Saving the Rain Forest One Latte at Time with Shade-Grown Coffee

You know that slightly annoying, hippy-ish/yuppy-ish guy who visits the trendy coffee shop every day, who brings his own cup and always tips the barista? Well, if he’s ordering the organic, fair-trade, shade-grown coffee, you can add saving the forests to his list of virtuous habits.

Jane Goodall, scientist turned environmental activist, has seen first-hand the forests restored by local indigenous farmers growing the prized shade-grown beans (link). Flying over Tanzania, Goodall saw the crippling deforestation that has occurred around the Gombe National Park since her studies began. She also saw that because of the deforestation there were starving chimps and people, and she knew that she could not save the chimps or other wildlife without helping the local people.

Heeding the Forests Now Declaration, she and others began a multilevel process of reforestation, water and sanitation projects, microlending for women, and so on. However, once they found that some really great coffee was growing up the local mountains, they had another strategy to pursue: There could be a real market for the shade-grown coffee that could create a sustainable agricultural economy for the people around Gombe. However, they did not have roads or local infrastructure in order to profitably grow and sell the coffee.

Goodall convinced some coffee roasters in Seattle to come and try the beans, and, also, because they liked it, help market the coffee. Within five weeks Green Mountain Coffee Roasters had begun investing in Gombe infrastructure and farming tools. Now, thanks to the coffee initiative, the local people are setting aside 10-20% of their land for reforestation and forest protection. And, they are doing it so that the trees form a continuous corridor, letting chimps once isolated between deforested patches of land move farther and communicate more than ever in their lives. The development of the forests also encourages biodiversity and the maintenance of bird populations that would otherwise be lost (link).

Plans like the Gombe’s have been enacted throughout the world from Costa Rica to the Amazon. But, is shade-grown coffee just for the birds? Many coffee experts believe shade-grown coffee is fuller in taste and aroma:

Shaded conditions create a cooler setting and, like coffee grown at a higher altitude, the growth of the bean is slower. This creates a denser, harder bean, and that is what roasters and coffee experts like for quality coffee.

Few studies have actually tested the effect that shade has on coffee quality, but one study in Costa Rica confirms the beneficial effects of shade on quality. When tested for all the “organoleptic” qualities: acidity, aroma, body, aftertaste, etc.-a shade canopy induced quality improvements in most categories.

Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center

So, the annoying guy at the coffee shop is paying a few cents more not only to have a much better cup of coffee, but also to support reforestation, bird and chimp life, and third-world economic development as well.  Shade-grown coffee: does the world good.

December 7, 2008  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Uncategorized

One Response

  1. Brazil Allows Some Illegal Deforestation? - December 8, 2008

    [...] my post about deforestation and shade-grown coffee, I came across this gem in the Economist: Brazil’s [...]

Leave a Reply