Thanks for Celebrating Rainforest Alliance Week with Us!

Wow, what a week it’s been! Our first-ever Rainforest Alliance Week – it was a busy one, and great fun, too. We gave it a try and we think it works.  What do you think?  What did you do?  Go on tell us, please.

How did you follow the frog?  Nice coffee? Great tea? Lovely chocolate? Or did you find yourself on holiday in a hotel or lodge working with our tourism program? There are so many ways to follow the frog.  And isn’t it great that by doing so you’re part of a movement that cares about protecting the rainforest, its biodiversity, the communities who live in the forests and our collective futures?

Throughout the week, Big Screen Plaza in NYC featured Rainforest Alliance videos. Supporters stopped by the outdoor courtyard, got a cup of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee in the café and enjoyed the show(s)!

We’ve had fun seeing all the different ways you’ve followed the frog.  Thanks to the more than 2,000 new people who liked our Facebook page and thanks to all of you who are following us on Twitter. It was great to hear from so many of you and to see your support through blogs, posts and tweets.

Did you take a look at our website and the satirical How to shop safely video? Did you share it with friends and family who might not be “shopping safely”? And have you looked at the inspiring slide show from Noah Jackson?  Noah is not only a wonderful photographer and storyteller, he’s also an auditor and trainer who spends a vast amount of time living and working with forest communities around the world. [You might be familiar with his blogs.]

Allegro Coffee Company sampled Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffees in several Whole Foods Markets in New York City. Staff from the Rainforest Alliance were on hand to talk about the benefits of sustainable coffee farming.

So many companies have shown support for our first Rainforest Alliance Week. We teamed up with Allegro Coffee Company for tastings across New York-area Whole Foods Markets. Mars posted on their own Facebook page, which has over one million followers, and Caribou Coffee (with nearly a quarter of a million fans) followed suit! Yorkshire Tea posted inspiring blogs throughout the week and Little Urn visited our London offices. And we can’t forget the great teams at Exchange Coffee, Cool Earth and Drury Coffee. [We’re sure we’re forgetting a few, so a big THANK YOU to all.]

Have you been reading our blogs this week?  We’ve been posting every day to show you the breath of the work we do in agriculture, forestry, tourism and climate change.

I hope you’ve enjoyed following the frog and much as we’ve enjoyed spending this week with you.  Of course, you can always follow the frog year round by choosing products that carry the green frog seal, keeping in touch via Facebook, Twitter and our website, and (naturally) by subscribing to this blog.

A sign at Whole Foods entices customers to follow the frog!

And before you go, can we ask you for one more favor? Tell your friends about the Rainforest Alliance and let them know how they can follow the frog.

Thanks a million for spending the week with us!

Guest Blog: The Road to Sustainable Tea

Every day, 160 million cups of tea are sipped in the UK. That’s an impressive figure. Even more impressive: 37 percent of that tea – or 60 million cups – comes from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms. In today’s Rainforest Alliance Week guest blog, our friends at Yorkshire Tea talk about the noteworthy commitment to sustainability made by one of their Kenyan suppliers.

Last week, we awarded our first ever Supplier of the Year trophy to Kionyo, one of our key Kenyan suppliers. It was a great chance to show the suppliers our appreciation – not just for the quality of their tea and their commitment to meeting standards for sustainability but also to recognize their ongoing work toward achieving Rainforest Alliance certification.

Right from the start, George Mwangi and the rest of the team at Kionyo showed a real determination to bring all of their farmers on the journey toward sustainability. The same is true of Imenti, another key supplier of top quality Kenyan tea. “Imenti and Kionyo process the tea picked by around 13,000 smallholder farmers around the Mount Kenya region in central Kenya, producing some of the country’s finest teas,” explains Ian Brabbin, our head of tea.

We helped to fund the training of all the smallholder farmers who supply teas to these factories. It started with around 50 lead farmers being trained by the Rainforest Alliance. These 50 then traveled around the area to explain the Sustainable Agricultural Network standards to 13,000 of their fellow farmers.  They covered topics like the safe use of fertilizers, recycling, tree planting, water management and good plucking standards.

This is a great way to drive improvements — not just to meet the SAN’s environmental standards, but also to meet standards for productivity and quality.

“We’re really impressed with the efforts of everyone at Kionyo and Imenti,” adds Ian. “We’re all hoping to hear that they’ve successfully achieved Rainforest Alliance certification in the near future.”

Take a Holiday that’s Good for People and the Environment

Today’s Rainforest Alliance Week blog takes a closer look at tourism.

Many of us took a holiday this summer — spending time playing on a beach or trekking through forests, staying in hotels or camping, eating in local restaurants and buying souvenirs.

While such holidays and activities provide a vital source of income for many developing counties, tourism can also cause pollution, deforestation, inefficient energy use and cultural exploitation.

