Finally an economic reason to save the rainforests
Now maybe something can be done.
Saving Jungles May Aid Nearby Coffee Plantations
Mon Aug 2, 2004 06:47 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conserving tropical forests may benefit nearby coffee plantations, researchers reported on Monday.
Bees can cross over from the jungle to pollinate the coffee trees, resulting in greater yields and healthier coffee beans, the U.S. researchers found.
"Policies that allow landowners to capture the value of pollination and other services could provide powerful incentives for forest conservation in some of the most biodiverse and threatened regions on Earth," the researchers wrote in their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers at the World Wildlife Fund, California's Stanford University and the University of Kansas said they focused on coffee because it is such an important crop.
"Coffee ... ranks among the five most valuable agricultural exports from developing nations, employs over 25 million people worldwide, and is cultivated in many of the world's most biodiverse regions," they wrote.
Pollination by wild bees increased coffee yields by 20 percent when tropical forest existed within about half a mile of the forest, they found.
And coffee trees visited by wild bees from the jungle were 27 percent less likely to produce "peaberries" -- small, misshapen seeds that result from inadequate pollination.
