HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE MAIN CHAPTERS

Coffee and cacao cultivation systems
Coffee and cacao cover 19 million hectares, mainly in South and Central America and the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and central Africa. Perspectives for birds depend in both crops on the cultivation system: the more this system include shade trees, and thus resembles natural forest, the richer the birdlife. These shaded production systems are important for migrant birds in America. In contrast, sun-grown coffee and cacao are very poor in birds.

This chapter takes the reader from the Central and South American shaded coffee and the Brazilian cabruca cacao to the West African cacao cultivations and the South-East Asian coffee and cacao production, focusing on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. In separate boxes, we encounter such splendid birds as the black-throated blue warbler, important in reducing insect pests in coffee, the Prince Ruspoli’s turaco from the Ethiopian coffee area and the migrating cerulean warbler (see below). Several farmers’ and NGO initiatives for bird conservation and for bird-friendly coffee labels are highlighted.