, Coffee and Conservation
J JOHN H. RAPPOLE,. DAVID I. KING, t AND JORGE H. VEGA RIVERA:\:I
I .Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center, 1500 Remount Road, Front Royal, VA 22630, U.S.A.,
email jrappole@crc.si.edu
tU.S. Forest Service Northeast Experiment Station, 203 Holdsworth Natural Resources Center, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, U.S.A.
:J:Estacion deBiologia Chamela, Instituto de Biologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de MeXico, Apartado Postal
21, San Patricio,}alisco, 22630, MeXico
There is a growing campaign involving both conserva- production and harvest, however, because of lower
tion and scientific organizations to convince major retail- yield per plant, fewer plants per unit area, and greater
ers and the coffee-drinking public to purchase "shade susceptibility to damage from insects and disease.
coffee" (grown under a canopy) as opposed to "sun cof- Efforts to improve coffee production and to recover
fee" (grown without an overstory) as a means for pre- from the actual and anticipated damage from the devas-
serving biodiversity in the tropics (Conservation Interna- tating coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix) have led to
tional 2000; National Audubon Society 2000; Rainforest development of new varieties (e.g., caturra) that are
Alliance 2000; Sherry 2000). This campaign is based on tolerant of direct sunlight. These "sun-grown" varieties
studies showing that more structurally complex habitats can be grown in the absence of a forest canopy, making
generally support more diverse faunas (MacArthur & Mac- them amenable to mechanized agricultural practices,
Arthur 1961). At 10 billion dollars annually in revenues, and they produce significantly higher yields than tradi-
coffee is second only to oil in value as a legal export tional shade-grown coffee while demonstrating seem-
commodity in many parts of Latin America, and in some ingly greater resistance to disease. For these reasons, sun
countries it is the most important source of foreign capi- coffee has become extremely popular with international
tal (Rice & Ward 1997). These statistics mean that large aid organizations, national agricultural agencies, and
numbers of consumers are involved, who can bring large-scale producers, and vast areas of the tropics have
enormous pressure on growers. If significant numbers been planted with them. At present, sun coffee makes
of people demand shade coffee and are willing to pay up about 40% of coffee production in Colombia, Middle
for it, then they are going to get it. Nevertheless, we be- America, and the Caribbean (Rice & Ward 1997).
lieve there are reasons for caution in employing such a Sun coffee is not a diverse ecosystem, and its byprod-
blunt instrument as global market forces on such a com- ucts-forest reduction, increased erosion, chemical run-
plex conservation issue. off (from requisite high levels of pesticide treatments),
Traditional methods for the establishment and mainte- and consolidation of plantations under large landown-
nance of coffee plantations involve placement of young ers-are not positive environmental developments. If
coffee plants under a canopy provided by one or more the sole result of the promotion of shade coffee were to
tree species. For instance, we have observed in rainfor- encourage growers to convert sites that are currently in
est regions of southern Veracruz that Mexican govern- sun coffee to shade coffee, then there could be few
ment extension agents encourage subsistence farmers to qualms from a conservation perspective about the cam-
plant coffee as a cash crop, providing them with the paign so wholeheartedly endorsed not only in lay publi-
seedlings and advising them to plant them in sites cations but scientific journals as well (Tangley 1996;] cleared of understory but where the native tree over- Sherry 2000).
story remains. These kinds of primitive coffee planta- The goal of the shade-coffee campaign is to encourage
, tions are found throughout tropical regions of the consumers to pay more for shade coffee to provide eco-
world. They are relatively inefficient in terms of bean nomic incentives to growers (Rainforest Alliance 2000).
