Wildlife Protection Linked With Coffee-Growing

Environmental News Network

June 6, 2001

The brand of coffee consumers choose for their morning cup has a direct
effect on the songbirds they may hear while drinking it.

Growing coffee under a canopy of trees provides critical winter habitat for many migratory birds. But in the past few decades, coffee farmers have been cutting down forests to grow new, sun-tolerant varieties of coffee on treeless farms.

The result has been the loss of thousands of acres of bird and wildlife habitat in Central and South American coffee-growing regions. Expansion of the coffee frontier is also contributing to widespread tropical deforestation in Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia.

To counter this trend, a coalition of conservation groups, coffee growers, marketers, and financial organizations has crafted a comprehensive set of guidelines for producing environmentally friendly coffee. They have pledged to cooperate in building markets for sustainable coffee in the United States and abroad.

The guidelines, "Conservation Principles for Coffee Production," were unveiled on June 6 by Conservation International, the Rainforest Alliance, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, the Songbird Foundation, Seattle Audubon, and the National Wildlife Federation.

Common Standards

The principles set forth the fundamental characteristics that coffee farms and processing facilities must meet to safeguard ecological health in coffee-growing regions.

"Everyone concerned with sustainable coffee—growers, importers, roasters, retailers, environmentalists, and consumers—now have a common foundation for evaluating the environmental impact of their coffee," said Christopher London, director of the coffee program of the Consumer's Choice Council, which coordinated the development of the principles.

"We developed these principles to help strengthen the sustainable coffee movement, and promote greater clarity on conservation issues. We hope this will lead to more opportunities to collaborate in promoting conservation in the world coffee industry," London said.

The Conservation Principles focus on seven areas of concern in coffee production: ecosystem and wildlife conservation, soil conservation, water conservation and protection, energy conservation, waste management, pest and disease management, and sustainable livelihoods for farmers.

In each area, the principles outline conditions and practices that apply to farms and processing facilities in most coffee-growing regions of the world, and provide a foundation for conservation-based certification programs.

"The beauty of these principles is that they give growers, conservationists, and planners, wherever coffee is grown, a road map for protecting our shared biological heritage," said Robert Rice of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. "Traditional shade coffee farms provide significant habitat value for birds and other species, as well as local economic benefits that can help prevent further destruction of intact natural forests."

Supporting Biodiversity

Protecting the many species of songbirds that migrate between North and South America is a primary concern of the sustainable-coffee movement.

Traditional varieties of coffee grow best in shady, forested surroundings. Maintaining shade-grown coffee plantations can provide high levels of on-farm biodiversity, while helping to restore corridors between undisturbed tropical forests.

Starbucks this year purchased its largest supply of Shade-Grown Mexico coffee to meet increased demand, a company spokesperson said. To dramatize its support for the sustainable-coffee movement, Starbucks has added an interactive on-line feature to its Web site that shows the endangered cloud forest of Chiapas, Mexico, the source of the company's environmentally friendly coffee.

"This consensus allows us to say with confidence, 'Enjoy certified sustainable coffee and help conserve the rain forest, protect wildlife, and sustain farming communities,'" said Sabrina Vigilante of the Rainforest Alliance.

Organizations that include the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Global Environment Facility, and the World Bank are members of an advisory group that helped to develop the sustainable-coffee principles.