REDD-Monitor’s round-up of the week’s news on forests, climate change, and REDD. For regular updates, follow @reddmonitor on Twitter.
25 September 2017
New report exposes widespread abuse funded by big conservation organizations
Survival International, 25 September 2017
A new Survival International report details widespread and systematic human rights abuses in the Congo Basin, by wildlife guards funded by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other big conservation organizations.
The report documents serious instances of abuse between 1989 and the present day in Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic (CAR) by guards funded and equipped by WWF and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the parent organization of New York’s Bronx zoo.
It lists more than 200 instances of abuse since 1989, including pouring hot wax onto exposed skin, beating, and maiming with red-hot machetes. These incidents are likely just a tiny fraction of the full picture of systematic and ongoing violence, beatings, torture and even death.
Tackling Deforestation Through A Jurisdictional Approach
WWF, 25 September 2017
Jurisdictional approaches seek to align interests and coordinate actions among governments, businesses, local communities, and NGOs toward shared conservation, supply chain sustainability, and green development goals. Focusing on the political level at which land use decisions are made and enforced, they work to advance land use planning of production and protection areas through geographically tailored policy interventions, market-based incentives, and, often, climate finance.
In May 2017, WWF convened a group of experts and practitioners for a three-day workshop in Brasilia to “unpack” and analyze five leading jurisdictional initiatives in a peer-to-peer setting: Acre and Mato Grosso states in Brazil, the group of departments comprising Colombia’s Orinoquia watershed, southern Ghana’s cocoa-producing region, and southeastern Liberia.
CarbonX and ConsenSys Put P2P Carbon Credit Trading on the Blockchain
By Jessie Willms, Bitcoin Magazine, 25 September 2017
Carbon credits trading (also known as “cap and trade”) as a means to help mitigate the effects of global climate change has long been advocated by environmentalists fighting one of the most intransigent environmental challenges of the 21st century.
Now ConsenSys and CarbonX Personal Carbon Trading Inc. have stepped up to enable the first-ever peer-to-peer carbon credit trading platform, built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Winners revealed in voluntary carbon poll
Environmental Finance, 25 September 2017
A 31% decrease in the amount being spent on offsets in the voluntary carbon market has not harmed sentiment among leading industry figures, Environmental Finance’s 2017 survey has found.
The amount spent fell in 2016 to $191.3 million, which offset 63.4 millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), compared with $278 million to recover 84 MtCO2e in 2015, according to Ecosystem Marketplace.
Anger at EU climate chief’s suggestion US can backtrack on Paris
By Arthur Neslen, Climate Home, 25 September 2017
A suggestion by the EU’s climate chief that the US might water down its carbon-cutting pledge to the Paris climate agreement has sparked outrage among veteran negotiators and developing countries.
Diplomats from poor nations told Climate Home that it would amount to indefensible “backsliding” and could “open a Pandora’s box”, while Laurence Tubiana, France’s climate change ambassador at COP21, said US backtracking would violate the spirit of the Paris deal.
[Kenya] Leonardo DiCaprio backs Edinburgh conservation project
By Neil Pooran, STV News, 25 September 2017
Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio has donated tens of thousands to an Edinburgh Napier University conservation project in Kenya.
The university initiative received $50,000 (£37,035) in a round of grants from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which were announced by the film star at a conference at Yale University.
Mikoko Pamoja, which means “Mangroves Together” in Swahili, involves Edinburgh-based scientists working with local villagers and researchers to protect threatened mangrove forests and fund community development.
Sudan: National Inventory Program for Sudan’s Forests Resources Launched
Sudan News Agency, 25 September 2017
The Representative of Coordinator of the National Inventory Program for the Sudan’s Forests, Engineer, Samia Bakhiet, has announced the launching of the program which is financed by the World Bank with the amount of one million and 300 thousand dollars.
In statement to SUNA she noted that the program has kicked off in the state of North Kordufan, explaining that the program comes in context of the long-term goals program of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) which are represented in the limitation of the country’s renewable natural resources, particularly forests, pastoral resources and wildlife habitats, as well as the identification of its current status to later be subject to the sustainable development in order to protect to double its direct and indirect benefits in a participatory and transparent manner.
26 September 2017
UF receives $15 million grant to turn seed into jet fuel
By Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 26 September 2017
The future of jet fuel could lie in a tiny seed Brassica carinata that’s already being produced in the Southeast.
University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers have been awarded a $15 million grant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the inedible seed whose oil can be turned into jet fuel.
The final cut: What can the chocolate industry really do to halt cocoa deforestation?
By Oliver Nieburg, Confectionery News, 26 September 2017
Traceability from farm to first purchase, common definitions of protected areas and paying farmers a living income are three ways stakeholders say can help end cocoa-driven deforestation in West Africa, which is threatening endangered species.
Mighty Earth’s team visited three protected areas: Goin Débé Forest, Scio Forest and Mt. Péko National Park. The NGO also worked with a team that visited Mt. Sassandra Forest, Tia Forest and Marahoué National Park. They traced illegally grown cocoa back to large cocoa processors and big chocolate firms.
The World Cocoa Foundation’s (WCF) president, Mighty Earth’s campaign director and the managing director of NGO the Voice Network have responded to a recent Mighty Earth report that found cocoa-led deforestation is rife.
Brazil backtracks on plan to open up Amazon forest to mining
By Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 26 September 2017
Amazon conservation groups have hailed a victory as the Brazilian government announced a U-turn on plans to open up swaths of the the world’s biggest forest to mining corporations.
President Michel Temer had sparked outrage in August when he announced a decree to abolish the Renca reserve, an area of 17,800 square miles – roughly the size of Switzerland – that is an important carbon sink and home to some of the world’s richest biodiversity.
How a Dam Building Boom Is Transforming the Brazilian Amazon
by Philip Fearnside, Yale Environment 360, 26 September 2017
Brazil is in the midst of a dam-building spree in the Amazon basin that is changing the face of the world’s largest tropical forest region. The boom is driven by the country’s agricultural and heavy industrial interests, is being carried out with little regard to the impacts on indigenous people and the environment, is proceeding with little effort to capitalize on the nation’s vast renewable energy potential, and is often fueled by corruption.
[Fiji] Ministry of Forests sets initiatives
By Avneel Chand, Fiji Times, 26 September 2017
The Ministry of Forests is working with stakeholders to implement initiatives to restore forests in Fiji.
Speaking at the third day of the National Climate Week yesterday, permanent secretary for the Ministry of Forests, Samuela Lagataki, revealed the initiatives undertaken by the ministry.
“Ministry of Forests is working with the Emalu landowning units who have given their consent for a total of 7300 hectares of forests for the implementation of the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) project,” he said.
“The ministry has set up a new REDD+ Unit at Colo-i-Suva to manage the project under the funding from the FCPF.”
Fighting fire and haze in Indonesia
By Catriona Croft-Cusworth, CIFOR Forests News, 26 September 2017
In Indonesia, few have forgotten the devastating peatland fires and suffocating haze that afflicted the greater region for several months over 2014-2015.
Agricultural fires across Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua at that time claimed millions of hectares of land and tens of thousands of lives, as toxic smoke spread across the country, reaching as far as neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.
President Joko Widodo responded by placing a total nationwide ban on the clearing or burning of peatlands, and formed the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) to replenish damaged land.
27 September 2017
New ‘Carbon Currency’ Harnesses Blockchain Tech to Measure Footprint of Financial Transactions
Sustainable Brands, 27 September 2017
Blockchain technology is quickly emerging as a vital tool in tackling critical environmental and social issues. IBM recently touted the technology’s potential address challenges along the global food supply chain and is working with partners to identify new areas where it can in positively impact food traceability. A new partnership between Sourcemap and Provenance has also demonstrated how blockchain can help improve upon inefficiencies and unsustainable and unethical practices throughout the food and fashion industries. Now, Poseidon, a nonprofit, is creating a carbon currency using the technology that will allow businesses to measure the carbon footprint of transactions in real terms.
EasyJet says it could be flying electric planes within a decade
By Angela Monaghan, The Guardian, 27 September 201
EasyJet could be flying planes powered by batteries rather than petroleum to destinations including Paris and Amsterdam within a decade.
The UK carrier has formed a partnership with US firm Wright Electric, which is developing a battery-propelled aircraft for flights under two hours.
EasyJet said the move would enable battery-powered aircraft to travel short-haul routes such as London to Paris and Amsterdam, and Edinburgh to Bristol. Wright Electric is aiming for an aircraft range of 335 miles, which would cover the journeys of about a fifth of passengers flown by easyJet.
Why we need collaboration to save the world’s forests
WWF, 27 September 2017
Almost three years after its adoption, the New York Declaration on Forests remains a landmark moment in the global fight to eliminate deforestation.
With now more than 190 governments, businesses, civil society organisations — including WWF and Unilever — committing to ending commodity-driven deforestation by 2020, it created unprecedented momentum in support of existing efforts to transform forest-risk commodity supply chains, including the Deforestation Resolution of the Consumer Goods Forum.
[Indonesia] Fire and haze: Laws and regulations
By Catriona Croft-Cusworth, CIFOR Forests News, 27 September 2017
Local laws and regulations banning the clearing and burning of peatlands have sprung up across Indonesia since President Joko Widodo issued a decree on the matter in late 2015.
The president’s order came in response to the annual practice of agricultural burning, particularly during the dry season, which reached crisis proportions in 2014-2015, sparking a regional environmental and public health disaster.
[Indonesia] Plantation firms defy moratorium to continue clearing Sumatran rainforest
Illegal Deforestation Monitor, 27 September 2017
Oil palm plantation firms are continuing to clear rainforest in the Leuser ecosystem on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, in defiance of a moratorium on deforestation.
Leuser lost 3,941 hectares of forest cover between January and July 2017, according to local watchdog Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh (HAkA). The majority was cleared in the first six months of the year, with 1,093 hectares lost in June alone.
[Indonesia] When fines fail, how can companies be made to pay for deforestation?
By Oliver Balch, The Guardian, 27 September 2017
Nearly a year after an Indonesian court ordered a timber company to pay country’s largest ever fine for deforestation, the government has been unable to collect the money, prompting campaigners to call for tougher sanctions against illegal loggers.
Merbau Pelalawan Lestari (MPL), a timber company, has launched a case review against the court’s decision to impose a 16tn rupiah fine (£900m), which it incurred for illegally deforesting nearly 2,000 hectares of Sumatran forest.
[Indonesia] Forests and community in East Kalimantan
WWF, 27 September 2017
Forests are connected to nearly every part of community life in East Kalimantan. Using methods both traditional and modern, communities manage their forests in ways that support sustainable livelihoods, biodiversity protection, and local culture.
Vietnam strives to be paid for emissions reduction efforts
Vietnam Net, 27 September 2017
A conference was held in Hanoi on September 27 to collect final ideas to complete the Emissions Reductions Program Document (ER-PD) in the northern central region before it is sent to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) in late November and is defended at the Carbon Fund’s meeting in December.
The ER-PD in the northern central region is the first regional-level project implemented by the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programme in Vietnam, with a hope to reduce gas emissions and intensify the absorption of around 33.06 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
28 September 2017
Alarm as study reveals world’s tropical forests are huge carbon emission source
By Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 28 September 2017
The world’s tropical forests are so degraded they have become a source rather than a sink of carbon emissions, according to a new study that highlights the urgent need to protect and restore the Amazon and similar regions.
Researchers found that forest areas in South America, Africa and Asia – which have until recently played a key role in absorbing greenhouse gases – are now releasing 425 teragrams of carbon annually, which is more than all the traffic in the United States.
Tropical forests are ‘no longer carbon sinks’ because of human activity
By Daisy Dunne, Carbon Brief, 28 September 2017
Tropical forests now emit more carbon than they are able to absorb from the atmosphere as a result of the dual effects of deforestation and land degradation, a new study says.
The research challenges the long-held belief that forests act as “carbon sinks” by storing more carbon than they emit due to natural processes and human activity.
Instead, the world’s tropical forests could have experienced a net loss of around 425m tonnes of carbon from 2003 to 2014, the lead author tells Carbon Brief. This figure is considerably higher than previous estimates of carbon loss from tropical forests.
Tropical forests used to protect us from climate change. Now, scientists say, they’re making it worse
By Chris Mooney, Washington Post, 28 September 2017
A surprising scientific study released Thursday presents troubling news about the enormous forests of the planet’s tropical midsection — suggesting that they are releasing hundreds of millions of tons of carbon to the atmosphere, rather than storing it in the trunks of trees and other vegetation.
The results, published in the journal Science, contradict prior work in suggesting that these forests — including the Amazon rain forest but also huge tropical forests in Indonesia, Congo and elsewhere — have become another net addition to the climate change problem. However, the accounting also implies that if the current losses could be reversed, the forests could also rapidly transform into a powerful climate change solution.
Death by 1,000 Cuts: Why the Forest Carbon Sink Is Disappearing
By Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News, 28 September 2017
The clear-cutting of giant swathes from the globe’s tropical forests has long been understood to be a major force behind global warming, but new research finds that smaller-scale forest loss—from minor logging and fires—is an even more powerful driver of climate change.
On Thursday, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center and Boston University published a study in the journal Science that says the planet’s tropical forests are releasing more carbon dioxide than they can store, mostly due to “fine scale” degradation and disturbance that previous studies haven’t captured.
Financing partners face criticism as UN’s climate fund meets
By Juliane Voigt, Carbon Market Watch, 28 September 2017
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) board meets from 30 September- 2 October in Cairo, Egypt. Board members are expected to approve 16 funding proposals and accredit 5 new entities that will then be able to distribute funds. The GCF is under pressure to get on with the job of disbursing the 10 billion US dollars it has mobilized so far, however ensuring quality and sustainability of the funding is critically important.
Global carbon emissions stood still in 2016, offering climate hope
By Damian Carrington, The Guardian, 28 September 2017
Global emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide remained static in 2016, a welcome sign that the world is making at least some progress in the battle against global warming by halting the long-term rising trend.
All of the world’s biggest emitting nations, except India, saw falling or static carbon emissions due to less coal burning and increasing renewable energy, according to data published on Thursday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA). However other mainly developing nations, including Indonesia, still have rising rates of CO2 emissions.
Trump bashed at World Bank Forest meeting
Citizen Digital, 28 September 2017
US President Donald Trump continues to attract condemnation for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, the global pact meant to reduce the impacts of climate change.
Speaking during a World Bank meeting taking place in the Asian country Lao to discuss strategies to preserve global forests in developing countries, Mithika Mwenda, the Head of the Civil Society Coalition Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) said the US President’s intention is to dismantle the Agreement to suit his whims.
Brazil probes ‘Amazon massacres’ by illegal miners
By Lucia Newman, Al Jazeera, 28 September 2017
Authorities in Brazil are investigating the reported massacre of up to 10 members of an isolated Amazonian tribe.
It is believed that the indigenous people were killed by gold miners, who reportedly bragged about the attack afterwards.
[Germany] Merkel May Have Promised Too Much in Carbon Pollution Fight
By Mathew Carr, Brian Parkin and Lars Paulsson, Bloomberg, 28 September 2017
As German Chancellor Angela Merkel embarks on coalition talks to bed down her fourth term in office, a promise made shortly before her re-election may come back to haunt her.
At least that’s the view of nine analysts and researchers from Berlin to London who all say her target of reducing carbon emissions in Europe’s biggest economy by 40 percent in 2020 will probably fail. On Sept. 14, Merkel went as far as saying that she will find ways to meet the goal, no matter what. At the end of last year, those emissions were down 27 percent from 1990 levels.
[Madagascar] Rats flee forest fires, infect residents with plague, 19 dead
Punch, 28 September 2017
An outbreak of plague in Madagascar has killed 19 people and may have infected 85 others in just two months, the Indian Ocean island nation’s health minister said Thursday.
Plague, a highly infectious disease carried by small mammals like rats, killed millions of people across the world in the past but has been largely wiped out.
“We have recorded 104 suspected cases of plague across Madagascar, of which 19 have died,” Health Minister, Mamy Lalatiana Andriamanarivo, told journalists.
“This year, the plague season has started quite early and in brutal fashion.”
WB’s $3.8mln REDD+ programme to boost forest cover in Pakistan
APP, 28 September 2017
The World Bank’s programme of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) worth $3.8 million will help boost forest cover and protect and control their shrinkage in Pakistan.
“The World Bank-funded REDD+ programme had already been launched in the country that will help forest owners to access money for forest protection,” an official of the ministry of climate change told APP on Wednesday.
29 September 2017
‘Our desire for goods is at the heart of this’: Why Bruce Parry wants us all to live more sustainably
By Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 29 September 2017
Bruce Parry has made a career out of going native. The Royal Marine-turned-celebrity explorer may not yet be as fully-fledged an institution as David Attenborough, but if the British public were to nominate anyone to paddle up a crocodile-infested creek, tuck into a wriggling dinner or liberate their mind with shamanistic drugs, Parry would surely rank near the top.
So it is worthy of note that this affable and – until now – mainstream film-maker has been forced to part ways with the BBC for his latest project, a documentary that stresses environmental defence begins on the home front.
Due for release from Friday, Tawai: A Voice From the Forest is an empathetic, sumptuously filmed homage to indigenous groups, particularly the Penan, a Bornean community that is held up by anthropologists as a model of a peaceful and egalitarian society.
Climate change: could sustainable agriculture be the silver bullet we are looking for?
By Magdy Martínez-Solimán (UNDP), Thomson Reuters Foundation, 29 September 2017
As world leaders convened at the UN’s annual General Assembly last week, amidst the backdrop of New York’s Climate Week, the message was clear: we must act now and we must act together to tackle climate change.
It’s inspiring rhetoric but what exactly does this mean in practice?
When we, the global community, are confronted with mounting and seemingly overwhelming challenges in the face of climate change, it’s often difficult to know what to tackle first.
‘Don’t just rely on NGOs’: finding solutions to deforestation
By Anna Leach, The Guardian (supported by RSPO), 29 September 2017
Half of the world’s rainforests have been felled in a century. If deforestation carries on at the same rate, they may be gone in 100 years. Food companies are a big part of the problem; agriculture is the largest single cause of forest loss. And they are also part of the solution, with hundreds making commitments to stop deforestation.
But as deforestation continues, what more can companies do? This was the question put to experts from the private, NGO, government and finance sectors at a recent roundtable on the topic, held in New York.
ICO Analysis: Earth Token
By Justin OConnell, Hacked, 29 September 2017
impactChoice is in the business of environmental impact mitigation, and will launch Earth Token this year. Its software solutions across industries help businesses calculate, assess and act on their carbon footprint. Businesses can more accurately pass costs onto consumers or offset environmental impact by, say, donating to a charity or buying and protecting a natural asset.
In order to manage such a complex arrangement, impactChoice decided to launch a permissioned blockchain ledger, the Natural Asset Exchange. The Earth Token will serve as the platform’s native token. “How had we allowed corporate greed to get us to a state where we could kill all life on this planet?” writes Co-Founder and Managing Director Leonard Harley in a blog post.
Methane emissions from cattle are 11% higher than estimated
AFP, 29 September 2017
Emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from livestock are larger than previously thought, posing an additional challenge in the fight to curb global warming, scientists have said.
Revised calculations of methane produced per head of cattle show that global livestock emissions in 2011 were 11% higher than estimates based on data from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).
Brazil’s worst month ever for forest fires blamed on human activity
By Sam Cowie, The Guardian, 29 September 2017
Brazil has seen more forest fires in September than in any single month since records began, and authorities have warned that 2017 could surpass the worst year on record if action is not taken soon.
Experts say that the blazes are almost exclusively due to human activity, and they attribute the uptick to the expansion of agriculture and a reduction of oversight and surveillance. Lower than average rainfall in this year’s dry season is also an exacerbating factor.
[Cambodia] Land rights NGO suspended
By Ben Sokhean and Kong Meta, Phnom Penh Post, 29 September 2017
The Ministry of Interior yesterday ordered the temporary suspension of land rights NGO Equitable Cambodia for allegedly violating its own by-laws and the controversial law regulating NGOs passed in 2015.
In a letter signed yesterday, Interior Minister Sar Kheng ordered NGO Director Eang Vuthy to “temporarily suspend Equitable Cambodia’s activities for thirty working days”.
According to the letter, the organisation violated Article 5 of its own by-laws, as well as Articles 10 and 25 of the Law on Associations and NGOs.
Cameroon palm oil campaigner arrested in crackdown on activists
By Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 29 September 2017
A prominent campaigner against palm oil plantations has been arrested amid a growing crackdown on environmental and human rights activists in Cameroon, according to local lawyers and NGOs.
Nasako Besingi, who has led opposition to a US-funded 73,000 hectare farm in a biodiverse rainforest, is among more than 100 individuals who have been detained during an escalation of tension between the predominantly French-speaking authorities and the country’s large English-speaking minority.
30 September 2017
Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 21: Amazon rainforest die-off starts in the South, models show
By Rolf Schuttenhelm, Bits of Science, 30 September 2017
People who follow climate science will likely be well aware that the Amazon rainforest is particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change – as the basin becomes increasingly prone to droughts under rising global temperatures. Much of the Amazon ecosystem, the largest terrestrial hotspot of biodiversity, may collapse, flipping to a barren savanna-like state (cerrado grassland and caatinga semi-desert).
Regulars of Bitsofscience.org may also be able to explain why this biome switch might happen and describe a worrying geographical phenomenon in which the Amazon rainforest is essentially being swiped off the South American continent into the Caribbean Sea – climate extinction on a truly massive scale…
1 October 2017
Scientists develop database to help fight forest degradation in Eastern Africa
Xinhua, 1 October 2017
Scientists at the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) have designed a forest observatory database that gives information on activities that contributes to the destruction and degradation of forests in Africa.
Ngugi Kimani, a scientist at RCMRD told Xinhua in Nairobi on Friday that the Eastern African Forest Observatory (OFESA), a pilot project, is aimed at detecting threats to forests in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique.
“The database highlights forest cover loss, charcoal burning, human settlement and wanton cutting of trees,” he said.
Foreigners Grabbing African Land in Second Scramble for Africa
By Tatenda Gwaambuka, The African Exponent, 1 October 2017
Oakland Institute, The Land Matrix, World Bank and Oxfam have detailed reports on the land grabs in Africa and the rest of the world.
An area the size of Spain is believed to be leased to foreign investors in Africa. An estimated 66% of the land in sub-Saharan Africa is held in legally unprotected communal possession with nothing but tradition to assert the right to hold the land. Exposed and unprotected, many African communal farmers are at the mercy of their governments which have consistently betrayed them. Foreign companies have been coming to get large tracts of land in the continent and in circumstances reminiscent of the 19th century annexations, locals are being displaced to make way for foreigners. The compensation offered is nowhere close to enough and no consultations occur before the summary evictions. In the 21st century, it is black majority governments kicking their citizens to the curb. The new wave of imperialism has a black mask!
Coffee Could Become The World’s Most Sustainable Crop
By Emma Loewe, Mind Body Green, 1 October 2017
Today marks International Coffee Day, an occasion for caffeine lovers everywhere to raise a mug to their favorite brew. First kicked off three years ago, the nascent holiday celebrates the farmers and the land that make today’s coffee culture possible.
Unfortunately, our fervor for cold brews and almond milk lattes has created a double-edged sword of sorts. While it brings more employment opportunities to poor regions in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, the safety and profitability of some of these jobs have been questioned. The global thirst for coffee beans has also led us to the outer edges of the earth on a hunt for more farmland, making mass deforestation a huge concern in business. When you consider the fact that these beans thrive in tropical climates that have steady, predictable weather patterns, global warming becomes a threat to the industry’s future too.