipelago’s farmers are less productive than their competitors.
- In East Java province, farmers have seen yields plummet as a protracted water deficit shrinks fruit and introduces pests.
- Total output is expected to drop by more than 20% this season, while increasingly frequent extreme weather may pose challenges to the viability of some smallholders in lowland areas of Indonesia.

Sumatra coffee farmers brew natural fertilizer as inflation bites
- Farmers in Indonesia’s Lampung province are making their own organic fertilizer in order to lessen reliance on volatile external supply chains.
- They’ve also diversified the number of crops they grow, interspersing avocado and candlenut trees among crops like coffee and vanilla.
- Advocates of organic farming maintain that techniques like those on display in Lampung can boost yields while countering some of the costs and negative impacts of chemical products.

U.S. and U.K. lawmakers must wake up to the coffee problem (commentary)
- Coffee is a globally traded agri-commodity that is also a major driver of deforestation, mass extinction, child labor, slavery, and other abuses.
- The FOREST Act just introduced in the U.S. Senate would regulate palm oil, cocoa, rubber, cattle, and soy – but not coffee. Also this month, the U.K. announced details of its long-awaited deforestation legislation, but it doesn’t cover coffee, either.
- It’s time for regulators in these top coffee consuming countries to wake up, recognize the urgency, and regulate coffee, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Indigenous Suruí turn invaders’ crop into high-quality Amazonian coffee
- The Indigenous Paiter Suruí people of Brazil have reclaimed the coffee farms established by invaders on their land, in the process opening up a new source of livelihood and strengthening community bonds.
- Through training and partnerships, this Indigenous community has learned how to process coffee beans to specialty standards, yielding a high-quality and highly valued product.
- Today, coffee production is a significant source of income for 132 families of various Indigenous ethnicities living in Rondônia state.
- Growing coffee has also become an opportunity for the Suruí to tell their own story, through ethnotourism and the training of Indigenous baristas like Celesty Suruí.

How climate change could jeopardize Brazilian coffee
- Drier and hotter conditions are wreaking havoc on arabica coffee production in São Paulo and Minas Gerais, with climate change and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado being the main causes.
- Since 2010, temperatures in coffee-producing municipalities have risen by 1.2° Celsius (2.16° Fahrenheit) during the flowering period; projections indicate more days of extreme temperatures (above 34°C, or 93°F) by 2050.
- Producers are betting on agroforestry and shading techniques to save production and improve natural pollination.

EU deforestation-free rule ‘highly challenging’ for SE Asia smallholders, experts say
- Millions of small-scale farmers in mainland Southeast Asia are at risk of losing access to European forest commodity supply chains unless serious action is taken to help them comply with the new EU deforestation-free regulation, experts say.
- Smallholders produce significant quantities of the region’s forest-related commodities, but many lack the technical capacity and financial capital to meet the hefty due diligence requirements of the new rule.
- Without support for vulnerable communities to comply, experts say farmers could be exposed to land grabbing, dispossession and other abuses, with some left with no choice but to retreat into forested landscapes to eke out a living.
- Sustainability groups, meanwhile, say the new EU rule is an opportunity to move forest commodity sectors toward improved responsibility, sustainability and transparency.

Philippine tribe boosts livelihoods and conservation with civet poop coffee
- Indigenous farmers in the southern Philippines have found the perfect balance between improving livelihoods and conserving the environment.
- The B’laan villagers collect and sell premium coffee beans pooped out by wild palm civets in the forests of Mount Matutum.
- Ensuring the civets can continue to roam the forests unharmed also ensures that they spread the seeds of coffee and other fruit trees far and wide, shoring up the local ecosystem.
- Their sustainable practice differs from commercial civet coffee operations elsewhere in Southeast Asia, which are associated with mistreatment of caged civets.

