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  • Presse
  1. Topics
  2. Regional Development
  3. Coffee Novation
  • Coffee-novation
  • Project Area
  • Location
  • Kafa Biosphere Reserve
  • Local Population
  • Threats
  • Importance for Climate Protection
Read

Kafa Biosphere Reserve

Unique coffee forests full of life

The Kafa Zone still boasts large, overlapping areas of mountainous afromontane cloud forest. The region is one of the 36 “Biodiversity Hotspots” worldwide and is therefore of global significance for conservation. Around 100 woody plant and many bird and mammal species are recorded.

  • Black and white colobus monkey - Foto: Bruno D´Amicis

    Black and white colobus monkey - Foto: Bruno D´Amicis

  • Butterflies - Foto: Bruno D´Amicis

    Butterflies - Foto: Bruno D´Amicis

  • Vervet monkey - Foto: Bruno D´Amicis

    Vervet monkey - Foto: Bruno D´Amicis

  • Tree fern - Foto: Bruno D´Amicis

    Tree fern - Foto: Bruno D´Amicis

Around 95 percent of Ethiopia’s remaining forests are centred in two regions. One of these is the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) province. Within this province is the Kafa Zone, which still boasts large, overlapping areas of mountainous afromontane cloud forest. The region is one of the 36 “Biodiversity Hotspots” worldwide (Eastern Afromontane) and is therefore of global significance for conservation.


The East Afromontane and Horn of Africa Biodiversity Hotspots

The East Afromontane and Horn of Africa Biodiversity Hotspots

Biodiversity Hotspot Map

The plateau, which was formerly densely forested, presents primeval forests, bamboo thickets and wetlands. Around 106 woody plant species belonging to 74 genera and 38 families are recorded. Dominant species are Coffea arabica, Pouteria adolfi-friedercii, Berasama abyssinica, Schefflera abyssinica, Trilepsium madagascariense and Polyscias fulva.

One hundred bird species have been recorded in the area; 15 of the bird species are reported to comprise the “Highland Biome Species”, thus accounting for 31 percent of the Restricted Highland Biome Assemblages in Ethiopia. At least 48 mammalian species, representing 14 families are estimated to be present in the zone.


With its three major rivers: Gojeb, Dinchia and Woshi, the forest area is an important fresh water reservoir for the entire region. However the size of the forest has dramatically reduced; the forest is now dispersed to include settlement areas, grazing and agricultural land. Areas of mostly undisturbed forest have been identified as untouchable core zones.

  • Forest Distribution in Kafa Biosphere Reserve
The southwest-Ethiopian afromontane forests are considered to be an invaluable genetic resource: These forest's undergrowth provides the natural home of the Arabica-coffee plant (Coffea arabica) and are the centre and origin of its extraordinarily valuable genetic diversity. The wild growing coffee has an estimated value of as much as 1.4 billion US Dollars. In spite of this value and other important ecosystem benefits generated by the forest, and which help the people in the region subsist, the cloud forests are greatly endangered, especially by conversion for agrarian purposes and forest degradation (commercial wood use and also as firewood). According to FAO statistics around 43 percent of the forest area in the Kafa Zone was lost between 1988 and 2008.

  • More information about forest loss in Kafa


Local people collect wild coffee from the forests for their own use and for sale.

5000 variations of wild coffee

Local people collect wild coffee from the forests for their own use and for sale.

More about coffee

5000 variations of wild coffee

Around 90 percent of the coffee drunk worldwide is Arabica coffee. Scientists estimate that in Kafa centuries of mostly undisturbed evolution have produced around 5,000 varieties of coffee. Coffee plants are a part of the delicately balanced forest ecosystem in Kafa and are used by the local inhabitants.

The coffee is picked both for personal use and for sale at local markets. A typical farmer still lives on what is grown in his fields and harvests the wild-growing coffee fruit and a variety of commercially-valuable spices and honey from wild bees for his own use and sale at local markets. Nowadays, over 6,500 farmers have formed cooperatives through which they can supply more coffee at a consistently high quality than they could as individual farmers. Now the coffee from the cooperatives is even exported internationally.

Ethiopia is the only coffee-producing country in Africa with a traditional coffee-drinking culture. At least three times a day, women perform a ritual, the daily ’coffee ceremony’, when green coffee beans are freshly roasted, crushed and brewed to be served to family and guests sitting together to discuss events and share stories. After decades of research, Kafa’s profile as the ‘birthplace’ of Arabica coffee was raised recently when the Ethiopian government decided to establish the National Coffee Museum in Bonga, the Zone’s capital.


project overview

Wild coffee beans.
Coffee-novation

Kafa Biosphere Reserve is challenged by the lack of sustainable employment and innovation for green development and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. The consortium aims at structuring the up to now non-commercialised garden coffee value chain. more →

topic overview

hands gently touching crops
Regional Development

NABU is comitted to promoting sustainable regional development worldwide. Our international projects always include income generating activities, which comprehensively address all three dimensions of sustainability—balancing economy, ecology and social equality. more →

Foto: Bruno D\'Amicis

+++ Biodiversity Assessment +++

From 30 July to 13 August 2019 NABU hosted the second biodiversity assessment at the Kafa Biosphere Reserve (BR) as follow-up to a first one held in 2014. A team of international experts as well as NABU rangers and NABU team members conducted intensive field work on amphibians, birds, dragonflies and damselflies, fungi and small- and medium-sized mammals.

read the report

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