Monday, July 29, 2002


birds, bats, elephants

long-time readers are familiar with the concept of songbird-friendly coffee -- the idea being that many songbirds have historically wintered in the shaded coffee groves of warmer climes. the popularity of self-shading varieties of coffee among farmers has led to a decline of the fruit trees traditionally planted around the perimeters of coffee, and this has led in turn to loss of songbird wintering places.

to encourage the retention and restoration of songbird habitats, the bird-friendly coffee movement certifies, and sells at a premium price, coffee farmed in a way to protect songbirds. thus by purchasing this coffee you can encourage coffee farmers to cherish the bird-important shading trees.

along this line we now also have bat-friendly coffee, for endangered and agriculturally useful bat species. and in the congo, swiss photographer karl ammann is attempting to protect endangered elephants with elephant-friendly coffee. let's hope he can get this project off the ground. . .

posted by fortune | 6:40 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments