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Presentation Oral presentation
Title Using the economic value of forest coffee for forest conservation.

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Short title Forest conservation through forest coffee certification?

Author(s) Stellmacher, T.(1); Gatzweiler, F.W.(1); Haile, A.(2); Seyoum, A.(1)

Presenting author Stellmacher, T.

Institution(s) (1) Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn; (2) NTFP-Project, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Keywords Forest coffee, certification, Ethiopia

Abstract The economic value of forest coffee can contribute to the development of incentives for the sustainable use and conservation of the Ethiopian coffee forests. Certification is a marketing tool to add value to a product. Certification addresses a growing worldwide demand for healthier and more socially and environmentally-friendly produced products, based on the consumers’ motivation to pay price premia for products meeting defined and assured standards.
The presentation provides empirical findings on forest coffee cooperatives currently certified under generic certification standards. It illustrates that certification provides incentives to destroy the forest rather than to promote its conservation. Certification price benefits motivate producers to intensify production by slashing the forests’ undergrowth and cutting trees providing the coffee with more sunlight. This destroys the forest ecosystem and biodiversity. Additionally, most producers do not know whether their cooperative is certified and what the respective standards say.
In conclusion, there is need for an Ethiopian forest coffee standard that uses the added value of forest coffee to stimulate its producers to sustainable use and conserve the forest and biodiversity. This could be part of a national initiative of a forest certification system such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Congress Topic Coffee project

Topic No. 6.4
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Ref. No. 510