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Dear friends of shade grown coffee,
Greetings from the northern jungle of Peru. On my recent trip to the southern jungle of the Cusco region I was struck by the desperate situation of the deforested jungle and I have to report.
To get to th e coffee regions of Peru one is required to cross the immense Andes Mountains, which are for the most part dry. The high mountainous plains remind me a lot of Eastern Washington and Oregon, with lots of wheat, corn and other grain production. Typically, as one descends into the jungle, the climate becomes more tropic. The landscape slowly changes into a green carpet of lush forest. Trees rise up and the "pampa," dry bushy landscape, disappears.
 Traveling into the Cuscueña jungle I was struck by a different reality. As we began our descent down the windy switchback roads I noticed the "pampa" continued. The climate became warm and humid, but still there were only bald hillsides as far as the eye could see. Approaching the 6,000 foot level I finally got glimpses of green trees creeping into the mountian canyons carved by small creeks. When the road finally passed one of the green canyons I noticed that coffee was under this canopy! For the next four hours of driving this phenomenon continued.
The week brought me to several coffee-producing communities, in which I also saw the same phenomenon. Shade trees meant coffee farms. It seems that the farms of the Cusco region have kept their tradition of growing coffee under the canopy. So while they chop the surrounding forest down for building materials and firewood, they protect and care for the valuable canopy which covers their coffee crops.
So there it is, hope in the midst of tragedy. But that hasn't helped the bird population much. The only place I saw any in the region was when I was walking through the coffee farms!
Sweet Aromas from Peru,
K.C. O´Keefe
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