forestry to effect change on a scale necessary to avert conflict between coffee
and biodiversity at a global scale (Giovannucci 2001).
Colombia, a long-time coffee producer, has more than 750,000 ha under
coffee, many of which coincide with the country’s biodiversity hotspot regions
(Figure 7.1). In the country’s most intensive coffee-growing areas, surviving
ecosystems host up to 15 percent of the earth’s terrestrial biodiversity, making
biodiversity conservation imperative (Mittermeier et al. 1997). Specifically,
Colombia is home to the greatest variety of birds and amphibians in the
world, including 1,815 bird species, of which at least 142 are endemic, and
about 600 amphibian species, of which more than half are endemic. Further-
more, roughly one-third of the country’s estimated 45,000 higher-order plant
species are thought to be endemic, making Colombia second only to Brazil in
this regard, and with a much smaller land area. Colombia also is the world
leader in orchid diversity and ranks third in butterfly diversity. This extraordi-
nary biological richness is threatened by the commitment of Colombia’s
National Federation of Coffee Growers to “producing specialty coffee all over
the country, even in places where you would least imagine it” (Villelabeitia
2001).
In 2001 coffee export prices in constant U.S. dollars reached their lowest
- Achieving Biodiversity Conservation Using Conservation Concessions 141
Figure 7.1. Coffee-growing
regions and biodiversity
hotspots in Colombia.