Effects of shade-coffee certification programs on bird, trees and butterfly diversity in Colombia

Abstract

In the last decade coffee certification programs have grown rapidly in Latin America, encouraging producers to harvest coffee based on production standards intended to enhance biodiversity conservation. However, few studies have tested whether such programs have a positive conservation impact. To date, research has focused on comparing community similarity between forests and plantations, but the question of whether certified plantations provide refuges for biodiversity in regions where all the forest has been lost remains untested. Here, we compare bird, butterfly and plant communities in highly deforested regions in Santander, Colombia, to determine the potential conservation role of two certification programs: Rainforest Alliance and Rainforest Alliance+Organic. We used 13 farms to census birds, butterflies, and trees, and quantified structural characteristics of the shade. We found little difference in most measures of diversity and composition of birds, butterfly and plant communities between types of plantations. However, despite high variation across farms, butterfly richness and abundance increased with the decrease in the use of pesticides in plantations. These results suggest that reduced use of chemical compounds in certified coffee plantations might enhance conservation of butterfly communities. The biodiversity associated with these coffee plantations and the high deforestation rates in Santander, suggest that irrespective of their certification type they provide the last refuges for biodiversity conservation in this region.