Ideally, the incentives would be so attractive that grow-
Paper submitted November 11, 2001; revised manuscript accepted ers would convert their sun coffee to traditional shade
February 20, 2002. coffee. But because the financial returns per hectare are
334
Conservation Biology, Pages 334-336
Volume 17, No.1, February 2003
f e  nservation 
POLE,* I ,t E A RA* 
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Rappole et al. Coffee and Conservation 335
significantly greater for sun than shade coffee, it seems the equivalency of ecological communities (Rappole &
likely that there will always be a place for sun coffee at Morton 1985). An agricultural site in which 30 forest
the low end of the market for those consumers who bird species have been replaced by 30 open-country
want to pay less regardless of the conservation costs. bird species can have the same avian diversity as a fQrest
A more probable outcome of a successful shade-coffee site...
promotion would be to close the profitability gap be- A third problem is that, i~ the apparent interests of
tween sun and shade coffee so that growers considering sending a clear message to the coffee-drinking public,
conversion of existing plantations would leave them in promotions often blur the distinction between the dif-
shade coffee. This potential benefit to conservation from ferent types of shade coffee. Methods of shade-coffee
a shade-coffee campaign could have some high costs. cultivation vary widely. At one end of the spectrum is
The first of these is the creation of an incentive to con- the type used by subsistence farmers that hardly differs
vert existing areas of primary forest to shade coffee that' from native forest; at the other end is a two- or three-
are too remote or steep to be converted profitably to crop system with coffee plants as the understory and
other forms of cultivation. Although shade coffee may low-pruned trees (e.g., cacao [11Jeobroma cacao] or cit-
represent a relatively benign type of agriculture, it is not rus [Citrus]) as an overstory. Economic forces tend to
equivalent to native forest. Second, the widespread en- push growers away from plantations that mimic forest
dorsement of shade coffee represents a dramatic "lower- and toward those that mimic a citrus grove. Both ex-
ing of the bar" in terms of conservation goals. Shade cof- tremes qualify as "shade coffee," but their contributions
fee, even "traditional" shade coffee, cannot provide to biodiversity are significantly different. For instance,
ecosystem services comparable to the native forest it re- coffee plantations with tall, multilayered overstories of
places. Indeed, there are several studies that document native trees can have avian diversity comparable to that
significant ecological differences between forests and of native forest, whereas other types of shade coffee,
shade coffee. For instance, the mammalian, avian, and dominated by single tree species pruned to 5-6 m, are
herpetofauna of Middle American shade-coffee sites are little different from sun coffee in terms of avian diversity
depauperate when compared with those of native forest and species richness (Greenberg et al. 1997). The issue
(Rendon-Rojas 1994; Gallina et al. 1996; Martinez & Pe- of accuracy is critically important because promotions
ters 1996; Roberts et al. 2000). Even when forest spe- often make no distinction between different types of shade
cies occur in shade-coffee plantations, they are seldom coffee, or they make a distinction in one part of their
found far from forest edges (Martinez & Peters 1996; materials but make no distinction in another (Conserva-
Roberts et al. 2000). tion International 2000; Rainforest Alliance 2000). As
A further example of the potential unintended conse- Rice and Ward (1997) note, "Consumers are now faced
quences of shade-coffee promotion is its possible effects with a growing array of coffees produced beneath a vari-
on the highland pine-oak (Pinus-Quercus) ecosystem, ety of systems, but seldom realize the distinction being
recognized as one of the most endangered habitats of made." These distinctions can be quite fine. For in-
Middle America (Dinerstein et al. 1995). Over 150 spe- stance, the Organic Crop Improvement Association has
cies of birds are found in this community (Ki~g & the oldest and most successful process for certifying en-
Rappole 2000), including the Golden-cheeked Warbler vironmentally friendly coffee farms, accounting for as
(Dendroica cbrysoparia), an endangered migratory spe- much as 2% of the world market (Rice & Ward 1997),
cies and pine-oak obligate (Rappole et al. 1999,2000). but they include no explicit requirements for shade
Based on our observations, the principal threat to pine- cover (Organic Crop Improvement Association Interna-
oak is conversion to agriculture, and coffee is one of the tionalI999). Yet their producers, or indeed anyone mar-
few types of agriculture suited to the high elevations and keting coffee as "shade-grown," are likely to reap some
steep slopes where most of the remaining habitat is benefit from an increased market for the product whether
found. Removal of the native oak midstory, which pre- or not they meet the rigorous certification requirements
sumably would accompany the most benign conversion for the diversity of plantation tree species prescribed by
of pine-oak to coffee, would render the habitat unsuit- some certifying conservation organizations.
