In Indonesia, as habitat shrinks, elephants leave the forest and in their exodus trample illegal coffee fields inside the national park Bukit Barisan Selatanit. The park is protected, but some of the land has been burned and cleared to grow Robusta coffee beans, which are commonly used in Europe and North America to make instant coffee. And when elephants crush the crops, farmers kill them. (At this park, only four creatures of a herd of 60 now remain.)
Nick Watt, of ABC News, reported on Dec. 11 that Nestle, which makes Nescafe, buys coffee from the region -- "forty percent of it from local traders." The company says, through its spokesperson, that it has no way of knowing where the beans they buy come from, and that they “might come” from illegal sources. The spokesperson also said (rather unfortunately, in my view) “law enforcement is not our task,” adding that it is “working with local farmers to increase output from legal, existing plantations.”
Adam Tomasek, of the World Wildlife Fund, said coffee producers in Europe and America really don’t know for certain where the coffee they’re buying comes from, and that is the root of the problem. According to Tomasek, a consumer can have “absolutely no confidence in what they are purchasing."
It sometimes seems the world is going to hell in a coffeemaker, but the good news is the World Wildlife Fund is trying to stop the killing -- a difficult challenge, given that wild elephants and humans really don't get along.
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