Starbucks is well aware of the environment provided by the traditional
coffee plantation. They have produced some very interesting material which
explains the desirable characteristics of coffee grown in this environment
and the difficulty in getting the plantation owners to continue to grow
coffee in this manner. Perhaps they could help us all understand the local
issues which influence the coffee growers in their plantation management
decisions. In short, they would be quite pleased with a better supply of
"shade grown" coffee.

Please note that there are many other coffee importers which don't bother to
inform their customers of some of the environmental effects of coffee
agriculture. Perhaps they are not as aware as Starbucks. Perhaps they would
be better targets for this effort.


At 01:53 PM 5/31/96 -0700, 'Dan' Daniel Victor wrote:
>FYI. --Dan
>
> Dan Victor, Seattle, WA <dvictor at u.washington.edu>
> Tweeters = http://weber.u.washington.edu/~dvictor/
>
[snip]
>Traditional coffee plantations provide badly needed
>winter habitat for warblers, vireos, tanagers,
>flycatchers and other mogratory species that spend the
>summer in North America.
[snip]
... ask Starbucks Coffee
>Company to include SHADE-GROWN coffee in their
>environmental commitments and to develop a line of
>SHADE-GROWN coffee ...