I love minimalism, it brings me peace and time to focus on what I really want to do with my life. There are three things I take with me always though: coffee, books and outdoor clothing.
In this post, I will explore some environmental conflicts related to coffee, as it is one if not the one most consumed drink in the world. While we are only buying fair trade and bio coffee at home, I think it is still good to know the existing tensions that the global consumption of this product entails.
Conflict 1: Coffee plantations are in place on indigenous territory in South Cotabato, Philippines
The indigenous people in the region have been struggling due to the fact that massive extensions of their land are used to supply coffee beans to Nestle. The conflict affect over 12.000 hectares and 6 indigenous villages.
After the concession expired in 2016, the villagers were engaging into litigation to demand the substitution of coffee for exportation for corn for the local consumption.
Violent actions to the villagers and the nearby forest were performed since 1991. The result of that is the expulsion of the local people from their farms and the clearance of the forests that were essential host of multiple animal life and medicines.
The locals lead by Tamasco mobilized as they realized that an extension of contracts were planned in secrecy. The tensions between the locals and the Department of Natural resources increased, to the point that the latter attack the locals, killing some of them.
Several organizations litigate the extension, that was full of evidence of corrupted practices, but up to date the cases are still unresolved and the community are occasionally threaten.
Conflict 2: Kodagu Elephant conflict, Karnataka, India
Karnataka hosts of the largest elephant's populations in India. Elephants do seasonal migrations on the same route for generations, and those routes are clashing more and more with agricultural lands. This had increased the number of accidents between farmers and the wild animals.
The Kodagu region have many coffee plantations, and it is growing. This, together with the limited amount of fruit trees and water forcing those animals to move further, which results in deaths for both human and elephants.
There are potential ways to avoid the number to keep increasing, for example creating buffer zones, less aggressive trenches and also ensuring water and food are available for all elephants withing their common itineraries.
A controversial measure proposed for the local government is to apply sterilization, which received opposition by environmental agencies as there it could put on risk the future of the population of elephants.
On top of that, a railway and other projects are further reducing the livable space of such animals, but in this case with the positive cancellation of the big railway project in 2018. This is one victory for the environmental justice movement, but a lot of activities remain to be done if we want to protect the livelihoods of those elephants from the constant expansion of agriculture and infrastructure projects.
Concluding notes
I find very interesting to use the following justice atlas Coffee | EJAtlas to investigate current conflicts related to the plantation of coffee. In the current atlas I only found three cases (I omitted the third related to labelling genetically modified food), which is a surprise, as I would expect many more of such a largely consumed product. In any case, I am happy to see more and more bio and fair trade options available at very affordable prices for everyone. Even if it could be cumbersome, it is a great exercise to understand the tensions that our consumption create and which brands are behind it.
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