Coffee-novation

The Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU)

While it is Germany’s oldest and largest environmental association, with more than 770,000 members and sponsors, it is a registered international NGO in Ethiopia and has been active there since 2006. NABU has established a respected role in the Kafa region through closely working with local communities and government partners.

NABU is the project’s administrative partner and responsible for overall project management, technical backstopping, administrative and financial supervision and monitoring, evaluation and adaptation. Throughout the project, NABU will be in direct communication with all consortium partners, coordinating and guiding the consortium, updating partners on the general project progress, managing consortium meetings and responsible for communication and reporting to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.

Lebensbaum

Lebensbaum is the project’s key commercial partner and will be involved in the value chain development of organic garden coffee beans. Lebensbaum will provide technical assistance for coffee quality improvement, and be in charge of market access, export, product development and product marketing. They contribute their rich experience in cooperating on organic products with smallholder farmers and cooperatives from all over the world.

Forests of the World (FoW)

Founded in Denmark in 1983 with the objective to conserve and manage the world’s forests in a sustainable way. We create opportunities for forest dependent communities and people who aspire to save the forests of the world. FoW’s main role is providing technical advice, in particular capacity building on value chain development, business planning and product innovation. With substantial experience in sustainable value chains, FoW will provide technical support to local implementation, assistance to local capacity building and communication activities.

NABU Ethiopia

With its experience in implementing activities with the Kafa Biosphere Reserve’s communities for over a decade, NABU Ethiopia is perfectly positioned as the local implementing partner and is in charge of day-to-day project implementation. The work will be carried out by the NABU Project Office Bonga and supported by NABU’s Head Office in Addis Ababa.

Goldkind GmbH

The Austrian company is involved in the development of the value chain for coffee cherry husks (cascara) made from organic garden coffee. Goldkind GmbH imports and sells cascara for various infusion drinks. In this way, the company promotes the upcycling of by-products of coffee production and contributes to income diversification and the development of sustainable and self-sustaining business practices within the garden coffee value chain.

Kafa Forest Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (KFCFCU)

The Kafa Forest Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (KFCFCU) brings together almost 10,000 smallholders from 43 cooperatives. Thanks to their many years of experience, the members are true experts in the cultivation of coffee in the Kafa region. Founded in 2004 and Fairtrade certified in 2006, the union enables its members to export their coffee products effectively to the market, thus securing sources of income.

Kafa Zone Administration

The Kafa Zone Administration is a long-standing partner of NABU and fully supports the implementation of the project in many different ways.

Where to find Kafa?

Kafa is located in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Regional State (SNNPRS), the most ethnically and linguistically diverse region of Ethiopia. The predominantly highland region is covered with evergreen montane cloud forest and is part of the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot. The last remaining montane cloud forests that contain wild trees of Coffea arabica as a natural part of the ecosystem exist in the Kafa Zone, around Bonga. This is where the Kafa Biosphere Reserve is located.

Why is the Kafa Biosphere Reserve important for climate protection?

Tropical deforestation is one of the main sources of human-origin greenhouse-gas emissions. Alongside serious effects on often endemic biodiversity, large quantities of carbon dioxide have also been released and the carbon-storage capacity of the forest has been markedly reduced.

The area of forest currently remaining, in the area of the Kafa Biosphere Reserve, totals up to 422,260 hectares, of which 152,000 hectares are mainly intact mountain cloud forest and seven percent bamboo forest. 33,000 hectares are degraded and 21,000 hectares strongly degraded mountain cloud-forest. According to conservative estimates, the aforementioned area of forest contains around 25 million tons of CO² in above-ground biomass. Other conservative calculations of the forests’ carbon-storage capacity reckon that the forest currently absorbs around 600,000 tons of CO² annually. Going by a current study, the annual deforestation rate in the Kafa Zone is approx. 22,500 hectares, whilst figures of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) pitched the deforestation rate between 1988 and 2008 at 11,000 hectares annually.

If these figures are used as the basis for a “business as usual” scenario the forests in the Kafa Zone will completely disappear within the next 10-20 years. This would progressively lead to the release of all the 25 million tons of CO² as well as a continually sinking carbon-storage capacity in the forest.

The preservation of Ethiopias unique wild coffee forests will aid the global community to avoid further greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation. The forests in the states southwest can furthermore be seen as the “green lung” of Ethiopia. Preserving these forests will secure the maintenance of a regionally important CO² store. It can secure the natural and economic bases of existence for the regional population in progressing climate change. Moreover, important regulatory functions of water supply and micro-climate are provided by the preserved rainforests.