Shade-grown coffee won’t support all birds, but adding a forest helps: Study
- The Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification promotes shade-grown coffee where the canopy has at least 40% cover provided by diverse native plants, among other research-based criteria.
- A recent study examined what types of conservation actions on coffee farms would conserve birds as well as or better than the current certification standards — an increasingly relevant question as coffee now grows on an area of agricultural land that could cover one-tenth of the U.S.
- The researchers found that while growing coffee under the shade of a diverse tree canopy protects more habitat-generalist and nonbreeding birds, setting aside intact forest and farming coffee in the open conserves more forest-specializing and breeding birds.
- The Smithsonian plans to update its certification criteria based on these results, though researchers say it still remains the “gold standard.” For coffee drinkers without access to Smithsonian Bird Friendly coffee, researchers suggest any certified organic options.

Farmers in Mexico fight coffee disease with resistant varieties and agroforestry
- Indigenous Mixe farmers in Mexico’s Sierra Norte highlands are testing dozens of coffee varieties and developing agroforestry systems in order to combat coffee leaf rust, a fungal disease that spread to the region and devastated coffee production.
- The parasitic fungus thrives in wet and warm temperatures, say researchers, which are becoming more frequent in Mexico’s highlands amid changes in climate.
- The project tests the resistance of over 27 different varieties of coffee within a shaded agroforestry system that helps decrease temperatures and create drier conditions – reducing the fungi’s spread.
- Cultivating organic coffee in times of unpredictable weather is risky, costly and a laborious exercise. The cost of production is also growing, affecting farmers’ eagerness and capacity to cultivate.

Coal mining threatens Ethiopia’s ancient coffee forest
- The Yayu forest in southwestern Ethiopia is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and one of the world’s only remaining ecosystems in which genetically diverse varietals of arabica coffee grow wild.
- The forest also sits atop a massive deposit of coal, estimated to be enough to meet Ethiopia’s domestic coal demand for 40 years.
- With Ethiopia’s government looking to boost the country’s mining industry, a shuttered mining venture in the forest’s buffer zone is set to be revived.
- Coffee farmers who have carefully managed and protected the forest for generations say a shift to mining will completely change their society, the local economy, and the environment.

Podcast: Tree kangaroos may be key to New Guinea forest conservation
- New Guinea is home to 12 of 14 species of the elusive, charismatic tree kangaroo.
- Conservationists in Papua New Guinea have been fighting for decades to establish protected areas using these species as a flagship species for these conservation efforts. PNG is now on the cusp of passing legislation aimed at creating a network of them.
- The Torricelli mountain range in northern PNG, home to the critically endangered tenkile tree kangaroo, has been in the crosshairs of a road project threatening to encroach upon the region, but the government is in the process of reviewing a draft proposal to halt the road for now.
- We speak with Jim Thomas of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance and Lisa Dabek and Modi Pontio of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program for this episode to explore what’s known about these intelligent marsupials, and the successes from nearly two decades working in PNG to conserve both them and the forests they inhabit.

To cooperatively stop deforestation for commodities, navigating ‘legal’ vs ‘zero’ is key (commentary)
- As a decade-long effort by the private sector to voluntarily eliminate deforestation from commodity supply chains stalls, the EU, UK, and US are all considering trade regulations.
- But policy makers and advocates have been debating the relative merits of trade barriers based on a “legality” or “zero-deforestation” standard: we believe this presents a false dichotomy. Both are necessary, from different stakeholders.
- Importing countries must support forest country governance and ownership of deforestation reduction goals, while the private sector must rapidly accelerate their implementation of zero-deforestation commitments. This “international partnership pathway” offers a more equitable and likely faster strategy, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Brazil’s agroforestry farmers report many benefits, but challenges remain
- Researchers asked agroforestry and conventional smallholder farmers in São Paulo state, Brazil for their views on the benefits of agroforestry — a farming technique that combines native vegetation with fruit trees, crops and sometimes livestock — and what they see as the barriers to switching.
- Consistent with benefits identified in past ecological studies, agroforestry farmers ranked bird abundance and soil moisture higher than conventional farmers and reported that trees on their farms cooled the air and reduced storm damage. These farmers were also more likely to be self-sufficient.
- Many smallholders who still rely on conventional crop and cattle monocultures say a lack of knowledge is holding them back from switching over to agroforestry, but technical support and environmental education could encourage them to adopt this restorative approach.
- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s laser focus on offering support for large-scale commercial agribusiness has left smallholder farmers lacking in financial and technical assistance to make the switch to agroforestry. It also limits their access to markets for their diverse harvests.

Labor rights violations at Brazil coffee farm linked to Starbucks, Nespresso
- Workers at Cooxupé, the world’s largest coffee cooperative, had up to 30% of their wages deducted to pay for the use of portable harvesting machines that their employers should have provided for free.
- The violation occurred on the Pedreira farm in Minas Gerais state, which is owned by the family of the Cooxupé president, Carlos Augusto Rodrigues de Melo.
- Cooxupé, which sells coffee to major international brands such as Nespresso and Starbucks, nearly doubled its profit in 2020 to $61 million, on revenue of $1 billion.
- In 2020, 140 workers were rescued from slave-labor-like conditions at coffee plantations in Brazil, all of them in Minas Gerais state, according to labor inspectors.

The political economy of the Pan-Amazon (book excerpt)
- Tim Killeen provides an update on the state of the Amazon in his new book “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness – Success and Failure in the Fight to save an Ecosystem of Critical Importance to the Planet.”
- The book provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the Amazon’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models vying for space within the regional economy.
- Mongabay will publish excerpts from the Killeen’s book, which will be released by The White Horse Press in serial format over the course of the next year. In this first installment, we provide a section from Chapter One: The State of The Amazon.
- This post is an except from a book. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Drinking coffee in the U.S.? Worry about forests in Vietnam, study says
- The U.S.’s thirst for coffee drives forest loss in central Vietnam, while Germany’s craving for cocoa is doing the same in West Africa, a landmark study that tracks the drivers of deforestation across borders found.
- The paper foregrounds international trade as a culprit for deforestation by calculating countries’ deforestation footprints based on their consumption and trade patterns.
- The world’s wealthiest countries are, in essence, outsourcing deforestation by consuming goods that pose a high risk of deforestation, especially in tropical countries, many of which are biodiversity hotspots.
- More data is needed to link clearly the demand for specific commodities in one country and its impact on forest loss in other countries, the study authors said.

Coffee sustainability check: Q&A with Sjoerd Panhuysen of Coffee Barometer report
- Coffee enjoys a reputation as a sustainable crop, but for many of the people who cultivate it, it’s a “poverty crop” that’s economically unviable, says Sjoerd Panhuysen, lead author of the annual Coffee Barometer report for Ethos Agriculture.
- Panhuysen says that while the coffee industry as a whole is booming, most of the profits are concentrated at the retail end of the chain, with exporters making less than a tenth of the revenue.
- Another inequity is that while women perform much of the production activities, men tend to benefit more from training in sustainable production practices, income and other benefits derived from coffee sales, he says.
- In this Q&A with Mongabay, Panhuysen identifies the growth regions for sustainable coffee, the need for clear indicators of sustainability progress, and the importance of developing solutions from the bottom up.

Smallholder agriculture cuts into key Sumatran tiger habitat
- Satellite data show several surges in deforestation in Kerinci Seblat National Park in 2020.
- Kerinci Seblat provides vital habitat for critically endangered Sumatran tigers, as well as many other species.
- The primary driver of this deforestation appears to be the expansion of small farms.
- Initiatives in the area are attempting to reduce smallholder expansion by encouraging the adoption of more sustainable farming practices.

Rainforest Alliance Certification gets a 2020 upgrade
- Rainforest Alliance has announced new, more robust criteria for certification. The rollout of the new program begins this September and companies will be audited against the new standards beginning in July 2021.
- The updated certification program provides new standards for farmers and companies in the areas of human rights, supply chains, livelihoods, deforestation and biodiversity and provides new data systems and tools for management.
- Currently, 44,000 products with the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal or UTZ label are available.

