Technology
Coffee and Conservation: Transforming Industries for a Sustainable Future
In this episode of 'Coffee and Conservation,' host Chris engages in a crucial discussion with Atel Higane, founder of Coffee Watch, about the environmental and human rights challenges within...
Coffee and Conservation: Transforming Industries for a Sustainable Future
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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You're listening to an AirWave Media Podcast.
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Welcome to our previous podcast, this is Chris.
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Hey, just want to put a warning before this episode.
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It is an important discussion on what is happening in the coffee industry, but it is some sensitive content.
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And I would say adult only where some of the topics discussed aren't appropriate for the young end.
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So I would have them skip this episode.
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You can go back to our white tail deer episode or one of our older episodes for them.
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But this one I feel is pretty important in the sense that for the past few years we've talked a lot about the impacts of palm oil and deforestation.
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The impacts it's had on wildlife like orangutans and other species in Asia.
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And then we see it also all around the planet, Central South America and in Africa.
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The good news is due to us, people like you listening, that industry has changed, where the deforestation has slowed way down.
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And we discussed that a little bit in this interview with Atel Higane, the founder of Coffee Watch.
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Now we need to take that energy and apply it to the coffee industry.
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And I'm going to tell you after having this discussion with her last week, I've made change.
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And I will tell you, I love coffee. This is not mean you have to stop drinking coffee at all.
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I think we just need to change our habits like we did with palm oil.
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And Atel had such an impact on me that the next day I went out and bought a coffee press.
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And now I am sourcing my coffee beans from ethical and reliable and organic sources.
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That's the impact one person can have on the world and Atel is doing that.
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And this is what we discussed in this podcast.
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And enlightening you to the plight of the people that work on these coffee farms through South America and the world.
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And then what you can do to make positive change, where it doesn't impact how much coffee you drink, because I drink quite a bit.
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But when we start voting with our dollar and start making demands of the industry for change, they do listen.
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They follow the money. So please take that to heart in this episode.
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And I know you're going to really enjoy it. But again, just a warning.
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There are some very sensitive topics in this discussion with Atel about what is happening with our coffee being grown around the world.
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Welcome out creatures podcast. This is Chris, very special guest today.
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In this podcast, we talk a lot about making a difference. How you can make a difference.
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Or how one person in the world can make a difference. I know we just had Bill Wall-Hour talking about Jane Goodall and all the work that they're doing.
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Who's the next Jane Goodall? Well, who's the next? Well, tell you're still out there working.
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But tell Higone, this you are an activist that speaks to my heart. And you know, to set this all up, you went to Yale.
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You got your JD from Yale Law School. You could be out there making millions with that pedigree.
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Like, you know, Harvard Law, Yale Law, you could be working for some big corporation, raking in the money.
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But yet you were out there doing some incredible works. So first welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you. It's a wonderful video with you. I guess, probably the lowest paid for the class.
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I think there's definitely no one making less money.
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But that's, but looking at you, like I have become a coach. I don't know where there's a lot of people in my class who get as much joy.
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Well, okay, you worked with Greenpeace. You worked with Human Rights Watch. You worked with the Rain, the Trade Force Action Network.
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The Climate and Land Use Alliance. You're a board member at the Climate Defiance. And you're the founder of Coffee Watch. Like, wow, I just got to say upfront.
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Thank you for the work you're doing because you are giving a voice to a lot of people who don't have a voice. And also all those creatures that inhabit these areas that you're fighting to protect.
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So thank you for that.
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So I should add, you know, although I did work a lot at Human Rights Watch and Greenpeace and NDC, I was just a tiny little bit player for Ren as a consultant and Clua, although, you know, I have immense gratitude for all those experiences because I feel like I learned so much.
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You know, I was really shaped by being able to have kind of a front row seat to what some of the best environmental and human rights groups in the world too.
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And like there's this person on my board, Karin Dufka. She was my boss when I first worked at Human Rights Watch.
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That came back again after law school to work for them again. But, you know, she's kind of my idol. And women like her, you know, she won a MacArthur Genius Award. She's just incredible.
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She was a workhorse moment in some of the toughest places, you know, like documenting like the one genocide.
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And when I got to see what some of the world's most courageous and accomplished human rights and environmental activists were doing, it shaped me and it helped me be my best self to learn from them and follow in their footsteps to the extent that I can.
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So I feel really grateful to be like the recipient of their love and mentorship and guidance and their example.
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Yeah. No, it just gives me a lot of hope because we do talk about people out there on the ground doing this work that is so important because when we're going to talk about coffee watch today and what that means and all the listeners really you want to listen because again, we talk about voting with your dollar, making a difference in the world.
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We have to get corporations to change or we're going to keep losing habitat and species are going to are that are on the brink will lose them.
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So it all ties in together, especially when the human rights work, you know, it does tie tie together with environmentalism. And that's what I love about this looking at your resume or your CV. It's just like you've been on the ground all over the planet working hard.
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I think what you said is so vital have to underscore because maybe your listeners don't like fully clock exactly what you said.
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The human rates and the environmental problems, Chris, just like what you alluded to are the different sides of the same point.
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The vessels that are doing pirate fishing, IE fishing, raping the ocean when it comes to ecosystems, you know, bottom trailing and killing juveniles and going into MPAs marine protectors.
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Those same vessels are disproportionately the ones with seafood slavery, they're floating prisons, they treat their workers abominably and it's on sea as it is on land.
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And the same companies and industries that hurt people hurt the planet.
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Yeah, no, I've seen some horrific stuff, especially when it comes to the ocean.
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Well, let's go back to the beginning. What really inspired you to go? I guess you said when was that aha moment when you write human rights and environmental environmentalism went hand in hand?
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Well, I had an aha environment human rights movement that hit me basically in two waves.
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The first time was when I went to work in Iraq to document atrocities against people.
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So it was this proof called the International Human Rights Law Institute and we were documenting things like beheadings and rape and extra judicial killings and genocide and looking at abuses both under the Saddam era and the Bush era looking at abuses against the
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people who are so many people who are Asia people who are Yazidi people who are Christian women men.
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It was a treasurest. We, you know, the team collected about 9,000 more than 9,000 testimonies but 9,000 of them, you know, after cleaning them we really
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made sure that you know you couldn't identify any any of victims from those testimonies. The 9,000 testimonies were extremely powerful, totally credible and showed these patterns of abuse.
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And as I was going through this pack of abuses against Shia people in the marshes of Iraq, this giant wetland ecosystem that Saddam basically drained to kill all the Shia
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and the redentists who were in an uprising against his dictatorship, back when America had the first call for there was a huge uprising in Iraq.
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Yeah, and Kurdish people especially just rose up and they were like, this is our chance to get rid of our ruthlessly catered for the like telegusting, wrickening our lives.
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And then America was sat by and watched well as that I'm crushed those people and killed them. But so in the south in addition to torture and horrible things, he drained this entire wetland in order to hunt down the rebels.
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And that ecosystem collapsed, but it had a huge ripple effect on the whole region in terms of rainfall, it was kind of clizmic and it was kind of like sawing off the branch that you're sitting on on a tree.
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So basically when I realized that humans were capable of this enormous, mega destruction and then the second time was not on land, it was ocean, this aha moment that hit me around our oceans.
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And I'd worked in West Africa on human rights issues and worked in Sanagal and I used to go swimming every day in the ocean before going to work at this wonderful human rights organization called Radu.
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It's like this sort of was the premier West African human rights NGO. So I was like the only non-West African person who was very thrilling to be able to have this honor and a chance.
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And I treasured it and what a life you know I got to wake up and I'd leave my little sweater and things with these lovely ladies on the beach who were a part of a fisherman community.
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I would go swimming, all these kids would I would bring snacks, we would share breakfast together and you know they were so kind to me.
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Some of the kids would even swim with me and then I hop on my little moto, put on my clothes, go to work and defend human rights. It was kind of a dream come true.
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I came back years later for one of my Senegalese friends weddings went back to that same area. There were no fish, the whole community had collapsed.
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There were nobody, there was nobody on the beach. The kids, the old ladies, the guys with the boats gone.
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So this is crazy, what's happening? And I found a scuba diving company that was willing to go out there and I went, everything was dead.
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I just thought to myself, wow, like what are we doing? This is nuts, this is knocking nuts.
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Okay, maybe I should stop working on just human rights, I'm going to green piece and try to like make sure that we defend our planet so that we're not on a dead planet so that we can have any human rights at all.
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So you don't have any human rights if you can't freeze and eat and drink.
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Oh, it's, yeah, it is horrific and there is some good stuff coming at the podcast. That's all doom and glooper.
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The listers, this is the struggle I have.
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I mean, Angie with this podcast is you see that destruction and like in the recent movie Ocean with David Ambrow and you know we had director Toby Nolan on.
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In that movie, they do show that off West Africa, the fishermen trying to catch fish tiny little fish that are left as the big, you know commercial trawlers come by that are taking their nutrition.
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Their livelihood, their, their, their all yours.
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They rate their raping the entire ecosystem. They ruin everything bottom of the ocean. So things can't even grow back. They can't.
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That's happened here in New Zealand. People don't realize it's a New Zealand scene is this green oasis and we do have some really great conservation going on.
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But there's bottom trolling going off right off her coast.
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New Zealand, yes, New Zealand, use of seafood workers like in your waters that has been documented.
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Yeah, and nobody, and everything's all great in a little New Zealand, but it's happening in my own backyard.
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It's a weird failure to get a hold of all your cow poop and cow burbs and car parts, which are pretty bad for the environment too.
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I mean, I love New Zealand. I love New Zealand. New Zealand is amazing, but there's basically I think everywhere you live, there's good things that you can do that make a huge difference no matter how good you are. You can always do better.
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Yeah, yeah. So I don't want any one country out there to think that, oh, it's just, you know, America because that's where I grew up and.
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Oh, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. Yeah, it's everywhere. We're all doing pretty bad things and we can all do good and we can all do better.
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Yeah. So the next thing I can't much up into is what?
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Because there's so much you've done. Like I said, we can talk for hours, but do you want to really focus it on coffee watch?
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Because I think that's something that our listeners can take today and go, okay, here's some changes I can make.
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One thing that's really shocked me this year is the idea that we've already lost the Amazon rainforest that we've already reached the tipping point that it's not going to be able to regenerate itself as deforestation,
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even though it slowed down, it's still going on that the damage has been done. That frightens me for the planet and all the humans and animals that live on it.
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So when I looked at coffee watch and the stuff that you're doing in just South America, but around the world, what drew you to reform the coffee industry?
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Like what, where did you, why did you decide your plant, your flag there now?
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Yeah, I can tell you about why I wanted to start coffee watch, but can I just go back a tiny bit and say, it's true that we might have lost the Amazon.
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But I'm really a glass half full person, or since we're talking about coffee, maybe I should say the log half full person.
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Yes, yes.
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First, we went to the moon as a species, we are capable of such immense creativity and dynamism and triumph over adversity.
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Like we can heal our planet.
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You know, we absolutely we can seed coral reefs with these incredible discoveries of people who are like trying to find the reefs that are the most heat resistant.
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We can make shoes out of marine plastic. My shoes are made out of marine plastic. I wish I had them so I could like wave them around and wearing other shoes right now wearing my slippers.
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We can eat organic, we can drive cars that are EVs, we can have energy that's renewable, almost every different part of our life.
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We can fix to make it more environmentally sound and not just to do no harm, but to be positive, to heal.
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I truly believe that. I'm not just saying it to make you feel better or to like perk up your listeners and give them a little dizziness.
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I think from our coffee, to our shoes, to our phones, to our cars, to our energy, everything we know how to do it right.
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What we now need to muster. This is the hour that our generation is being called to stand up and fight and be counted.
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This is like the moment when Frodo needs to get to the crack of Mount Doom, we have got to like fight the orcs. This is our time.
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This is our time to stand up and find the will, the scientists, the innovators, the entrepreneurs, they have found the way.
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We need to find the will. That's really encouraging because it means like if we cared enough, we could save the Amazon.
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We could save global forests. We could save the ocean. We could save all these ecosystems. We could bring animals back from the brink. It is our choice.
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That's terrifying. But it falls when really beautiful.
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It is true though. We can heal. I know we just talked about oceans. I'll use that as an example.
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Part of that film, they talk about setting up these marine reserves. Now you did mention the pirate fishing. They do go in and do some damage.
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But if we could set up more of those and protect these areas, we were just talking about the goby bear.
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We could put more protections in the goby desert and these certain areas of the world and protect these critical habitats.
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The animals do regenerate. Some are slower than others but the oceans are a great example because that one regenerates really quickly.
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But even the rainforest can. It is such a vibrant ecosystem with so many millions of species insects all the way up.
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30 species by protecting just 1% of land. 1.5% of earth's land surface would prevent most extinction.
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That is an amazing beautiful thought. It means it is within our grasp. That kind of brings me to coffee.
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I could have chosen a lot of things. I could have chosen a parallel shipping. There are so many industries that kind of get a free pass that are very destructive.
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But I wanted to choose an industry that is extremely destructive. That is by large gotten a free pass.
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And having worked a lot on the other high-risk commodities that drive global deforestation.
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I wanted to hone in on a coffee because almost nobody works on that in the deforestation space.
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Many of your listeners probably do not know this but only 2% of philanthropic dollars go to climate.
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2% just not enough for an acclimat emergency. If we were giving 30% of earth philanthropic dollars into the climate that would be a big difference.
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We would probably have saved all those species you are talking about.
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In that, you could see climate is the orphan of philanthropy. Within that climate space, only 8% of climate dollars give or take good agriculture.
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Fixing ag. But we know ag is driving around a third of climate change and 80% of biodiversity loss.
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So for your listeners and all creatures podcast, for whom biodiversity is like a core, existentially important issue, ag is the problem.
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Changing ag is the solution. So basically your listeners are interested in the orphan of the orphan, which is ag within climate.
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But the reason I chose coffee is there are 7 deadly sins that are driving deforestation. 7 commodities. These are the deadly sins of forced destruction.
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Cattle, soy, palm oil, pulp and paper, cocoa coffee rubber. 7.
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And of those 7, lots of people work on the other 6. Nobody works on coffee.
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And I know because I literally worked on those other 6 commodities for a green case in my career.
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A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. I sort of led a lot of campaigns to change, you know, some of the world's biggest, we successfully campaigned to change the world's biggest farmer.
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Olam campaign to change the world's biggest rubber company, healthy on. I led a campaign to change the world's biggest cocoa companies.
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Like Ibu and Nandu, and Hershey's and Marius and all that.
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And what I was at Greenpeace, as the research director for Southeast Asia, I had a front row seat just seeing my amazing Indonesia colleagues in the forest team just kick us basically and named Amson.
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Like, you know, they took no prisoners. They did an amazing campaign and they with the help of other NGOs, I think really transformed the palm oil industry.
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Deforestation for palm oil has gone down a lot.
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So we know what it takes to win and change an industry.
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Lots of people are doing stuff on the other big six. And I wanted to take on the seventh Titan of Deforestation.
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There no one looks at. Maybe that's crazy. I'm really a little crazy. But that's what drew me to coffee is I want to stop all deforestation in the coffee industry.
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So yeah, how destructive is it? And you know, looking at the mission and the papers that you have on your website, I mean the human rights violations.
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But yeah, we don't talk about it. Why is that? Why don't we talk about how destructive it is?
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Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, it's the number six driver of deforestation in the world. But it gets very short shrift.
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And I suspect that's because most big environmental groups have doubled down on the four biggest Titans of deforestation, which is cattle, soy, pulp and paper and palm oil.
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And you know, a lot of people say like, oh, we cannot focus on numbers five, six and seven because we're losing the battle against the big four.
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So I think that's part of it for the international NGOs. And then for the domestic NGOs that are in the places where coffee is trashing forests.
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I think a lot of them have so many other fish to fry that they can't really find the bandwidth to focus much on deforestation for coffee.
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And I'll just list the top coffee producing country in the world of Brazil. Brazil has so many even beer problems with cattle and soy.
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That I think a lot of the people there who are would work on coffee can't because they're play this full.
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It's as if like let's say Chris, you had a killer or rapist and a car jacket come to your house. You probably wouldn't even look at the car jacket.
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You'd be too busy fighting off the killer and the rapist to like deal with the car jacket.
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You know, and so Brazil's the first producer of coffee in the world Indonesia is the fourth. And it's the same problem for them as Brazilian.
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I think right where they have like huge deforestation crisis from palm oil and pulp and paper, which is even so much worse than coffee that again, it's kind of like the killer of the rapist and the car jacket.
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And he has a lot of coal that local activists are fighting to transition from a coal and offshore drilling economy to renewable energy like geothermal solar energy economy.
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And then if she was looking at the third biggest producer, which is Columbia, they had a brutal civil war.
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Killings, disappearances, rate, murders of activists who are trying to document what's going on with community.
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So like really targeting community leaders, recruiting child soldiers. I mean Columbia had so many political problems and problems with violence.
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And also drug trafficking. That makes it really hard for the local civil society heroes in heroines who are amazing.
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Let's just give them props. They rock. They should like wish and only give them all our love. And not blaming them. They didn't do coffee also.
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Yeah, I know.
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And then look at that. Not which is the number two coffee producer in the world. It is a closed repressive dictatorship.
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If you try to like document problems in the coffee industry in Vietnam, you probably just wind up in jail for a very long time.
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No, it can get you out. And who knows what happens to you in jail? It's not get me.
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The tales are not the kind of place you want to spend the extended period of time of your life.
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So I think for local activists, the obstacles were just so high. Even Ethiopia, they're like the biggest coffee producer in Africa.
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They've had all these civil wars. They just basically maybe killed me think around 600,000 people in the war with the Tigray.
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You know, that's crazy. Like civil society in Ethiopia has their hands full. So that's my answer to you.
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I think my bad answer to you is that's rolling while we have not heard more of that probably, you know.
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And it's coffee is just exploded. I mean, we didn't have the Starbucks or the drive-through coffees. Now they're popping up in New Zealand.
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New Zealand's a big coffee, not tea, teas, more British UK. So we have a lot of coffee here in New Zealand and our local cafes, but now the big ones are coming in.
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And you know, it's, you've seen coffee becomes, it's a big part of daily life, I guess, for a lot of people around the planet and trying to meet that demand.
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So what's your goals with coffee watch? Where did you start with taking on this monster?
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Okay, so it's making out crazy, but I literally am in it to win it to stop deforestation in coffee worldwide.
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Yeah, that's my number one goal. I want to like turn that around. That's if that's the only thing I do.
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I'm the rest of my life. I'll feel very good about it. But hand in hand with the human, the environmental problems are the human rights problems, which is exactly what you were selling at the very beginning of this podcast, Chris.
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Or I was like, trans to underscore the deep truth and importance of what you were saying.
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So it's not just the coffees, the number six driver of deforestation in the world and is also a wash with pesticides, so it's a monoculture instead of like shade grown regenerative, I'm a forestry.
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It is also filled with child labor, millions of kids work in coffee and that's because almost every single coffee farm worker is in poverty and also those coffee fongers are in poverty.
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Many of them are in extreme poverty as defined by the World Bank. That cut off is $2.15 a day.
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Just take a step back and imagine trying to live on $2.15 a day.
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It is knocking that is not okay. There are almost no coffee farmers and farm workers that earn a living income. That is my second big goal.
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I want to make sure that at least for a certified coffee, which is half of global coffee, coffee farmers earn a living income and actually I want all coffee farmers and farm workers to be earning a living income.
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Because I think if we can achieve that, then a lot of the child labor will dissipate and vanish.
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Parents do not send their kids out to work because they hit their kids. They love their kids.
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They want a better life for their kids. They send their kids to work in coffee fields doing back breaking dangerous hazardous child labor because they are on the cusp of food insecurity.
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For the parents, it is a choice. The kids work or we all starve.
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I think my second big goal has to be a living income in coffee.
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I even think it wouldn't just deal with poverty and child labor. It would pull the rug out under the slavery problem as well.
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Because right now, coffee is a top driver of slavery in Brazil, which is a number one coffee producing country in the world.
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It is not just debt bondage and modern slavery. It is also like there is trafficking, human trafficking in our coffee.
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If you drink coffee on the regular and you don't like a real close attention to what you are drinking, you are drinking deforestation, poison, child labor and slavery.
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We have to change that. That is not okay and it is a fixable problem.
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How do we fix it? Let's go there.
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Leave our listeners and I'm like, oh my god, but I love my coffee.
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I love everything. I love everything. I can't start my day without coffee.
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My husband, the best husband in the world, he is not only super hard, a great dancer, a total smarty-pants, and also has the best heart and does nothing but try to save babies and do public health in his unicef job all day.
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He also makes me an oatmeal glauze every morning without I like, I'm basically a drug head dog.
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I can't operate machinery or get a towel or dress for a daycare or anything. My husband is amazing.
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I cannot start my day without coffee.
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Yes, yes.
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Basically I have less coffee and I have drunk garbage, evil coffee too.
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I didn't even know how bad this was until I started coffee watcherly.
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I'm in the scene about with your listeners. Nobody is guilty or evil because they have drunk evil coffee.
spk_0
We're almost like victims in this, right? Because we're often bamboozled and flambusled by these effing lying companies and certifications that are like, oh, this is such nice coffee.
spk_0
Look at all these happy fibers.
spk_0
No, that's not. That's not what the farmers are looking at.
spk_0
They're total poverty and it's running their kids to work.
spk_0
Listen, your listeners should not feel guilty and bad for a second.
spk_0
The key is to take all that outrage and sadness about everything you've just learned about what's wrong in coffee and channel it into being changed warriors, coffee and engines.
spk_0
Let's be sustainable coffee and just you can vote with your wallet.
spk_0
You can buy from art. You can talk to your elected representative unless you live in like North Korea or Russia, which probably not that many listeners can hear.
spk_0
You can talk to companies.
spk_0
You can talk to baristas and restriators and managers.
spk_0
There's so many things you can do. You can sign petitions. You can become a truth ambassador and screen films.
spk_0
We can unpack all of that, but I just wanted to throw that all out there and just like a rapid fire.
spk_0
No action action action.
spk_0
Well, I agree with you. I think it is a choice.
spk_0
Like we are at a major crossroads and we have older listeners that care and like, you know, it's it's like my heroes David Ambrouj and good all of those all my mentors.
spk_0
Who are from baby boomer generations behind that.
spk_0
So Gen Xers and then the millennials Gen Zers. I think these are the change makers of tomorrow.
spk_0
We have to make change today.
spk_0
The grid.
spk_0
Inspiration.
spk_0
They're so feisty and fearless and strong.
spk_0
They are change makers too.
spk_0
Wow. I think it's actually young people that are going to see the planet.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Yeah. And we got to get them in the leadership roles quickly.
spk_0
We got to get all these old people out.
spk_0
I'm sorry.
spk_0
I'm in tires.
spk_0
What is Ariana Grande song?
spk_0
Next.
spk_0
No, but no, to be more serious.
spk_0
There's a really easy thing you can do.
spk_0
If you care about coffee and you want to be like a sustainable coffee ninja.
spk_0
You can just change the coffee that you drink.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
So it depends on where you live.
spk_0
I'm in Denmark.
spk_0
Here we have this amazing company called Slow Forest Coffee, which literally regenerates.
spk_0
They buy trashed lands that people have like destroyed.
spk_0
They rehabilitate the land and turn them into forests with coffee mixed in.
spk_0
Basically, they're almost like a forest company making coffee outside and they're living in gum.
spk_0
And they're organic.
spk_0
Okay. So they're like the best.
spk_0
But you know, you don't have to be in Denmark.
spk_0
If you're in London, you can drink Kista Hippo.
spk_0
If you're in the U.S., you can get, you know, Smithsonian, bird friendly certified coffee.
spk_0
And there's companies like Equal Exchange to care a lot about human rights and living income.
spk_0
If you're in the UK, you can drink coffee to rank.
spk_0
There's just great coffee all over the world.
spk_0
Indonesia has orangutan coffee.
spk_0
Jane Goodall's foundation has like a chimpanzee friendly coffee in East Africa.
spk_0
You can set aside one hour of your life and research to find a sustainable ethical coffee company
spk_0
or several close to you.
spk_0
Order their stuff.
spk_0
Taste it and see what yours is your favorite.
spk_0
And then just order that for the foreseeable future.
spk_0
Order a bag of month or two bags a month or I don't know.
spk_0
Or you like a sort of like nuclear powered hyperactive squirrel, maybe order 20 bags a month or whatever.
spk_0
Your consumption is of coffee.
spk_0
And you only have to do that research once basically, right, to order a bunch of samples of the things that are close to you that are online with your values.
spk_0
And then you taste Tesla and you decide, this is what I want to be drinking.
spk_0
So then you can buy from the heart.
spk_0
You can buy mindfully and vote with your wallet, right? That's just for you.
spk_0
But let's think about this as concentric circles, like you know, when you drop a little stone in the pond and then there's all these wrinkles.
spk_0
Let's say Chris invites me to a delightful brunch.
spk_0
Thank you Chris.
spk_0
I love you.
spk_0
Oh, he's not.
spk_0
Please, please invite me for a delicious weekend brunch in New Zealand.
spk_0
I just sent you.
spk_0
And I just bring Chris like a bagger to amazing delightful ethical coffee and I say Chris, I love you.
spk_0
You're this amazing warrior for the planet and thank you for having me for brunch.
spk_0
And I also love the planet in this coffee is planet loving coffee.
spk_0
Why don't you try it?
spk_0
You can give people a coffee for birthdays, for anniversaries, for parties, for as a house gift when you invited for brunch or even dinner.
spk_0
Most people love coffee.
spk_0
It's like a no brainer, easy gift to give even people who are like, you know, why am I going to get that presenting?
spk_0
And they never like anything.
spk_0
People drink coffee, so they need an extra amount.
spk_0
Then you're almost becoming, it's like you're voting with your wallet 20 times over.
spk_0
And each time you have a conversation with the person when you give them that gift, you're awakening them.
spk_0
But what if you decide to take it to the next level and you change all the coffee that your university consumes or your office or your company?
spk_0
You can be like a serious, effing change maker.
spk_0
And you do that.
spk_0
And that's just buying from the heart.
spk_0
But there's lots of other things you can do too, right?
spk_0
But that's just one thing that I think is tangible and accessible to people.
spk_0
Well, I think what you hit critical mass, the companies start, like you said, with Coco and Mars and Hershey's and it's like the Halloween candy, which ones are, you know, palm oil certified.
spk_0
And that has made a difference where you said, you know, we've seen deforestation go with the same thing.
spk_0
And we've seen it with palm oil.
spk_0
I mean, the damage has been done.
spk_0
The palm oil plantations are there.
spk_0
But at least we prevent further palm oil and look, you know, even regress that a little bit.
spk_0
Coco, we can't regress it.
spk_0
We can bring like those plantations and surround them into agroforestry plantations, right?
spk_0
Where you put zebras of trees and little meawaki islands like polka dots.
spk_0
And you do like donuts around the plantations.
spk_0
So between the zebras, the polka dots and the donut agroforestry lumps, you can really transform the biodiversity of even those giant palm oil plantations.
spk_0
There's hope even in the darkest place, basically.
spk_0
But you know, something else, Chris, that I think people don't quite realize is really powerful is petitions.
spk_0
Saddened petitions sometimes smells like you're just screaming into the wind, but actually a lot of really good petitions can make an enormous difference.
spk_0
The scare companies and governments into taking this issue much more seriously.
spk_0
So at coffee watch, we went on our website, we created this like one stock shop page where we don't really endorse any coffee company, but we sort of give you a guide to how to buy ethical sustainable coffee no matter where you are.
spk_0
And we give you all these lists and all these tips and like how to and try to break it down and make it easy for you if you want to buy ethical coffee.
spk_0
And right next to that, we also put all the petitions that other people created that we think are really good smart effective strategic petitions.
spk_0
Your listeners can just go on that page and be thinking, be like a bunch of petitions.
spk_0
If they did that, that's kind of the value of buying ethical coffee for a couple weeks or a month. It's high value.
spk_0
It's a real action to take.
spk_0
So yeah, you can sign petitions, you can buy from the heart, you can call your elected representative or you've just write them on their social or email them and say,
spk_0
what's not I drink coffee, you probably drink coffee, coffee industry sucks, but you're doing about it.
spk_0
I want this day and ability and deforestation free living income in coffee like that.
spk_0
Honestly, that scares your elected representatives and they take note the tabulate every single thing like that that somebody sends them.
spk_0
If enough people send them a message, they will absolutely do something.
spk_0
Yeah, it's really interesting about petitions because you're right. I thought it was just be screaming into the wind like they don't care. They throw it away.
spk_0
The big elephant.
spk_0
People care. I remember in chocolate.
spk_0
There is this one company where trying to get them to go de-free and to embrace deforestation free and to embrace agroforestry.
spk_0
And they like wouldn't answer any of our messages.
spk_0
They know de-free commitment, no policy, let alone a time-bound implementation plan with like clear commitments to use specific satellite monitoring,
spk_0
the high quality, you know, one meter by one meter every month or whatever.
spk_0
Nothing, just cricket, you know.
spk_0
And then we got a big petition going. It's close to 200,000 signatures in a very rapid period of time.
spk_0
The next day my poised male was filled with desperate messages.
spk_0
We were like, I can't believe we'd never want to have got your messages.
spk_0
They were lost in the older era, whatever dog he made homework.
spk_0
So I was like, we don't want to go into the dog.
spk_0
And like within a week they agreed, okay, we're going to get, we're going to wrap our arms around this.
spk_0
Like we just sit down, we're going to make a plan. What is it going to take? How much is it going to cost?
spk_0
It was nuts. They really changed just because of the appetite.
spk_0
Yeah, okay, okay. Well, it's good. That's, that is interesting because yeah, I, you're the first guest I've had in eight years that said, like, sign those petitions.
spk_0
They do work. That's awesome.
spk_0
Some petitions don't work at all. If they're small, if they're run by people who are slightly kuku-binana-pans who don't really know how to speak to each other.
spk_0
But some petitions are very strategic and very smart and they make a really big difference.
spk_0
That's good. That's awesome. All right. The big ones, the big elephant in the room, the Starbucks, the, the pizza, the, the big coffee sellers around the world.
spk_0
You, you know, again, I haven't really been paying attention like I should have.
spk_0
But, you know, being a big consumer of Starbucks, you always go in and it's like, oh, it's ethically grown and da-da-da-da-da-da-green washing.
spk_0
Is that rampant across these companies? Or are they really, are they really invested in sustainable coffee and human rights?
spk_0
I think that there are good people, even in companies that do bad things.
spk_0
And I strongly believe that there were people in almost every coffee company and our people who tried to set up systems to make coffee more ethical.
spk_0
And the certifications to some extent were also set up with that in mind.
spk_0
I, people wanted to have more sustainable ethical coffee.
spk_0
Unfortunately, the certifications have kind of failed in interesting weird sad ways.
spk_0
So like not a single coffee certification guarantees a living income for farmers and farm workers.
spk_0
That is a scandal. That's totally unexplained.
spk_0
And that means they're being rushing to let to have child labor and debt bondage and modern slavery and human trafficking.
spk_0
So that's like a big fail.
spk_0
F-B-B!
spk_0
I'm going to let our certifications don't do a great job on either deforestation or agroforestry or both.
spk_0
So let's take like organic.
spk_0
Organic coffee is chemical free.
spk_0
And that is superb and wonderful. So thank you for that because the coffee industry is very thirsty for HHPs, highly hazardous pesticides.
spk_0
In a way that's extremely destructive or ecosystems, you know, and not only destroys the insects that it's designed like a pest that is destroyed,
spk_0
but has this trophic effect of creating a sort of ecosystem up and down, right?
spk_0
Things like Paracquired and Glifusate, the industries are washed with that.
spk_0
So organic coffee is good in the sense that it's like helping us stop the mass extinction crisis that we're in, part of which is the insect apocalypse.
spk_0
You know, there are times it's wonderful.
spk_0
He's called the insect apocalypse and lots of scientists and other producing entities now reuse that phrase.
spk_0
So we know we're in insect apocalypse that characterizes the age of the Anthropocene and the mass extinction that we're in.
spk_0
So great that organic is on top of that.
spk_0
And it even means we're not poisoning the workers.
spk_0
That's a nice thing to do to not always have workers.
spk_0
And if you're emisverating them, please don't poison them also, right?
spk_0
And yet, I am very disturbed by the fact that organic does not require you to be deforestation free.
spk_0
Why? That's crazy.
spk_0
Like, it's as if I said, Chris, let's sing the alphabet and you were like, A, B, C, X.
spk_0
I mean, that's not the alphabet.
spk_0
What do you mean?
spk_0
That's it and you're like, no, that's all I'm going to sing.
spk_0
But that's not where people expect you when you say you're going to sing the alphabet.
spk_0
You're like, that's my alphabet.
spk_0
That's all that's in my real house.
spk_0
I can't do anymore.
spk_0
Go away, bother someone else.
spk_0
That's not the right answer, is it?
spk_0
So, you know, an agroforestry, we know that when you have agroforestry coffee as opposed to
spk_0
monoculture coffee, you go from 61 bird species to 243 bird species.
spk_0
That's the difference between monoculture and ideostate, like a canopy height of up to 30 meters.
spk_0
61 to 243 is night and day.
spk_0
That's the difference between mass extinction and regenerative agroforestry that saves the planet is making it's healing.
spk_0
It's a bulwark against mass extinction, if you will.
spk_0
So, why are we not requiring ideal shade and regenerative mass, the regenerative agroforestry and all the certain locations?
spk_0
It's again, it's like, I said, Chris, let's sing the alphabet and you're like, okay, you go into that and I was like,
spk_0
queuesy.
spk_0
You would, you would, you like, you failed.
spk_0
You don't know the alphabet. Good, I, so yeah, I think a lot of certifications games do some things, but not others.
spk_0
A lot of coffee companies double down on certifications or they have their own weird at like little fox patrolling the henhouse self certification,
spk_0
which is even dumber than the third party certification.
spk_0
So, if I was like, Chris, I certify I am the most beautiful.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And then it's the first and ever and you're like, no, you can't say that.
spk_0
You didn't win Miss America or Miss France or whatever you're not.
spk_0
They're definitely not the most beautiful.
spk_0
And I just, I mean, I'm not on the simple.
spk_0
Right?
spk_0
Oh, it's greenwashing. I mean, it's simple.
spk_0
It's, it's that, that is that your own certification or pretending to care while you're not.
spk_0
And my, I'm listening to you and I'm like, why, why are we not doing this more?
spk_0
Why are we not, you know, shade grown coffee and organic?
spk_0
And is it just money?
spk_0
Is it just money? Is that it?
spk_0
Is that all it is?
spk_0
It's probably cost three cents more per cup to make really ethical sustainable coffee that's agroforestry, deforestation free living.
spk_0
So.
spk_0
But I think you're right. It is money because until people care, until customers write on company's social media and say, like, what the f?
spk_0
I'm really upset.
spk_0
You know, I read on these coffee watch reports that your cafe practices at Starbucks is not actually delivering sustainability.
spk_0
And your cafe practices seems crazy to me.
spk_0
Like, why is it that coffee watch found you with abuses and your coffee supply chain in China and Mexico and Brazil and Colombia?
spk_0
What are you doing?
spk_0
You know, it's not until customers stand up and speak out directly to companies directly to their elected representatives with petitions by buying different better coffee by like educating their communities, their universities, their offices, their families.
spk_0
It's not until that happens that we can get real cheap, right?
spk_0
Because there just hasn't been attention.
spk_0
So why would the industry do better?
spk_0
Nobody is demanding that of them.
spk_0
That's very true. It's very true. And like, you know, palm oil.
spk_0
So is it?
spk_0
Palm oil because a lot of people stood up and demanded here, right?
spk_0
Yeah. Oh, we preached. We preach for years.
spk_0
Like, you know, do you know what's happening?
spk_0
Yeah, there's just bulldozing the whole Indonesia is as people dozed to play palm and cocoa in Central America and Madagascar.
spk_0
Like throughout.
spk_0
It just is worldwide.
spk_0
So can uprising from consumers all over the world combined with a sort of uprising of indigenous people whose lands were being grabbed in Indonesia and local activists and all these parents and mom because there was, you know, this.
spk_0
But we burned so many forests in Indonesia and Malaysia for palm oil.
spk_0
You could see the smoke from outer space.
spk_0
It went to Guam.
spk_0
It went to China. China literally complained about the smoke.
spk_0
It we think that the PM 2.5 from the smoke of the palm oil and pulpit paper fires in Southeast Asia.
spk_0
On a bad year, we think that it caused 100,000 plus premature deaths.
spk_0
And that's without even looking at babies.
spk_0
That's just that we don't know the dose response of PM 2.5 when it's inhaled by babies that's just the adults.
spk_0
And that's just the mortality.
spk_0
The morbidity was sky high.
spk_0
Millions of people were sick and in hospitalized.
spk_0
So it took like this big uprising of Southeast Asian who were saying, no, you know, we're having an air apocalypse here.
spk_0
People in my family are getting sick or dying.
spk_0
The schools are closing.
spk_0
The airplanes can't take off.
spk_0
Like the economy is taking a big hit.
spk_0
It took this huge uprising from people locally and internationally to say no fires, no Pete, no deforestation, no more slavery and rape and child labor and human trafficking.
spk_0
Get a hold of the problems and the industry changed.
spk_0
It was like a beautiful thing actually to see this global solidarity from indigenous people in the hearts of Bordeaux to urban activists in Jakarta to podcasters in New Zealand.
spk_0
To French ladies, they were living in the heavens.
spk_0
It's together, right?
spk_0
We did that. That's amazing.
spk_0
Like we should do that again.
spk_0
Let's keep doing that.
spk_0
Yeah, we need to.
spk_0
We need to.
spk_0
And I think we have enough people in the world that want changed now.
spk_0
They're tired.
spk_0
What?
spk_0
You know, not to talk politics, but you know, it was like I think last year, you know, listen, because you know, follow politics back, obviously back in the US, but around the world.
spk_0
Like every government got overturned in the elections because people want change.
spk_0
They're sick of the tired of the status quo.
spk_0
You know, people want to make the world a better place.
spk_0
We look at our children.
spk_0
What kind of world are we leaving with you?
spk_0
And I think there's a lot of frustration.
spk_0
But you like you said there is hope, right?
spk_0
And coffee watch and.
spk_0
I want to just shower your listeners with hope and love and energy.
spk_0
I feel so lucky that I got to have a front row seat to different activist groups changing the world, not me, them.
spk_0
But I saw what they were doing.
spk_0
And then I got to have a small role in it.
spk_0
And then I got here's like, I saw people.
spk_0
It's like I got to see all these repair men and women taking toolboxes and using the tools.
spk_0
Boom, boom, boom.
spk_0
Have a hammer, have a saw, have a pliers, have a screwdriver, and you start to realize this is the panoply of tools that it takes to make the world a better place and run a good campaign.
spk_0
Right. We know you've got to do undercover investigations to document the abuses we've done not at coffee watch.
spk_0
We have like six reports out already and under a year.
spk_0
Social media makes a big difference, right?
spk_0
You know, speak truth to power.
spk_0
Right. Let's be truth ambassadors.
spk_0
On coffee watch, we went from zero to about a million views already.
spk_0
And just hopefully more.
spk_0
Maybe if more people learn the truth about what's happening in the coffee industry, the bad and the good, like how we can fix it, then we can turn things around.
spk_0
We've seen that shareholder resolutions make a big difference.
spk_0
Patitions make a big difference.
spk_0
Litigation makes a big difference.
spk_0
We've seen letter writing campaigns change things.
spk_0
Like there's so much out there, nonviolent protests where people just like walk into an office of an executive and say I am not leaving until you talk to me about why you are deforesting and why you have sleeves and kids in your sublegate.
spk_0
Of course, that's like the worst thing that happened in the CEO's day.
spk_0
Like, you know, I maybe they threw you out.
spk_0
Really, you know, listen to you.
spk_0
But like, wow, you kind of ruined their day.
spk_0
You made them think about it.
spk_0
And if enough people do that, you know, or just putting yourself in the calendar of folks in the company, you just like flood their calendar with calendar requests for meetings about sustainability.
spk_0
That like ruins their week.
spk_0
Imagine if suddenly your calendar was unmanaged.
spk_0
So many things people can do.
spk_0
We know what it takes to change companies and industries.
spk_0
We can do it. Let's do it again.
spk_0
Are there any, so the legal frameworks?
spk_0
Are there any countries out there that are pushing for more sustainable farming that like we could support better or more?
spk_0
Basically, yes, slavery and human trafficking and rape and child labor are largely illegal, even in the most messed up producer countries.
spk_0
You're actually technically not supposed to do any of that.
spk_0
You're theoretically not supposed to do union investing in most countries.
spk_0
Like killing union organizers is a big no in most places.
spk_0
The unfortunate reality is that what is on paper, supposed to be illegal, there's usually not super great law enforcement in coffee producing countries.
spk_0
So like just an example of that is when coffee went to we were to do this investigation and litigation around human trafficking and slavery and Brazilian coffee.
spk_0
We we found some called a 307 petition to the US customs to ask them to block imports of coffee from Brazil that was tainted by forced labor and slavery that went into the supply chains of Starbucks, Nestle,
spk_0
JDP's, Duncan, as in Duncan, donuts, Ilya and McDonald's.
spk_0
And when we were doing this, we realized that actually there are law enforcement actions by the Brazilian government, but only 0.1% of coffee farms in Brazil have been investigated.
spk_0
But even though that's such a small number, they're only catching the tip of the iceberg.
spk_0
They still found like well over 3,700 workers and slave-like conditions, coffee plantations.
spk_0
And you know, they freed those people, they freed thousands of people, but still that's not great because if you're only investigation, if you're only investigating 0.1% of the coffee farms, the chances are you're you're only catching the tip of the iceberg.
spk_0
So I think and look, I'm very happy those people were freed and congrats to the Brazilian government.
spk_0
Yeah, free them and keeping the good and having numbers and you know they calculate that coffee is like 11.4% of the total number of slave rescues from 2013 to 2023.
spk_0
So does that mean coffee makes up like 11% of the overall slavery in Brazil? We don't know because there's a lot of places that the labor and specters don't even go that are like remote locations in the Amazon where you might have slavery for cattle or construction.
spk_0
But okay, we know it's a big problem and it needs more law enforcement.
spk_0
I think the Brazilian government would put more money into law enforcement if there was consumer outrage in places like New Zealand and Harris and Amsterdam and you know, Jakarta.
spk_0
Because I think that the Brazilian and other governments would be like, oh, we don't want a consumer and divide on our head.
spk_0
That doesn't sound nice to have a bad reputation. Let's get out of that and put more money into law enforcement.
spk_0
Unfortunately, there's no laws in most countries against importing coffee with mass extinction, deforestation slavery, like in New Zealand, there was a proposed bill.
spk_0
But if you wanted Chris to bring coffee into New Zealand that had slavery and child labor and deforestation could do that.
spk_0
And there's nothing I can do to stop you legally.
spk_0
So I think asking lawmakers to pass better laws would be a great one. The EU just passed a beautiful law recently called the EUDR, the European deforestation regulation.
