Shade-grown coffee and migrants in Latin America

Tropical forests support some of the greatest diversity of life on earth, but the same areas also produce one of the most valuable commodities on earth — coffee — traditionally grown in the shade of forest trees. We drink nearly one billion cups of coffee each day, but over the past 30 years more than a half of coffee-growing farms have eliminated their forests and shade trees that tropical wildlife depends on. Farms that produce coffee grown under the sun are relatively sterile and support only 10% of the diversity of shade coffee farms.

Decades of rainforest removal for sun-grown coffee has contributed to climate change, extreme weather patterns and dramatic loss of wildlife that calls the forest home. This includes the alarming loss of Neotropical migratory birds that winter in coffee farms and migrate to the USA and Canada to breed. A key to a climate-healthy planet that balances the needs of people and wildlife begins with growing the highest-quality coffee beans in the shade of trees. The coffee we all drink every day has a strong impact on these ecosystems, but what we drink and how we ask for it can be the key to finding a solution.

The Trust for Wildlife with Fundación ProAves present this short film Shade-grown coffee and saving migratory birds of North and Latin America. Much of the tropical film footage is taken in the Cerulean Warbler Bird reserve and local community of San Vicente de Chucuri in Santander Department, Colombia.

Shade grown coffee, saving migratory birds of Latin and North America. (Film: FundacionProAves).

For more information, visit the Fundación ProAves website.