Ecosystem services in your cup of coffee
What if you could start your morning knowing that your just poured-over cup of coffee came from coffee plants surrounded by multiple different plant species; beneficial insects, such as bees? And even knowing that all these elements create a beautiful place for humans, plants, and animals. A place where farmers can feel good and be inspired by the beauty of the landscape.
People are starting to understand forest and nature conservation in a more complex and integrated way. Scientists are talking about ecosystem services, comprising economic, cultural, and ecological aspects. Are you curious…?
Bees like coffee!
The scope of ecosystem services could be enlarged even more if we think about the benefits for other species rather than humans. You are not the only one who receives a caffeine boost from coffee. Also, bees enjoy low caffeine amounts while sucking coffee flowers’ nectar; and it seems to be helpful for bees’ memory!
Ecosystem services
All the ecological functions that sustain and improve the lives of humans are known as ecosystem services. Maybe the term sounds a bit encrypted; but to put in simple words, we can think in the interactions between plants and insects or the physical effects of water in the soil that ends up benefiting humans. Think about pollination. If conditions are good within an ecosystem, meaning adequate balance and no use of pesticides; plants, flowers, insects, and animals will be thriving and pollination will occur. In turn, humans benefit from having more new plants around them… it is just the perfect nature’s equilibrium!
There are four types of ecosystem services which exist at different levels and scales:
1. Provisioning services: This type includes all goods that the ecosystem provides. Usually are mentioned: food (from animal and plant sources), feed (silage, grains), fiber (including materials such as hemp, silk, jute, etc.), fuel (wood, dung, and other sources of energy). But also genetic resources, medicines, ornamentals, and freshwater.
2. Regulating services: Services that maintain a certain balance or reproduction of the environment. Some of the benefits that can be obtained from a balanced ecosystem are pollination, climate regulation, water purification, erosion control, carbon sequestration, and disease control (control of plant pathogens and human diseases)
3. Cultural services: All the nonmaterial benefits, such as aesthetic values, inspirational effects, spiritual and religious spaces, social relations, sense of place. But also the maintenance of traditional knowledge systems from different cultures.
4. Supporting services: All the dynamics which generate the ecosystem services. The impact on human well-being of these types of services is not so evident; since beneficial effects are appreciated over a long time. Here are included processes such as soil formation, or nutrient cycling.
Some productive systems have shown that humans can make good use of a piece of land for productive activities while enhancing ecosystem services, benefiting nature itself, as well. Agroforestry systems are one of the preferred systems for this! The canopy layers at different heights enhance the coexistence of different plant and animal species. The fallen leaves in the ground help to increase the soil organic matter… it is like free fertilizer from nature! These conditions boost soil life ensuring a healthy ecosystem!
Payment for ecosystem services
In the last decades, different environmental organizations have used the approach of Payment of Ecosystem Services as a strategy for conservation. This mechanism tries to encourage stewards, often farmers or indigenous communities, to be active in the restoration of natural ecosystems and prevention of deforestation. This is made with direct payments and indirect payments through eco-certified production. While this could have a positive impact in the environment; it is not totally clear the impact for stewards’ livelihoods.
Ecosystem services in coffee agroforestry
Araponga, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Agroforestry coffee versus degrade area in the background (Credits: Paola Solis, 2019)
Shaded coffee plantations are being preferred in recent years over coffee plantations, for its performance in the conservation of ecosystem integrity. Agroforestry are the systems where food production (and coffee!) and biodiversity conservation are not in contradiction!
Agricultural land-use history in different tropical countries showed the erosion and depletion of soils in some areas where full sun coffee has been cultivated. Some of these areas, in the past, were thriving tropical forests sustaining diverse flora and fauna, including native species. The desire to implement an intensive coffee plantation, led to the deforestation of primary and secondary forests, with the consequent implementation of a monoculture system, often accompanied by the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Some examples of this could be seen in Brazil and México.
In a coffee agroforestry system, the four types of ecosystem services can be found. Provisioning services are coffee beans, fruits from other trees within the system, and wood from timber trees. Pollination of coffee flowers performed by bees is helpful to increase the yields for Robusta and Arabica varieties contributing to regulating services. Cultural services can be appreciated in the beauty of the landscape for farmers and all the local knowledge farmers maintain about diverse uses of plant species growing in their property. And finally, supporting services, could be identified in the addition of plant material such as leaves and other rests which increase nutrients in the soil. Some farmers practice the mulching with banana leaves for protecting soil surface and avoid disturbances and increasing available nutrients for the coffee plants.
As well as many other benefits!
By: Paola Solís