spk_0
It would bar imports of coffee that's changed it by deforestation and illegality.
spk_0
So slavery is illegal.
spk_0
This is education.
spk_0
This is education.
spk_0
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
So I know if other countries have like their version of the EUDR, the New Zealand DR, the Australian DR, that would be usually wonderful.
spk_0
The UK has passed something similar. It's not quite as ambitious.
spk_0
It's like a little sister of the EUDR, the UKDR.
spk_0
And then the US is thinking about a cousin bill that's called the forest act.
spk_0
So for people to support the EUDR to like not be delayed, we already had a one year delay.
spk_0
That would be huge for people to support the UK to go ahead and implement the UKDR or support American lawmakers to pass the forest act, which got bipartisan support in the House and Senate.
spk_0
Or to ask Kiwi lawmakers to have their butts and do some things.
spk_0
I know. I know. Well, I mean, you know, it's like if I went to, you know, a cafe here in New Zealand and the wonderful coffee that they make, it's told people and people knew as they were drinking coffee that kids picked those beans.
spk_0
They were forced labor slavery. All of these horrific practices behind those beans.
spk_0
They would probably spit their coffee out. And I'm not kidding.
spk_0
They would spit their coffee. Yeah. New Zealanders are, you know, many Americans. Yeah.
spk_0
Yeah. Yeah.
spk_0
There's not just billionaires who are kind of weird outliers to that, but most humans are.
spk_0
Like I said, we could go for hours.
spk_0
Yeah. It's people knew that coffee when it's in agro forestry systems is literally seven to eight times more carbon than sun grown monoculture.
spk_0
And maybe 18 to 19 times more biodiversity. That's what they would choose. I'm sure of it.
spk_0
Yeah. No, I have no doubt. I have no doubt. All right. So what would you advise our listeners to do?
spk_0
Go to go to coffee watch.org and look at this thing. Yeah.
spk_0
Listeners. If they want to become like sustainable coffee ninjas.
spk_0
Yes. Yes.
spk_0
Reaming page on our website. If you go to coffeewalt.org, it's this page called actions.
spk_0
You click on that and then it has a little guy. How do I buy a more responsible coffee? Read it. Give it a try.
spk_0
It has a little page where you can sign all the petitions. Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing.
spk_0
It has a little page where you can watch films documentary films about the problems and solutions and coffee.
spk_0
You can watch it. You can watch it with your friends and family. You can host a screening.
spk_0
You can become like a truth ambassador because it's hard to just go out there and start telling people about the bad things and coffee.
spk_0
But you can even ask your favorite cafe to host a screening.
spk_0
You can like talk to your favorite barista and manager in your favorite cafe or restaurant and say like, can we do a screening?
spk_0
And maybe we can change the coffee that is served here.
spk_0
You can find so many ways to volunteer, not necessarily for coffee watch. Of course, for coffee watch, if you want.
spk_0
But there's like, we wrote down every different thing that we think works in terms of activism and creating change in industry.
spk_0
And you can do that in a local New Zealand group. If you have a, if you're a member of Greenpeace New Zealand, ask them to work on coffee.
spk_0
If you are a member of extinction rebellion and you're concerned about mass extinction, you can step up your local chapter's work not only on the fossil fuel industry, but also an ag.
spk_0
And add in a little coffee, something something, you know, there's, it doesn't have to be volunteering for coffee watch.
spk_0
We just wrote down all the things that you could do wherever it is that you want to volunteer. So you don't have to think and torture yourself endlessly to come up with a list of options.
spk_0
This is like all the options that are sort of humanly known about in the activist world. They're all there for your delegation.
spk_0
Along with your delightful cup of morning sustainable coffee. Yes, yes, yes.
spk_0
You worked your way through and choose whatever floats your boat.
spk_0
No, that's great. It's like I said, there's so much unpack and I think you've given our listeners homework to do. I'm giving them homework as the old professor.
spk_0
Go and please do your homework because it takes a critical mass to make change.
spk_0
And I think what I'm taking away from this discussion this past hour is if we can get palm oil to change, we can easily do it with coffee too.
spk_0
And that was only in a few short years. It was it was it bubbled to the surface and then you saw change.
spk_0
So let's help do this with coffee because like you said, it is contributing to loss of habitat for all these creatures we care about and the humans, you know, human rights and our fellow species that we care about.
spk_0
That's why I do this podcast. It's yeah, I want to save elephants and all the way down like I talked about the goby bear and all these wonderful creatures in the oceans and I want them to survive.
spk_0
But it's also humanity. Oh, totally. Yeah, we're getting together the whole idea that we separate from the ecosystems that we co-abolved in and that's been saying like we we we will our future will make or break along with the rest of all the creatures living on this earth.
spk_0
Yes, if we need to save them if we destabilize that pyramid of which we're the apex that were the effects predator in that pyramid, then we will also topple over and go extinct as a species.
spk_0
So this isn't just about saving jaguars and capybadas and aradas and sloths and give them these and you know, chick onesies and gorillas and all those amazing creatures. This is about saving us.
spk_0
Yeah, and the funny thing is coffee is a pretty easy thing for us to change and if we can do it for other things, we can do it for coffee and if we can do it for coffee, then we can do it for even more things that we consume.
spk_0
So coffee can be like a trampoline that we transform this and then, you know, we hop on to ever greater heights. I really believe we can make the world better with every cup.
spk_0
Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much. Like really so enlightening there is hope there's hope that you're out there doing this fight and I know you're working with so many incredible people.
spk_0
But thank you. I know there's probably some bad days in there where you know you get some losses, but you're getting wins to just spreading the word here to, you know, the many thousands that are listening that we all can make a difference.
spk_0
So I'm going to go sign those petitions. I'm going to sign the petitions. I'm going to go through your list again today and now I'll make it a commitment. You know, I'm going to buy sustainable coffee organic and not deforested.
spk_0
I'm going to go through your list carefully. I will find it New Zealand and I'll spread the word and I'm going to go talk to my local cafes and ask them where they get their beans from and you know that little action if we all start doing that.
spk_0
And pressure the big corpse to also do it. We will make change like Palm Oil. So thank you for what you're doing and keep it up.
spk_0
Thank you so much, Chris, for having me in your show. I'm so happy to be here with you and your listeners.
spk_0
Take care. You too.