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The blessing of the coffee that protects the Peruvian forest Alto Mayo

2023-01-28T10:40:35.897Z


The farmers who cleared this natural area in northwestern Peru have understood the need and benefits of preserving the forest and now produce a sustainable coffee, sold and praised throughout the world.


Surrounded by the mist of the mountains, Victoria Huamán chooses the coffee beans one by one.

“There's a nice one and a bad one,” she explains, as she separates the seeds.

Despite the fact that "there are companies that buy anything to make their instant coffee."

This 51-year-old farmer and dozens of other neighboring families have opted for this "beautiful", sustainable and high-quality coffee, which has managed to curb deforestation and conflict in the Alto Mayo Protected Forest, in Peru.

Until a few years ago it was impossible to think that quality coffee could be produced from the 182,000 hectares of this protected natural area, created in 1987.

For decades, tempted by the coffee fever, hundreds of farmers from the Peruvian coast and highlands felled and planted crops on the steep slopes of the Mayo River, home to several endangered primate species that are not found elsewhere, such as the monkey yellow-tailed woolly (Lagothrix flavicauda) and stump monkey (Plecturocebus oenanthe).

Between 1999 and 2002, 14.7% of the primary forests of the Alto Mayo were destroyed.

Not knowing that it was a protected area, Huamán, who was 18 years old at the time, arrived with her husband from Cajamarca, a coffee-growing area some 270 kilometers away.

“They made us want to run, there were almost no people, everything was forest and we heard the sound of animals we didn't even know.

I cried day and night,” she recalls as she roasts a handful of beans in her small clay pot.

After her came another 1,500 families.

In a short time, they cut down the forests, which they believed to be inexhaustible, turning coffee into a curse for this protected area, which concentrated the highest numbers of deforestation in Peru.

It is estimated that between 1999 and 2002 alone, 14.7% of the primary forests of the Alto Mayo were destroyed and that the deforestation rate oscillated between 4.2% and 6% per year, according to a study of the area.

Paradise Lagoon in Alto Mayo Protected Forest, San Martín, Peru.Sally Jabiel

The forest was a protected area only on paper.

No farmer saw information panels or control booths.

“From one day to the next they told us that we had to leave because people couldn't live here,” explains Huamán.

They were years of struggle, mistrust and misunderstandings between coffee-growing families and the authorities.

“We didn't like when they said we shouldn't cut any more, but now we understand why,” explains the coffee farmer.

Starting in 2011 and voluntarily, each family signed an agreement with the National Service for Natural Areas Protected by the State (Sernanp), the entity in charge of managing the forest, under the auspices of the organization Conservation International with the purpose that the families continued to take advantage of the forest, but without cutting it down.

“We achieved it by having the instructions of always being very transparent and having a lot of social sensitivity and empathy with the families,” says Carlos Bustamante, an expert with Conservation International, an organization that drew on his similar experience in the Gran Reserva Chachi, Ecuador.

And the commitments have brought benefits for both parties.

On the one hand, farmers have received technical assistance from Conservation International and the Association of Andean Ecosystems, as well as inputs and materials to improve their productivity and enter new markets.

On the other hand, the deforestation rate fell drastically by 59% within the protected area.

"At the beginning we had to build trust with the families so that they could see that it is possible to work sustainably with the forest," says Ivonne Paico, head of the Protected Forest since 2018. "As authorities we have broadened our perspective, we have understood how the protected area can also support families and how that minimizes deforestation,” he says.

Despite the fact that they sell at a price 30% higher than the average, the coffee from this protected area is the most requested by customers

Currently, more than 1,200 families have signed conservation agreements and, beyond coffee, they have known how to take advantage of other riches of the forest, such as orchids or the tropical fruit pitahaya, in addition to venturing into bird watching tourism and the creation of handicrafts. inspired by the biodiversity of Alto Mayo.

The cooperative that made history

Next to several stacked sacks of coffee, Idelso Fernández points to the map of the Protected Forest and its surroundings, which form a landscape and a kind of biological corridor through which endangered animals can travel more safely.

In this impressive geography, the farmer proudly reviews the history of the Bosque del Alto Mayo Multiple Services Cooperative, the first and only one within a protected area.

Twenty years ago he arrived from Cajamarca "with nothing" and is now the manager of the cooperative created in 2014 by 71 farmers.

He remembers how some companies wanted to pay them the same as if they had continued growing the coffee they used to, the one that killed the forest.

"It wasn't fair," he stresses.

In less than two years, the cooperative came to sell its specialty coffee to Joffrey's Coffee & Tea Company, a supplier to Disney's theme parks, and to other customers in Germany, England and Japan, at the same time that it was recognized as a Peruvian Company of the Year.

Despite the fact that they sell at a price 30% higher than the average, "the change is noticeable in the faces of the farmers and even more so when customers say that this coffee is the most requested," says Fernández.

Between 84 and 90 points it is already a high quality coffee.

The one from the Protected Forest exceeds 85 points

Currently, the cooperative has 385 members of the Protected Forest and is reaching out to nearby areas to export high-quality cocoa.

"Wherever we go, we talk about conservation and our commitments are the same," reiterates Fernández.

The Alto Mayo cooperative is one of the ones with the most young members in Peru, says the manager.

"It lifts our spirits when they tell us that our future leaders are young and the best thing is that they are specializing."

New faces of coffee

Precisely, about 40 minutes from the protected area is the Alto Mayo Protected Forest Coffee Cupping School, the first of its kind in the world, where the youngest are trained and certified as Q Grader cuppers, the highest international recognition.

There, Jorge Morocho, head of the school, gathers some coffee samples.

He sniffs them, slurps them, and writes down their notes and aromas on a scoring chart.

"From 84 to 90 points is a high quality coffee," he explains.

The coffee from the Protected Forest exceeds 85 points.

By tasting, the expert is able to detect the defects of a coffee and how to reverse them.

For example, if there is a phenol taste it may be a failure to dry.

“The producer made a nice crop, but maybe he put a lot of coffee on the drying mesh, he didn't move it, it turned sour in the heat and it turned into alcohol,” he meticulously explains.

Morocho has advised the cooperative, which went from 30% rejection to zero percent among its clients.

“Tasters are the backbone of coffee quality.

Here there is a lot of coffee, but very few tasters”, he affirms.

Unlike the destructive past, now the monkeys fearlessly pass through the house of Ermila Izquierdo, who signed the conservation agreement eight years ago.

This only happens “when you are in harmony with nature,” warns the farmer, who is inspired by this biodiversity for her crafts in the Association of Women Entrepreneurs and Defenders of the Alto Mayo Protected Forest.

For Izquierdo, preserving is an art, but it is undervalued.

Hence his message to the rest: "Let's learn to consume what is ours, let's contribute to the conservation of our forests and see that it is possible to do things well."

Ermila Izquierdo, farmer in the Alto Mayo Protected Forest and signatory of the conservation agreements.Sally Jabiel

But some threats still remain in this protected area in northwestern Peru.

"There are families that are still not convinced," says Ivonne Paico, head of the Protected Forest.

“We are also studying other strategies to join preservation.

We are committed to environmental education so that the new generations have that feeling of belonging and taking care of the protected area where they have grown up”.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-28

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