On Earth Day, 22 April, the Lavazza Group showcased some of the most significant sustainability projects that its Foundation is developing in the field of reforestation.
Lavazza says this is a central issue in the lives of every species on this planet, given the global necessity for urgent action by all parties involved, especially those whose core business, coffee, is rooted in the land.
The Lavazza Foundation supports and funds, independently and in collaboration with public and private organisations, 24 projects in 17 countries across three continents in favour of more than 97,000 coffee growers.
In partnership with non-government organisations and internationally recognised institutions, the Lavazza Foundation is active in reforestation in Ethiopia and Peru, with agricultural initiatives, and in Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Colombia with sustainability projects.
Through these activities, the Lavazza Foundation has made it possible to plant more than 15 million coffee bushes in the last five years.
Projects currently underway are organised in various phases, mostly within a three-year time frame, and designed to have a long-term beneficial impact on both the environment and the socio-economic conditions of rural communities. The projects are tailored to specific local needs in each territory.
“Zero deforestation” coffee in Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, Africa’s leading coffee producer, the Lavazza Foundation is supporting a project launched in 2019 to revive production of “zero deforestation” coffee in the Yayu Biosphere Reserve in the region of Oromia.
The project is being run in partnership with the Hanns R Neumann Foundation and the International Climate Initiative of the German Environment Ministry.
Its aim is to develop, test and promote a scalable “garden coffee” farming model to help improve the socio-economic situation of 3000 coffee farming families, slow the advance of deforestation, and contribute to the protection of forests and the restoration of the forest landscape. Twenty-nine thousand bushes were planted in 2018 alone.
The “garden coffee” plantation model blocks the advance of deforestation by fostering a spirit of enterprise among small producers. Garden coffee farms spring up near people’s homes, in the transition areas between built-up zones and the forest and entail the planting of fruit trees to create the shade required by coffee bushes. In this way, farmers not only have land suitable for growing coffee but become producers of other fruit too, boosting their incomes.
Short-term objectives include training for more than 2000 coffee producers on farming practices that ensure greater resilience to climate change and the safeguarding of forestry assets.
Brazil nuts in Peru: a resource for local communities and a breather for the planet
In Peru, the Lavazza Foundation has decided to support Cesvi, an NGO that has ru projects in the heart of the Amazon forest for more than 20 years.
Supported by the Foundation and managed by Cevi with the Peruvian Environment Ministry and local and native communities, the project has enabled the preservation of 36,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest, in a zone that was the victim of fires last year, as well as of deforestation.
The Lavazza Foundation is supporting the project using a native plant with “some incredible properties”, the Brazil nut.
The main objectives are to:
- enable native communities to exercise direct control and thus become guardians of the forest;
- plant new Brazil nut trees in already degraded areas of the forest and assign them to local native communities as a new source of income.
Lavazza says the project has a significant social mission, promoting the harvesting, processing, and sale of natural local products such as the Brazil nut and the planting of fruit trees that are a source of both food and income for the native communities.
For more information, visit www.lavazza.com
Image: Roger Lo Guarro