That’s why the Rainforest Alliance is committed to working with both tourism businesses and travelers to promote sustainability and ensure that both the environment and the people who depend on it are protected.

Our sustainable tourism program has been going for more than a decade.  We help tourism professionals improve the sustainability of their businesses based on the principles of the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC).  The GSTC principles include strategies for implementing ecosystem and water conservation measures, reducing energy use, supporting local economies, hiring from within the community and reducing costs.

Hotels and tour operators that meet Rainforest Alliance sustainable tourism requirements, which follow the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, are awarded the Rainforest Alliance Verified mark and earn the right to display the mark on brochures or in advertisements.

For the savvy traveller, we have our SustainableTrip.org website — an online database of hotels, tour operators and other businesses (such as restaurants) in Latin America and the Caribbean that have been certified by a sustainable tourism certification program, verified by the Rainforest Alliance or recommended as being sustainable by a reputable organization.

Travelers and tourism entrepreneurs who want to find out more about how tourism can benefit local communities, respect cultural diversity and contribute to conservation can take a tour of our virtual SmartLodge. The SmartLodge is an interactive hotel room packed with practical advice on the simple steps that tourism companies and travelers can take to move toward sustainability.

Want to find out more about our tourism work? Read more online or watch a short film!

Happy Rainforest Alliance Week!

Curbing Climate Change

A new post in our Rainforest Alliance Week series explores our work to fight climate change.

A team measures a tree's DBH (diameter at breast height) to calculate the amount of carbon the tree is storing.

Shrinking arctic ice. Increased tropical cyclone activity. Severe droughts. Scientists say we’re already beginning to experience the effects of climate change — but it’s not too late to change course.

For more than twenty years, the Rainforest Alliance has been working to curb deforestation, responsible for nearly 20 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than the emissions from trains, planes and automobiles combined. How are we doing it? We are…

● Promoting responsible forest management, so that forests continue to provide environmental services, such as carbon sequestration, even as timber and botanicals are extracted.

● Teaching tourism companies how to manage their greenhouse gas emissions, and offset those which they cannot eliminate.

● Helping farmers protect and restore tree cover, and earn recognition for climate-friendly practices.

● Enabling forest-based communities who manage their land well to benefit from payments for carbon credits.

● Educating the next generation of conservationists about the importance of environmental stewardship and the realities of climate change.

You can help, too. Visit the Green Living section of our website for tips on greening your home, classroom, office and more.

Happy Rainforest Alliance Week!

Keeping Forests Standing

Today, we continue our series of issue-based Rainforest Alliance Week blogs with a post on forestry.

Can you do us a quick favor? Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, stop for a minute. Look around you and count the number of items made from wood or a wood by-product. How many things did you find? What were they? A quick glance around our desk calls up mounds of paper, books, framed photos, wooden heels, a pencil, a camera in its cardboard packaging, a bookmark, a desk and a chair. If we took this game further – tried to figure out all the items around us that came from forests, like medicine and food – that list would double, triple or quadruple in length.

You get the point though: we need forests, and with a worldwide population of 6.7 billion and growing, we can’t preserve them indefinitely. We can’t stop people from using wood and paper, or deriving their livelihood from the land. That’s why the Rainforest Alliance takes a different approach. We believe in conservation through responsible land management. We work with everyone from large corporations to forest-based communities to ensure that logging is conducted responsibly and ecosystems are protected.

How do we do it? Well, we started by helping to establish the Forest Stewardship Council — an entity that sets the gold-standard for socially, environmentally and economically responsible forestry. When a forestry business we have audited meets the FSC’s certification standards, they earn the right to display the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal on products and packaging. This ensures that you, the consumer, know that the product you’re buying comes from a business that has met rigorous standards for protecting forestlands, communities and wildlife.

Unfortunately, certification alone will not automatically help companies compete in global markets –that’s particularly true for the growing number of community-owned forestry operations in the tropics. But we can (and do) help them compete. We work with small forestry businesses to improve their management skills, increase their efficiency and help them access new markets.

There are other benefits of certification, too. Certified forests protect wildlife habitat by curbing deforestation, protecting riverbanks from erosion, prohibiting hunting or trading of wildlife, and ensuring that critical ecosystems and habitats, such as wetlands and riparian zones, are protected. They also employ soil conservation practices — such as planting, building trails and harvesting along contours — to reduce erosion. Other conservation practices include composting and recycling waste which reduces the amount of waste generated in critical ecosystems.

Certification also ensures that the rights of workers and indigenous people are recognized and respected. Workers in certified forests are treated equitably and given access to healthcare and housing, and schooling for their children. They are trained in safety procedures and provided with appropriate protective gear.

