Coffee Leads to Extinction

Ok, we all have some vices. Coffee is one of mine, the taste is good and rich, the scent is right. Fair Trade was set up a while back to protect the workers as it helps assure a "fair" price for coffee beans from various woldwide regions. But, now the selling of beans from protected lands, which can have a negative impact on the wildlife..... Follow the link in the text to more information, including the location for the 12 mb download of the report.

Craig Heinselman
Peterborough, NH

LONDON, Jan 17 (KUNA) -- Coffee lovers around the globe are unknowingly drinking coffee which was illegally grown inside one of the world's most important national parks for highly endangered tigers, elephants and rhinos, according to an investigative report published here Wednesday.

Conservation organisation, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said that coming from Bukit Barisan Selatan (BBS) National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia, the illegally grown coffee is mixed by local traders with legal coffee beans and exported from Indonesia to food and drink companies such as Kraft Foods and Nestle.

Neither exporting nor importing companies have mechanisms in place to prevent the trade of illegal beans, according to WWF.

The report entitled "Gone in an Instant" states that most of the companies buying the coffee were unaware of its illegal origins, based on the lack of regulation in the region.

WWF provided the draft copies of the report's findings to the top recipients of coffee tainted with illegal beans from BBS.Some companies denied any purchase of illegally grown coffee, while others are in talks with WWF on how to avoid purchases of the coffee, how to boost the production of sustainably grown coffee and restore the habitats in the park.

The report recommended that the park and local authorities prevent further encroachment into the park and develop regulations that prevent illegally grown coffee from infiltrating international trade.

Using satellite imaging, interviews with coffee farmers and traders and monitoring of coffee trade routes, WWF tracked the illegal cultivation of robusta coffee inside the remote National Park all the way through its export routes to multinational coffee companies across the US, Asia and Europe.

BBS, a World Heritage Site on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra, is one of the few protected areas where Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinos coexist.

It is one of the most important habitats left for the three endangered or critically endangered species. But almost 20 percent of its forest is degraded mostly due to illegal agriculture, according to WWF.

Heather Sohl, Species Officer at WWF-UK said in a statement, "If this trend of illegally clearing park land for coffee isn't halted, the rhinos and tigers will be locally extinct in less than a decade.

"We think even the world's most committed coffee drinkers will find this an unacceptable price to pay," she added.