The Beginning of the End for Coffee?

Production in peril. Coffee may be on the way out.

Is this the beginning of the end of Colombian coffee? That's the suggestion of the Australia-based Climate Institute, which reports that Colombian coffee production will suffer greviously 2050, while the world's wild coffee could be extinct by 2080.

Sacks of Colombian coffee ready to be shipped. 

The Climate Institute is undoubtedly correct that the planet is warming and that will cause devastation in crops around the world, particularly in tropical regions such as Colombia - where coffee now grows best.

Coffee won't end, however. Researchers will develop new varieties, new growing techniques and plant the crop in new regions further north and south. In fact, they're alread planting coffee in southern California.


But those measures won't prevent huge dislocations: What will happen to the millions of small farmers and others who depend on coffee now? They will not be able to migrate to any new coffee-growing regions, because other people already live there. Moving uphill to cooler climes won't solve their problems, either, since mountains shrink towards their peaks. And, as coffee shifts to the north and south, that will mean huge environmental impacts as land is deforested for new plantations.

All these changes will mean a more expensive mug of Starbucks. But that will be the least of our

Colombian coffee employs more than a half-million families,
or 2.7 million people.

problems. Because, if a warming climate alters coffee cultivation, it will also change farming of other more critical food crops. And that could mean famine, migrations, epidemics and other human and natural catastrophes.

Coffee alone supports more than two million people in Colombia, and tens of millions across the globe.

The Climate Institute's advice to drinkers is to purchase carbon neutral or sustainably grown coffee. But that doesn't address the climate change gases generated by coffee's shipment across the world from tropical to wealthy nations. And the coffee economy's impact is only a drop in the barrel compared to the global economy's climate change change gases.

All of which means that to save coffee - as well as many other crops and innumerable wild species - we'll have to fundamentally change the world's economy - fast - and that's not likely to happen in time.

Colombia will suffer badly from global warming. The country is already losing its glaciers, and the city of Cartagena may be transformed into an island, among many other impacts. But none of that has slowed Colombia's own enthusiastic contribution to climate change: Colombians are buying cars and traveling by airplane at a frenzied pace; gasoline and other fuels receive huge subsidies; deforestation is charging along; and the government aims to pull all the oil, gas and coal it can out of the ground.

Colombia is a victim, but also perpetrator of its own suffering.

The climate institute predicts dire consequences for Colombia from global warming.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

'Deforested Bones'

A skeletal bird made from wood represents deforestation's impacts.

Colombia's immense biodiversity is going fast, in great part because many creatures' forest habitats are disappearing.

A deforested danta.

And the National University's Natural History Museum's current exhibition dramatically exhibits that with sculptures of wild animals made from sticks, pieces of bark and charred wood gathered in deforested areas.

Peace with Colombia's various outlaw organizations was supposed to strengthen protection of the environment. Instead, deforestation has accelerated the last several years, to an incredible 20,000 hectares per hour, or 178,000 hectares per year - about double the entire land area of the Dutch Antilles. According to the museum, half of Colombia's high-altitude wetlands and its foothhill forests are gone, as are 90% of its tropical forests.

With the forests, go all the species living in them.

Deforestation is driven primarily by the expansion of agriculture, both legal and illegal, including cattle ranching. Every time a new road or pipeline is cut thru forest, observers watch the deforestation radiate out from the initial line.

A deforested jaguar.

The museum's exhibition, called Deforested Bones, includes messages warning against consumerism. However, our unbridled consumption of natural resources is only one cause of a complex phenomenon. Other parts are poverty that makes farmers desperate to feed their families, wealth which enables landowners to corrupt government officials, and twisted government policies which routinely give natural resource extraction priority over environmental conservation.

A deforested sloth.

A deforested spider monkey.

The natural history museum also has permanent exhibitions about anthropology, evolution, archaeology and Colombian wildlife.

A museum visitor sticks his hand into a crocodile's mouth.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Odebrecht Bulldozes the Environment

Odebrecht didn't stop at paying off politicians.

The 1071-km Ruta del Sol is to run from near Bogotá
to the coast near Santa Marta.

Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction giant whose name has become synonymous with corruption thanks to close to a billion dollars in bribes to governments across Latin America and Africa, did not stop at obtaining contracts on corrupt basis.

The company and its business partners also violated and ignored environmental laws on at least one of its headline projects in Colombia, according to a new report by Colombia's Controlaria.