By choosing Forest Stewardship Council/Rainforest Alliance Certified wood and paper products, you can support communities, wildlife and the environment. Next time you take a look around, we hope you find a few little green frogs.

Happy Rainforest Alliance Week!

Creating a Better Future for the World’s Farmers

Each day of Rainforest Alliance Week, we’ll be focusing on a different aspect of our work. Today, we’re taking a closer look at agriculture …

A worker on a Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee farm in Vietnam. (Photo credit: Charlie Watson)

People often ask us why we care so much about agriculture. It’s because the production of food wields enormous impacts on the environment.

● Out of a total 6.7 billion people on the planet, more than 2.5 billion people in the developing world depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

● Currently, 40 percent of the earth’s landmass and 70 percent of its water is dedicated to agriculture.

● Agricultural expansion is the single greatest threat to the world’s remaining tropical forests. Farming is often responsible for deforestation, soil erosion and the contamination of waterways.

● Forests are home to an incredible array of biodiversity that is threatened by unsustainable agriculture.

● Healthy forests act as “carbon sinks” and provide an invaluable defense against global climate change. When chopped down, forests release carbon into the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. (Roughly 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions are the result of deforestation.)

So what are we doing to ensure that food is grown in a way that’s good for people and the planet?

● We’re teaching farmers methods that are good for the environment and for farm communities.  Through farmer field schools we’re bringing conservation lessons directly to groups of forward-thinking farmers while they’re in the field.

● Farms that meet comprehensive standards for sustainable farm management can earn the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal of approval. These farms function efficiently; conserve ecosystems, wildlife, soils and waterways; pay their workers decently and treat them with respect; and ensure that farm families have access to health care and education.

● In 31 countries, more than five million farmers, farm workers and their families are benefitting from Rainforest Alliance certification.

● To encourage the adoption of certification by more and more farmers, we’re urging companies to source Rainforest Alliance Certified ingredients for their products and asking consumers to look for the seal when they shop. If we increase demand, the supply will surely follow!

Don’t take our word for it! See the Rainforest Alliance’s agriculture program in action: watch a farm audit, meet Kenyan tea farmers, and see where your favorite coffee comes from! Still hankering for more? Check out our other agriculture videos. Happy Rainforest Alliance Week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Few Words from Fernando the Frog

In anticipation of Rainforest Alliance Week — which kicks off on Monday, September 19 — we’ve been posting installments of Fernando the Frog’s story on Twitter all week long. Well, the story has finally come to a (sweet) end and we want to share it with those of you who didn’t have a chance to check it out on Twitter. Here it goes…

Hola! I’m Fernando the Frog and I live in the rainforest. I like it here, but life’s not always easy. You see, I live next to this guy who grows coffee. I know you all like coffee — so do I. But it wasn’t always so good.

Up to a couple of years ago, the coffee farmer and I didn’t get on. I’d often wake up and find that a few more of the lovely trees I live in had gone! Other days the farmer would spray all this stuff on his plants; trouble is, some would land on me – and boy did it burn! I’d also find that after he’d sprayed that stuff, all the insects I love to eat would disappear.

The weather is doing funny things, too. It seems to be getting hotter and sometimes it doesn’t rain when it’s meant to. Other times it rains and rains in torrents when it’s meant to be dry. It’s very confusing. I think you call it climate change. I call it madness! Can’t understand why you’d do this to our planet and my home.

I didn’t want to fall out with the farmer and his family. It wasn’t his fault. I could see he was struggling too. Sometimes his crop didn’t produce enough coffee and other times the quality was pretty bad so he couldn’t sell it for much. Sometimes his family was short of food and he struggled to send his kids to school. When people came to work with the farmer he struggled to give them proper places to live. There wasn’t really anywhere for them to go when they got sick. It was a bit grim living here…

Then one morning something funny happened. There I was chewing on a fly when I noticed the farmer. He was talking to a couple of guys I hadn’t seen before. This could be trouble, I thought. But for once I was wrong. And us frogs are not often wrong; we’re normally experts on knowing when something funny happens to our environment. That’s why so many of my cousins are now extinct.

Anyways, after the guy left, things began to change for the better. The farmer began to plant trees and not cut them down. He sprays less of that funny stuff. He also started to use the organic waste he used to throw into the river on his coffee plants. He seems happier and I think he grows more coffee and gets more money for it. So the family are happy too. The kids go to school now, and when people come to work on the farm the farmer has built them proper places to stay. And a doctor visits regularly to help them if they’re sick.

So things are cool here now. I like my rainforest and its getting better all the time. It’s heavenly really. There are plenty of juicy flies — and other species are asking if they can move in, too. Well, even paradise has its downsides.

The End.

Get Ready to Follow the Frog!