able for Golden-cheeked Warblers, which forage nearly Given these considerations, there are obviously impor-
exclusively on oak (Rappole et al. 1999), and for many tant issues yet to be addressed regarding the conserva-
other members of the avian community. Thus, although tion value of shade coffee. With 700,000 coffee growers
some types of shade coffee may have a legitimate role as in northern Latin America alone (Rice & Ward 1997),
a buffer for forest reserves (Moguel & Toledo 1999), what sort of certification process will assure that the
shade coffee is not sufficient to preserve the biota of the funds generated to support shade coffee actually go to-
native forest. Perhaps the strongest claim for the ecolog- ward tropical habitat conservation? What is the total 'c,
ical equivalency of shade coffee and forest is that some acreage of shade coffee of different levels of overstory
types of plantations can provide "biodiversity" similar to diversity, and what are the differences in terms of com-
that of forest. However, diversity indices tell little about munity structure and ecosystem services provided by these
Conservation Biol gyVolume 17,No.1, February 2003 .
ppole   f ee  nservation         
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336 Coffee and Conseroation Rappole et at.
different shade-coffee types compared with the forests MacArthur, R., andJ. MacArthur. 1%1. On bird species diversity. &01-
they have replaced? What are the likely and actual out- ogy 42:594-598.
..Martinez, E., and W. Peters. 19%. La cafeticultura biologica: la finca
comes m terms of coffee-plantatIon management of an Irlanda como estudio de caso de un diseno agroecologico. Pages
infusion of funds promoting shade versus sun coffee? 159-183 in J. Trujillo, F. de Leon-Gonzalez, R. Calderon, and P.
Most important, what are the effects of a shade-coffee Torres-lima, editors. Ecologia aplicada a la agricultura: temas se-
campaign on efforts to promote the presetVation of native le~t~s de Mexico. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico,
)forest? These and many other critical ecological, eco- MeXIco, D.F. .d .I .at .h uld b db Mogu l, P., and V. M. Toledo. 1999. Biodiversity conservation m tradi- \\
nomiC, an SOCIO ogtc questions s 0 e answere e- tional coffee systems of Mexico. Conservation Biology 13: 11- 21. j
fore the consetVation and scientific communities provide National Audubon Society (NAS). 2000. Coffee and the conservation
their unqualified endorsement of shade coffee. of migratory birds. NAS, New York. Available from http://www.
audubon.orgibird/cafe.htrn (accessed December 2000).
Organic Crop Improvement Association international (OCIAI). 1999.
international certification standards. OCIAI, lincoln, Nebraska.
Acknowledgments Rainforest Alliance. 2000. The conservation coffee campaign orga-
nizer's kit. Rainforest Alliance, New York.
.Rappole, J. H., D.1. King, and P. Leirngruber. 2000. Winter habitat and
We thank E. S. Morton, R. Greenberg, S. Demckson, R. distribution of the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler. Animal
Trubey, and W. Peterson for helpful discussion and com- Conservation 2:45-59.
ments on the manuscript. Rappole,J. H., D. I. King, and W. Barrow. 1999. Winter ecology of the
endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler. Condor 101:762-770.
Rappole, J. H., and E. S. Morton. 1985. Effects of habitat alteration on a
tropical forest avian community. Pages 1013-1021 in P. A. Buckley,
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Conservation Biology
Volume 17, No. I, February 2003
6       ff   v ti  l  l  
different shade-coffee types co pared ith the forests 
they have replaced? hat are the likely and actual out- 
es in rms f f e-plantation anagement f 
fusion f unds omoting ade ersus  f e? 
ost portant, hat e e fects f ade-coffee 
ca paign on efforts to promote the preservation of native 
forest? These and many other critical ecological, eco- 
ic, d sociol ical stions hould b ered b
ore e servation d ient fic munities rovide 
eir qual fied orsement f e f e. 
Acknowledgments 
e ank orton, . reenberg, errickson, . 
rubey, d . terson r lpful scu sion  - 
ents  t e anuscript. 
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ec o e i d i l ut  
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