A new course, Agriculture & Wildlife Conservation: Coffee Agroforestry, is being offered at the Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability (EICES) at Columbia University in New York City. I was really pleased to learn that instructor Dr. Amanda Caudill, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, is utilizing materials from Coffee & Conservation in the course.
Classes are held in the evenings at Columbia University, or are available via Distance Learning. The Coffee Agroforestry course can be taken alone or as part of the Certificate Program in Conservation and Environmental Sustainability. More info here.
Here’s the course description:
Habitat destruction threatens wildlife existence worldwide. While preserving tropical forests is a necessity for biological conservation, this must be coupled with other conservation strategies to provide a sustainable solution for wildlife conservation. Coffee agroforestry, the intentional management of shade trees within coffee farms, has shown promise as a conversation strategy to support wildlife diversity. This course explores the relationship of coffee agroforestry and wildlife conservation. We will examine coffee farms as habitat through case studies, learn about socio-economics and environmental issues associated with coffee, and assess coffee certifications such as shade grown, organic, Rainforest Alliance, and Smithsonian Bird Friendly.
I’ve linked to Dr. Caudill’s work on biodiversity on coffee farms when it was featured in the New York Times in their Scientist at Work series. This sounds like a terrific course!
Revised on November 14, 2019