level since 1900, below even those recorded during the Great Depression of
the 1930s (Esarey 2001). Between 1999 and 2001 alone, the international
price of coffee beans plunged 60 percent, to just over $1 per kilogram (Miller
2001). At a time when global coffee prices are devastatingly low, Colombia’s
coffee farmers are at a particular disadvantage because of high labor costs
(Sanchez 2002). A wealth of opportunities for achieving conservation presents
itself in this context of widespread coffee farming, low market prices, high
production costs, and high biodiversity levels. Coffee farmers, many of whom
operate at a financial loss and remain in the coffee business for lack of alter-
natives, may be willing to retire their shade coffee farms for restoration to
forest land or set aside intact forests as private reserves in exchange for com-
pensation that would enable them to pursue alternatives. Colombia facilitates
private reserve creation by providing tax incentives for landholders and legal
recognition of the reserve status of their land (Gaviria 1997).
Under these conditions, arrangements to compensate growers for perma-
nently conserving neighboring forests or retiring shade coffee farms through a
combination of public and private financing may benefit farmers and conser-
vationists alike. A strategy of acquiring or leasing low-yield coffee farms and
retiring them, buttressed by compensation schemes for farm owners and
workers, could catalyze private reserve creation and directly reward local stake-
holders for conservation. Landowners and workers would benefit from secure
income streams, and biodiversity conservation would no longer depend on
finding an elusive balance between agriculture and conservation. Such
arrangements could be negotiated with individual landowners holding large
properties with particularly high conservation value. Another option, particu-
larly in the context of agroforestry, might involve a community of smallhold-
ers jointly setting aside fragments of intact forest and retiring aged farms for
conservation in exchange for access to pro-conservation coffee markets or
other communitywide benefits such as education or health care. Arrangements
of this sort could realize far-reaching social and conservation benefits as
increasing numbers of struggling coffee farmers opt for an attractive land use
alternative and greater connectivity is achieved between remnant habitat
patches. The overlap between cultivated areas and the biodiversity hotspot
illustrated in Figure 7.1 suggests great potential for creating corridors between
larger protected areas through this strategy.
Set-Asides on Cocoa Farms in Bahia, Brazil
Cocoa farming plays a major role in the expansion of agricultural frontiers
throughout the tropics (see Chapter 6, this volume). Globally, cocoa planting
claims about 8 million ha, principally in biodiversity hotspot areas of West
Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia. Stabilizing the area under cocoa cultivation has
proved difficult because of economic considerations that dissuade private
142 II. The Ecological Economics of Agroforestry