We’ve started the countdown – just three days until Rainforest Alliance Week! Starting Monday, September 19, you’ll find our little green frog in stores and cafes, on the radio and in newspapers, and leaping across videos, blogs, Facebook posts, Tweets and more.  A few ways you can be part of the fun:

• Find a Rainforest Alliance Week event or promotion online or in your community!
• Stay tuned for Monday’s world premiere of the Rainforest Alliance Week video. You’ll meet shoppers as they navigate the potentially hazardous supermarket aisles.
• Shop for Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee, tea, chocolate, fruit, paper, furniture and more! Check out our listing to see what products carry the green frog seal of approval.
• Planning a trip? Choose a Rainforest Alliance Verified hotel or tour operator. Find these and other sustainable lodgings and businesses at SustainableTrip.org!
• Become a fan of the Rainforest Alliance on Facebook or follow us on Twitter! We’ll be posting frequent updates throughout the week.
• Follow the story of Federico the Frog on Twitter. Just look for #FrogStory and #Followthe Frog.
• Find the green frog seal in an unexpected place? Take a photo and share it with us on Facebook or Twitter!
• Subscribe to our Frog Blog and we’ll tell you every time we post a new entry. (You’re already here, after all.)

See you next week!

Your Guide to Rainforest Alliance Week Events

What’s happening during Rainforest Alliance Week?  Educational events, online contests, travel discounts and more! A few of the events brought to you by the Rainforest Alliance and friends:

Coffee and Tea Tastings

• Allegro Coffee Company samples Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffees in several Whole Foods Markets in New York City.  Stop by for a pick-me-up and learn more about how certification benefits nature and coffee-growing communities.

•  Get a taste of Republic of Tea’s Three Gardens Breakfast tea from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in Kenya, Indonesia and Malawi. Natural foods markets in California, Oregon, Texas and Washington will be sampling the teas throughout the week.

Special Events

•  Big Screen Plaza in NYC will feature Rainforest Alliance videos throughout the week. Stop by the outdoor courtyard, get a cup of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee in the café and enjoy the show(s)!

•  Join Birds and Beans for a migratory bird walk in Toronto on Saturday, September 17. Catch a glimpse of birds en route to their wintering grounds in the rainforests of Central and South America where Rainforest Alliance Certified shaded coffee farms are sometimes their last refuge.

• On two Sundays, September 18 and 26, the Rainforest Alliance will welcome children and their parents to New York City’s Prospect Park for fun, educational activities on the environment and climate change.

• Join Noah Jackson (independent trainer and auditor) and Sabrina Vigilante (director of markets and sustainable value chains) for a webinar on Wednesday, September 21 at 12 PM EST. Hosted by the Rainforest Alliance, the event will introduce participants to our on-the-ground efforts and their connection to the global marketplace.

Giveaways

• Birds and Beans will also offer online customers who purchase two pounds or more of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee a free travel mug. (Shipping within Canada only.) Visit their Toronto café for specials on Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee and chocolate.

• One lucky Zavida Coffee fan will win a gourmet coffee gift basket featuring Zavida’s entire line of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee blends.  Learn how you can enter on Twitter and Facebook.

• Tetley Tea will host a daily competition on their Farmers First Hand Facebook page for a cuddly Rainforest Alliance plush frog.  Find out more.

Special Discounts

• Travel with Yampu Tours to see the sights and stay in sustainably managed, Rainforest Alliance Verified™ hotels and lodges in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru. These itineraries are discounted by 15 percent from September 19 to December 15, 2011.

• Get away to Nicaragua with VaPues Tours at a 15 percent discount. This 11-day trip highlights renewable energy projects and boutique hotels working together with the Rainforest Alliance.

• Explore Guatemala on horseback! Unicornio Azul offers visitors a 15 percent discount on two-day package tours to their Rainforest Alliance Verified rural lodge and equestrian facility in the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes.

•  Discover off-the-beaten-path Costa Rica with Country Walkers on a tour that includes stops at some of Earth’s most impressive biodiversity hotspots. Book during Rainforest Alliance Week and get a $500 per person discount.

• Adventure Life invites you to cruise among the Galapagos Islands or hike the Ecuadorian Amazon. Make your reservation anytime from Rainforest Alliance Week through October 23, 2011 and get a 15 percent discount.

• Book two rooms at Uxlabil EcoHotels in Guatemala during Rainforest Alliance Week and you’ll get one room free!

• Experience Costa Rica’s incredible landscape on an 11-day luxury vacation with Hands Up Holidays that includes visits to pristine national parks, stunning beaches, a Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee farm and a volcano. Reserve your trip anytime from September 19 to 30 and you’ll reserve 20 percent off the package.

Don’t see an event in your community? Look for the green frog seal on coffee, tea, chocolate and more to help support a healthier planet!