Bird-friendly coffee growing landscapes

Bird Friendly coffee-growing landscapes

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Science that drives action

Bird Friendly coffee-growing landscapes

The Smithsonian Institute’s Bird Friendly® program certifies organic coffee grown under a diverse shade of trees, providing habitat for birds and other wildlife. Given that most coffee farms do not exceed 10 ha, the impact of this and other certifications is spatially limited. Seeking to develop a standard of best practices that benefits biodiversity at a landscape scale, and that may be adopted to improve coffee’s value-chain, the Smithsonian and SELVA, in collaboration with Nespresso, are carrying out this project. We want to identify the characteristics of habitats and landscapes that maximize the diversity of birds in coffee growing landscapes. We hope our results can serve to design a new certification for Bird-friendly coffee growing landscapes.

Our allies in this project are:

Project objectives

Understand the spatial scale at which agricultural land uses impact bird diversity

Identify an alternative land use model which minimizes habitat loss for biodiversity without compromising the economic value of agricultural land

Define lineaments at local and landscape scales for the development of a program of best practices that contributes to improve the value-chain of coffee production