The World Bank’s Sustainable Land Management Project (SLMP) has worked with farmers in the transitional area, providing advice on sustainable farming practices, supporting efforts to reverse deforestation and forest degradation, improve soil health, and preserve biodiversity. Only in the outer transitional zone is crop farming permitted. A buffer zone surrounds the core area and limited tourism and training is allowed there, along with the collection of non-forest products such as honey. The core zone forbids farming or economic activity and is securely protected. Each biosphere has three interconnected zones. The biosphere concept was introduced to conserve biodiversity, while also involving and benefiting communities. To date there are five biospheres in Ethiopia. Photo credit: Kaia Rose/Connect4Climate - World Bank Group In Ethiopia, for example, wild Arabica has been used to counter coffee berry disease by selecting stock from wild forests that has natural resistance to this terrible plant disease,” he added. “We will need these resources more than ever over this century, especially under climate change. “The sheer scale of genetic diversity found in these wild places simply cannot be replicated in botanic gardens or research collections” said Davis. Wild coffee, said Davis, is vital for the long-term viability of the coffee sector. “This is the importance of the coffee forest on the verge of this climate change,” explains Tekle, pointing to white flowers on a coffee plant with its distinctive paired leaves.Ī 2019 study led by Aaron Davis, head of Coffee Research at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, UK, found that 60 percent of 124 wild coffee species are threatened with extinction because of land use change and deforestation, exacerbated by climate change. Resistant varieties, he said, are found in the shaded, dense coffee forests, and these can be developed and then cultivated. “This forest is a gene pool for coffee,” explains Mesfin Tekle, a natural resources specialist and project coordinator for the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, which helps manage the Kafa Biosphere Reserve.
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