How coffee growers can adapt to a precipitous industry: Q&A with Dean’s Beans founder Dean Cycon
- Climate change is making traditional coffee-growing areas in the tropics less suitable for the crop, forcing farmers to look for new land at higher elevations and higher latitudes.
- Scientists are trying to tackle the problem by developing climate-resistant coffee plants, but solutions already exist from arid regions in Africa that can be adapted by farmers in Latin America.
- “This is something the scientific community is completely ignoring,” says Dean Cycon, founder of Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee and a longtime advocate of social justice for the millions of coffee farmers in the global south.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Cycon offers his unique insights into one of the world’s favorite beverages, the challenges of climate change, the plight of tropical farmers, and the solutions he sees as still within reach.

Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Deforestation in the village of Cibulao on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, left it prone to droughts in the dry season and landslides in the rainy season.
- That changed in the early 2000s when a local tea plantation worker named Kiryono began replanting the slopes with seeds foraged from the nearby forest.
- Among those seeds were coffee seeds taken from wild coffee trees, and with training and the help of his family, Kiryono today produces some of the most prized coffee in Indonesia.
- The village is also greener now, thanks to Kiryono’s replanting efforts, and the local farmers’ cooperative hopes to expand on that work by applying for the right to manage a larger area of land.

Innovative methods could transform Vietnam’s robusta farms into carbon sinks
- Vietnam is the second-largest producer of coffee in the world, and the largest exporter of robusta beans.
- Climate change poses a threat to the country’s coffee sector, while poor farming techniques cause environmental degradation.
- A new report has found that intercropping (agroforestry) and decreased fertilizer use can change robusta farms from carbon sources to carbon sinks.
- Such practices are present in Vietnam’s small specialty coffee industry, but large-scale commodity producers aren’t as innovative.

New report examines drivers of rising Amazon deforestation on country-by-country basis
- A new report examines the “unchecked development” in the Amazon that has driven deforestation rates to near-record levels throughout the world’s largest tropical forest.
- The main drivers of deforestation vary from country to country, according to the report, a collaborative effort by the Inter-American Dialogue and the Andes Amazon Fund.
- While the causes of Amazonian forest destruction vary, one thing that is common throughout the region is a lack of adequate resources for oversight and enforcement of environmental regulations. And “signs suggest this problem is only growing,” according to the report.

Slave labor found at second Starbucks-certified Brazilian coffee farm
- In July 2018, Brazilian labor inspectors found six employees at the Cedro II farm in Minas Gerais state working in conditions analogous to slavery, including 17-hour shifts. The farm was later added to Brazil’s “Dirty List” of employers found to be utilizing slavery-like labor conditions.
- The Cedro II farm’s coffee production operation had been quality certified by both Starbucks and Nestlé-controlled brand Nespresso. The companies had bought coffee from the farm, but ceased working with it when they learned it was dirty listed.
- 187 employers are on Brazil’s current Dirty List, which is released biannually by what was previously the Ministry of Labor, and is now part of the Ministry of Economy; 48 newly listed companies or individual employers on the April 2019 Dirty List were monitored between 2014 and 2018.

Coffee in trouble: 60% of wild coffee species threatened with extinction
- Of the 124 species of wild coffee known to science, 75 species, or 60 percent, are threatened with extinction due to deforestation, climate change and the spread of diseases and pests, a new study has found.
- The wild relative of Arabica, the most widely traded coffee in the world, is in particular trouble.
- Around 72 percent of the wild coffee species occur within some protected area, but many of the parks also have lax enforcement, and coffee species are rarely included within park management plans. Coverage of the potential range of the species is also poor.
- Moreover, only half of all wild coffee species occur in germplasm collections — critical resources for producing more resilient varieties of coffee in the future.

Cocaine blamed for rising deforestation in Peru’s Bahuaja-Sonene National Park
- The cultivation of coca is a burgeoning business in southern Peru, where even forests in protected area are being cleared to make room for coca fields.
- Coca is the plant from which cocaine is produced and is a more lucrative and dependable crop than coffee, which has been a staple crop in the region for years.
- Satellite data and a survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) show increased clearing in and the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park due primarily to coca farming.

Pressure mounting for the home of wild coffee and Ethiopian wolves
- The region of Bale Park is vital to the survival of endemic flora and fauna, like the mountain nyala (Tragelaphus buxtoni), a large antelope, and some of the planet’s last wild coffee
- Bale is also home to other ancient forms of livelihood, such as traditional beekeeping.
- Now there’s a mounting battle to preserve the park, a crucial part of southern Ethiopia’s ecosystem and a watershed source for 12 million people.

Audio: How an African bat might help us prevent future Ebola outbreaks
- On this episode, we look at research into an African bat that might be the key to controlling future Ebola outbreaks.
- Our guest is Sarah Olson, an Associate Director of Wildlife Health for the Wildlife Conservation Society. With Ebola very much in the news lately due to a recent outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Olson is here to tell us how research into hammer-headed fruit bats might help us figure out how Ebola is transmitted from animals to humans — and potentially control or prevent future outbreaks of the viral disease.
- The bats don’t contract the disease, but there is evidence that they carry the virus. Olson is part of a study in the Republic of the Congo that seeks to understand how the Ebola virus is transmitted from carriers like hammer-headed fruit bats to other wildlife and humans.

Slave labor found at Starbucks-certified Brazil coffee plantation
- Brazil Labor Ministry investigators have raided the Córrego das Almas farm in Piumhi, in rural Minas Gerais state, and rescued 18 workers who were laboring on coffee plantations in conditions analogous to slavery.
- The Córrego das Almas farm holds the C.A.F.E. Practices certification, owned by Starbucks in partnership with SCS Global Services. After hearing of the raid, the two companies responsible for issuing the seal said they would review the farm’s quality certificate. Starbucks says it hasn’t bought coffee from the farm in recent years.
- The farm also holds the UTZ seal, a Netherlands-based sustainable farming certificate prized by the coffee industry. That seal of approval was suspended after the certifier was questioned by Repórter Brasil regarding the Ministry of Justice investigation.
- Another inspection in Minas Gerais, in the town of Muzambinho, rescued 15 workers in conditions analogous to slavery from a farm owned by Maria Júlia Pereira, the sister-in-law of a state deputy, Emidinho Madeira.

Chocolate and agroforestry accelerate in El Salvador
- Cacao, which is the main ingredient in chocolate, is making a comeback in El Salvador. Centuries ago the crop was so valued that it was even used as a currency.
- Cacao has become increasingly attractive here since 2013, when industry experts warned about a shortage in the global supply of cacao caused by decreasing production in Africa. At the same time, a disease was wiping out coffee farms in El Salvador, accentuating the need for a new crop.
- The new effort to revive cacao cultivation involves growing it in agroforestry systems, where the short, shade-loving trees are cooled by other, taller, useful crops like banana, papaya and mango.
- Agroforestry combines multiple kinds of woody plants and crops in a system that cools the local environment, captures carbon from the atmosphere, boosts biodiversity and water tables, and provides multiple harvests throughout the year, which helps stabilize farmers’ incomes.

Zero-deforestation pledges need help, support to meet targets, new study finds
- The study’s authors reviewed previous research to understand the impact that zero-deforestation commitments are having on reducing the loss of forests.
- Nearly 450 companies made 760 such commitments by early 2017.
- These pledges can reduce deforestation in some cases, but in others, they weren’t effective or had unintended effects, according to the study.
- The authors advocate for increased public-private communication, more support for smallholders, and complementary laws that support these pledges.

Rainforest Alliance, UTZ announce merger to create single sustainability standard and certification program
- Together, the two NGOs certify some 182,000 cocoa, coffee, and tea farmers around the world.
- The merger will allow those farmers, and any new farmers who choose to work with the future Rainforest Alliance, to perform one audit of their operations rather than two and avoid the administrative workload of having to adhere to two sets of standards and certification systems.
- The merged groups plan to publish a single standard for their unified certification program by early 2019.

