Activists pressure Office Max, Office Depot
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Factory farms grow new roots
in developing world
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ENVIRONMENT BRIEFS
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Cheap coffee threatens to wipe out
wildlife, ruin farmers

By Steve Connor

Apr. 26— A global coffee crisis caused by overproduction and a slump in wholesale prices is having a devastating impact on some of the world’s poorest communities and the Earth’s most endangered wildlife, a study published yesterday suggests.

Coffee farmers are being forced into poverty by falling prices and many are trying to maintain their livelihoods by increasing production of cheaper varieties of coffee at the expense of the environment.

Timothy O’Brien and Margaret Kinnaird, of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, said: “The crisis has serious repercussions for human livelihoods and biodiversity conservation.”

Some of the rarest animals in the world, such as tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, gibbons, and orangutans of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, are threatened by the boom in coffee production over the past decade, the two scientists report in the journal Science.

Coffee production since the 1990s has increased at an average annual rate of 3.6 percent, yet yearly consumption has risen only 1.5 percent. The glut has led to the lowest wholesale prices in 100 years, which has tarnished coffee’s image as a good cash crop for the developing world.

The crisis is forcing some coffee growers to abandon their farms to other crops or to livestock grazing, while others are expanding further into pristine rainforests where they grow a cheaper variety of coffee called robusta that is less environmentally friendly.

Dr. O’Brien said: “Unlike arabica coffee that ripens and falls to the ground, robusta coffee ripens and remains on the branch, allowing for easier harvest. Robusta coffee forms the bulk of most inexpensive coffees. It is used in instant coffee and in flavored coffees.”

He said that over the past decade, coffee growing had experienced a market free-for-all that had undermined attempts at sustainable growing that benefited growers and the local wildlife.

“Most attribute the coffee crisis to a rapid expansion of production worldwide, but especially in Vietnam and Indonesia during the 1990s,” he said. “Vietnam had no coffee industry in the early 1980s but coffee production has grown exponentially since 1985. Indonesia meanwhile has also rapidly increased production.”

Dr. O’Brien and his wife, Dr. Kinnaird, have studied the impact of coffee growing on one of the world’s most important lowland tropical forests, the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in the Lampung province of southern Sumatra. Indonesia is the fourth-largest coffee producer in the world and about 70 per cent of Lampung’s coffee production takes place inside and adjacent to the national park.

“Plans to expand Lampung’s coffee production will almost certainly target forest inside the park and result in increased threats to large mammals,” Dr. O’Brien says in his report.

The park has already suffered from the trend towards the cheaper robusta variety, which is usually grown in full sunshine with little or no shade provided by indigenous shrubs and trees. Arabica is best grown in the shade — a more environmentally friendly method of production. Indonesia has now become the second largest producer of robusta, exceeded only by Vietnam.

“Since 1985, the park has lost more than 28 percent of its forest, mostly to agricultural conversion for robusta coffee,” the scientists write.

“Deforestation rates inside the national park are directly related to the price of coffee paid to farmers; during peak prices, deforestation rates double as farmers and outside speculators clear additional forest in hopes of a quick profit,” they say.

Dr. Kinnaird has found that large mammals, notably the Sumatran tiger, rhino, and elephant, avoid forest boundaries by up to 1.9 miles. This means that they are disproportionately affected by deforestation because their available safe habitat, an area smaller than that encircled by the forest boundary, is dwindling faster than the rate of forest clearance. “We are really afraid of losing most of the secure forest habitat for these animals in the next 20 years,” Dr. O’Brien said.

The International Coffee Organization in London said that in 2001 Britain imported 167,000 bags (10,000 tons) of coffee from Indonesia and most of that would have been robusta coffee destined to be made into instant coffee.

One answer to the crisis was for consumers to drink more fair-trade coffee, which paid a higher price to growers and encouraged them to use sustainable farming methods, Dr. O’Brien said.

He also wanted new international trade agreements to be brokered by the United States, the biggest coffee consumer, to keep prices above poverty levels, he added.

“The free-market, free-for-all seen in the past decade is not the model to follow. We need new trade agreements to stabilize prices and we all need to be prepared to pay a little more for coffee.

“At the very least, reduction of coffee grown in national parks will help to attain conservation objectives. If we do not act soon, our next cup of java may have the bitter taste of extinction.”

Source: Independent (UK)

Animals under threat

The Sumatran Rhino

Also known as the hairy rhino, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis is probably the most endangered rhinoceros species. Numbers have fallen by more than 50 percent because of poaching in the past 15 years. Fewer than 300 animals survive in South-east Asia with significant numbers only in Indonesia and Malaysia.

The Sumatran Tiger

The smallest of all the tiger subspecies, panthera tigris sumatrae is found only on Sumatra. It is estimated that there are no more than 500 left in the wild. The largest population of about 110 tigers lives in the Gunung Leuser National Park. About 235 Sumatran tigers live in zoos throughout the world.

The Sumatran Orangutan

A species distinct from its neighbor the Bornean orangutan, pongo pygmaeus abelii inhabits the Leuser ecosystem, the largest protected rainforest in South-east Asia. It is on the critical list of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. There are estimated to be only about 4,000 to 6,000 left.

The Sumatran Elephant

Elephas maximus sumatranus, or the pocket elephant, is the smallest and possibly oldest of the Asian elephant subspecies and is unique to Sumatra. It has been protected in Indonesia since 1931. Surveys in the 1980s found 2,800 to 4,500 wild elephants. In today’s fragmented forests, fewer than 2,000 survive; 400 are in captivity.

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Activists pressure Office Max, Office Depot

By Shawn Gaynor

Asheville, North Carolina, Apr. 25 (AGR)—More than 75 demonstrations took place this week against retailers Office Depot and Office Max challenging the companies to adopt new environmental standards for the paper products they sell.

“Look over there in the paper aisle. What you gonna see? Clear cuts for miles!” chanted a dozen protesters in front of Office Max in Asheville.

“We carry recycled paper already. It’s at the end of aisle nine,” said a store manager inside.

Inside the store three boxes of 30 percent recycled paper were prominently displayed at an aisle end, but no others could be found among thousands of reams available. None of the Office Max store brand papers contained recycled material.

Environmental groups across the country have been pressuring the two retailers to adopt a policy of having at least 30 percent post consumer material in all office paper products and to commit to not buying paper produced from endangered forests.

The protests were the second national day of action against the retailers. The first, which took place on presidents day, drew over 100 separate protests across the nation.

“I think that a lot of people are sympathetic. I think that a lot of the public is interested in protecting the environment,” said Kelly Sheehan of the Dogwood Alliance.

Last year Dogwood Alliance was part of a successful campaign to force industry leader Staples to adopt an environmental ethics policy. The group hopes that they can force an industry-wide shift in how office paper is produced.

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Factory farms grow new roots
in developing world

Washington, DC, Apr. 22 (ENS)— Factory farms are expanding into developing countries, bringing these nations a wealth of environmental and public health concerns, finds a new paper by the Worldwatch Institute. And the environmental and health hazards of factory farms are only part of a global issue affected by increasing global meat consumption, tighter environmental standards in developing countries, and international trade, according to Worldwatch Institute researcher Danielle Nierenberg.

“Factory farming methods are creating a web of food safety, animal welfare, and environmental problems around the world, as large agribusinesses attempt to escape tighter environmental restrictions in the European Union and the US by moving their animal production operations to less developed countries,” said Nierenberg, author of “Factory Farming in the Developing World.”

For the rest of this article, please see www.ens-news.com

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