Remember in the early '90s, when people were all up at arms about the destruction of the rainforest? I haven't heard or read anything about it in the longest time. Are the rainforesets still being destroyed wholesale? Are they all gone? Is it still important? Is the coffee I drink contributing to the destruction of the rainforest? Is "free trade" and/or "shade grown" coffee better for the environment?
The forests are big, but they are still being cut.
Just because the issue is not in the headlines in the US media does not mean the problem has gone away. It will be back some other news cycle.
Deforestation rates and forest cover statistics 2000-2005
The good news is that the rate has fallen off, altough there is still net loss of forest.
Reading between the lines, the Amazon deforestation is down, but sub-Saharan Africa deforestation is picking up, particularly in Nigeria - probably because of development spurred by income from high oil prices.
In some sense that is inevitable, the only hope is that the total loss before cutting and land conversion settles down will not be too much.
The Amazon is in a very severe drought, so "natural loss" through fires and dieback is likely to increase. Better hope for some rain.
Highest deforestation of natural forests, 2000-2005. All countries. Credits: R. Butler
See also Global Forest Watch and UN FAO Forestry
I honestly don't know about the benefits of shade grown coffee, it could just be a publicity move to make liberal yuppies, like me, feel good about things, so I defer to authorities on the issue and in the absence of further information try to go with the flow to the extent practical (when you need coffee, you only care about the caffeine content, not the niceties of how it was picked, which is of course how we get into this mess in the first place...)
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