The resistance of Peruvian coffee
- Yellow rust and other diseases attack the crops of what is considered some of the best coffee in the world.
- Farmers in the southern Peru’s Sandia Valley are now beginning to realize that coca leaf is more profitable than customary coffee and citrus.
- About 500 hectares (1235 acres) have been deforested and destined for coca production in Bahuaja-Sonene National Park.
- There are 4,468 hectares (11,000 acres) of coca plantations in Puno, with an annual growth of 10 percent, according to the 2015 Peru Coca Survey submitted in July 2016.

Vietnam faces dilemma on forests as climate change threatens coffee crops
- Research shows that Vietnam may lose 50 percent of its current Robusta coffee production areas by 2050.
- 550,000 smallholder farmers supply over 95 percent of Vietnam’s coffee, while another 500,000 people are engaged in seasonal work in the industry.
- In order to continue growing this crop, the country can cut down forests to make space, or embrace them.

Development of Ethiopia’s Yayu biosphere a lifeline for organic coffee
- The UNESCO-recognized Yayu Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve covers 50,000 hectares of land in its core and buffer zones and is the traditional home to organic, wild coffee.
- The Yayu reserve is directly and indirectly related to the livelihoods of over 150,000 people.
- Organic Ethiopian forest coffee has yet to make its debut on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange.

This is why your coffee beans matter to the planet
- Coffee is one of the world’s most traded commodities and last year, 148 million 132-pound bags of coffee were produced globally.
- Southwest Ethiopia is home to the important Coffea Arabica, the genetic root of Arabica coffee.
- Commercial coffee is descended from a small number of plants which have been bred for a number of specific characteristics such as high yields.

Ethiopia’s vulnerable tropical forests are key to securing future of wild coffee
- Wild Ethiopian coffee is worth three times as much as non-wild coffee on the commercial market.
- Southwest Ethiopia’s vulnerable forests are the center of of wild coffee’s genetic diversity.
- Wild Ethiopian coffee represents an insurance plan of sorts for the commercial coffee market.

Despite conservation efforts, Tanzania’s forests still under pressure
- Tanzania boasts one of the world’s largest tree covers.
- Deforestation could cost the country’s economy up to $3.5 billion dollars by 2033.
- Reforestation work is linked to sustainable environmental management, community development and poverty alleviation.

World’s most expensive coffee often produced from caged, abused civets, study finds
- Kopi luwak or civet coffee is made from partially digested coffee beans excreted by a shy, forest-dwelling, cat-like animal called the common palm civet.
- The rising popularity of kopi luwak has meant that civets are increasingly being removed from the wild and held in captivity on kopi luwak plantations to mass produce civet coffee.
- Caged civets on these plantations, however, tend to live in very poor conditions that fail to meet the basic animal welfare requirements, according to a new study.

Conservation groups buy land from 109 coffee farmers, create reserve for rare salamanders
- During an expedition in 2014, biologists discovered that coffee farmers had bought one of the last remaining habitats for the rare and endangered Finca Chiblac salamander and long-limbed salamander.
- To protect the salamanders, conservation groups purchased the 2,000-acre plot of land from the farmers at over $600,000.
- All 109 farmers have now vacated the area, and conservation groups have established the San Isidro Amphibian Reserve on the land.

Lombok’s blooming community forest bears fruit and raises livelihoods – and haj trips
- In 1997 the land around Santong was practically a dead zone following years of untrammeled exploitation during the rule of General Suharto.
- To address this the community banded together with the local office of the Forestry Ministry and made Santong the pilot site for a community forest program.
- Today, delegations from each of the ASEAN bloc states have visited Santong to study the scheme’s successes.

Consumer choice: Shade-grown coffee and cocoa good for the birds, farmers, ecosystems

A thunderhead builds over a lush agricultural mosaic in a coffee growing region of Ethiopia. Photo credit: Evan Buechley. The next time you order that “wake up” cup of Joe or reach for a sweet treat, you may want to consider whether those coffee or cocoa beans were grown in the shade or open sun. […]
McDonald’s to address deforestation across all commodities it sources

Fast food giant McDonald’s will combat deforestation across its main commodity supply chains, including palm oil, beef, paper and packaging, coffee, and poultry. The commitment is the most comprehensive of any major restaurant chain. The policy, announced today, follows the company’s decision to sign the New York Declaration on Forests last September. Like commitments increasingly […]
Downturn in shade-grown coffee putting forests, wildlife, people at risk

Shade-grown coffee is disappearing, and so is the biodiversity that comes with it Shade-grown coffee is regarded as a form of permaculture, in which coffee is grown under a canopy of native trees in full to moderate shade cover. This allows native vegetation to persist, thereby reducing the impact of agriculture on the natural landscape. […]
Rainforest Alliance eco-certified coffee hits 1 billion pounds
Coffee produced under the Rainforest Alliance’s certification system topped a billion pounds (455,000 tons) for the first time in 2013, reports Reuters. The volume of Rainforest Alliance-certified coffee beans surged 20 percent during the year, with rising demand from big buyers like McDonald’s and Green Mountain Coffee. Overall Rainforest Alliance coffee — which is produced […]
Elephants in the midst: warning system prevents human-elephant conflicts in India, saves lives

“Elephants are headed our way,” said the text. “Please let others know.” Ganesh Raghunathan received this message, one of eight SMS messages that day from villagers across the Valparai plateau in southern India. As he does each day, Ganesh added the update to his map of the locations of elephant herds that are monitored daily, […]
Commodity eco-certification skyrockets, but standards slip

Trends in commodity certification markets Market share for certified commodities. All figures courtesy of IISD’s report The volume of commodities produced under various social and environmental certification standards jumped 41 percent in 2012, far outpacing the 2 percent growth across conventional commodity markets, finds a comprehensive new assessment of the global certification market. The report […]
Is Brazil’s epic drought a taste of the future?

With more than 140 cities implementing water rationing, analysts warning of collapsing soy and coffee exports, and reservoirs and rivers running precipitously low, talk about the World Cup in some parts of Brazil has been sidelined by concerns about an epic drought affecting the country’s agricultural heartland. With its rise as an agricultural superpower over […]
Preserving forest, birds boosts coffee profit up to $300/ha by controlling pests

Birds are providing a valuable ecosystem service on coffee plantations in Costa Rica, finds a new study that quantifies the pest control benefits of preserving tree cover in agricultural areas. The study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, looked at the impact of the coffee berry borer beetle (Hypothenemus hampeii) on coffee yields. The beetle […]
Coffee and climate change: an uncertain future for millions of farmers around the world

An inconvenient truth is not what most people want to hear before they’ve had their first cup of coffee in the morning. Our coffee break is “me time,” and we want to enjoy it. If the temperature is too high, put some ice in your cup. But for some 26 million people around the world […]
Civet poop coffee may be threatening wild species

Popularization of the world’s strangest coffee may be imperiling a a suite of small mammals in Indonesia, according to a new study in Small Carnivore Conservation. The coffee, known as kopi luwak (kopi for coffee and luwak for the civet), is made from whole coffee beans that have passed through the guts of the animal […]
Over 100,000 farmers squatting in Sumatran park to grow coffee

Motorbikes carrying coffee bags out of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. Photo courtesy of Patrice Levang. Sumatra’s Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park—home to the Critically Endangered Sumatran rhinos, tigers, and elephants—has become overrun with coffee farmers, loggers, and opportunists according to a new paper in Conservation and Society. An issue facing the park for decades, […]
Bird diversity at risk if ‘agroforests’ replaced with farmland

Çağan Şekercioğlu uses radio equipment to track an orange-billed nightingale-thrush in the Costa Rican countryside. A new study by Şekercioğlu indicates that wooded ‘shade’ plantations where coffee and cacao are grown are better for bird diversity than open farmlands, although forests still are the best habitat for tropical birds. Photo by: Mauricio Paniagua Castro. Agroforests […]
Wealthy consumption threatens species in developing countries

Deforestation of tropical forests for oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. Palm oil is one of over 15,000 commodities in a recent study that have been linked to biodiversity loss in developing countries connected to consumption abroad. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Consumption in wealthy nations is imperiling biodiversity abroad, according to a new study […]

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