Illegal coffee trade 'destroying Indonesian rainforests'
Wednesday, 17 Jan 2007 08:45
Illegal coffee traders are putting habitats at risk
Millions of coffee drinkers in Britain and across the world could be unknowingly aiding the destruction of the Indonesian rainforest due to the illegal growing of coffee beans in protected areas.
Conservationist charity WWF says that robusta coffee is being grown in the Bukit Barisan Selatan (BBS) national park on the island of Sumatra and then mixed by traders with legal beans before being exported to international companies such as Nestle.
The Swiss-based company has since insisted it does not condone "unacceptable activities", and is one of a number of firms that have pledged to engage with the WWF to prevent further forest from being cleared, which the charity claims is putting tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses and other charismatic endangered species at even greater risk.
Today's report, entitled Gone in an Instant, also criticises the Indonesian government for a lack of regulation in the coffee growing industry.
Nazir Foead, the charity's director of policy and corporate engagement, said WWF was "asking multinational coffee companies to implement rigorous chain-of-custody controls to ensure that they are no longer buying illegally grown coffee, and we're asking the Indonesian government to better protect the park".
Robusta beans are commonly used in instant coffee, and Indonesia is the world's second largest exporter of the ingredient.
WWF says that 196,000 tonnes of robusta are illegally produced in Sumatra, the world's sixth largest island, every year.
Heather Sohl, species officer at WWF-UK, claims that Sumatran rhinos and tigers could be extinct within ten years.
"We think even the world's most committed coffee drinkers will find this an unacceptable price to pay for their daily caffeine buzz," she said.
Nestle meanwhile reiterates that it "never willingly" purchases coffee from dubious sources, although it admits it is "often difficult to determine the precise origin of a coffee bag which has passed though different hands before it reaches the Nestle buyer".
"Nestle is in discussion with the WWF on how to avoid purchases of illegally-grown coffee, boost production of sustainably-grown coffee and restore wildlife habitat of the park," a company spokesperson added.