The Controlaría found 442 violations of the environmental licenses of the $4 trillion peso-plus project, of which Odebrecht is part of the consortium. These involved waste water disposal, lack of reforestation, noise, mishandling of wildlife, and others.

The consortium "is not only not complying with the terms of the environmental licenses, but is not making any effort to comply," the Controlaria wrote.

Odebrecht bribed officials throughout
Latin America.
(Image: Notimerica)

But that's only the beginning of the scandal: It turns out that the National Environmental License Authority, the ANLA, did not fine the consortium a single time for those violations.

And even worse, other megaprojects, such as the dredging of the Magdalena River and the repair of the
Canal del Dique, are being carried out without even bothering with environmental permits, and in the case of the river, the ANLA has not bothered to oversee the project for nine years, the Controlaria found.

Is this a matter or corruption or just sheer apathy and laziness by supposed government watchdogs? Probably both.

For one of the planet's most biodiverse nations, and which claims to treasure its natural wealth, this situation goes way beyond scandalous. And it's in addition to the inherent damage done by these proyects, such as drying out wetlands, dumping silt into rivers and oceans, and facilitating deforestation by slash and burn farmers.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Do Rivers Have Rights?

Colombia's Constitutional Court made a surprising ruling recently.

The Atrato River flows into the
Caribbean near the border
with Panama.

The court ordered the government to end illegal mining in the Chocó region and clean up the widespread environmental damage mining has caused. But the ruling went further, and declared that the Atrato River possesses rights which must be respected - giving the river a legal status something like personhood.

There's no doubting the environmental catastrophe caused by illegal mining, logging and other resource extraction activities in the Chocó region. Huge areas have been deforested and poisoned with mercury. According to news reports, mercury concentrations in residents' blood may be as many as 120 times higher than levels considered safe.

Land denuded by illegal mining in the Chocó region.

But stopping the environmental damage is easier said than done. Illegal and informal gold miners use mercury because it's the cheapest, easiest way to pull out the precious metal, and believe they can't afford to use safer methods. Poverty drives impoverished Chocó residents to suffer the dangers and miserable conditions in illegal mines, and that won't change until Colombia's economy undergoes a transformation.

Future court decisions will define what rights a river can have, and perhaps, also give trees, seas and non-human aniimals human-like rights as well.

But, in light of Colombia's inability to protect its rivers and forests, it would be nice to arm those trees, rivers and forests and enable them to protect themselves

The lawsuit was filed by the NGO Tierra Digna, which works to protect the rights of traditional communities.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Cajamarca Mining Ban - Environmental Boon or Disaster?

Location of La Colosa mine
in Tolima department.

When residents of Cajamarca, Tolima voted recently in a non-binding referendum against AngloGold Ashanti's planned La Colosa gold mine I was surprised, particularly by the overwhelming 97-to-3 percent vote margin.

After all, the mine would have brought investment and jobs to the region, albeit with a big environmental cost.

To the credit of the South African-based company's credit, a few days ago it suspended operations at La Colosa, despite insistence by the Ministry of Mines and Energy that the referendum was merely symbolic. That decision ended 400 jobs, according to the company.

"It's a positive sign for democracy," Renzo García, of The Committee in Defense of Water, told the El Espectador newspaper.

The site is estimated to contain
more than 30 million ounces of gold.

But would the end of this mine, estimated to contain 30 million ounces of gold, be a clear win for the environment?

Undoubtedly, a huge mine like this one would destroy a huge surface area and consume and pollute lots of water. And its trucks and machines would pump lots of dirty gases into the atmosphere.

But what is the alternative? If these 30 million ounces of gold aren't produced by La Colosa, gold supplies will be lower and prices will rise a bit worldwide. That will incentivize gold mining elsewhere - including much more destructive illegal mines.

Illegal gold mining in El Chocó devastates rivers
and poisons miners and even townspeople.
Photo: El Tiempo

Big corporate mines, for all of their impacts, do at least have the resources and sophistication to utilize techniques to minimize pollution and dangers to human health. (And if they don't, then at least there's somebody to sue.) In contrast, illegal and informal miners are generally impoverished, unsophisticated people who use the most dangerous methods to strip gold from the soil. Near Colombia's Pacific coast, hundreds of rivers have been devastated by illegal gold mines, and even residents of towns have dangerous levels of mercury from the mines in their blood.

All of which is not to say that the La Colosa mine would be a positive thing - but at least to ask the question.

Illegal mining's environmental devastation.
Photo: Semana

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours