Welcome to the American Ornithological Society 2018 Annual Conference. We are pleased to have you join us at the lovely Hilton El Conquistador Resort in Tucson, AZ.
Since the early 1990s, researchers at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center have been studying avian communities in the biologically rich mid- elevations of southern Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. SMBC scientists documented the attraction that shade coffee can have for both resident and migratory birds. SMBC created the “Bird Friendly®” shade certification that delivers consumers a seal and set of strict criteria based on science and years of thoughtful planning that links conservation to the marketplace in coffee's rural-to-urban pathway. In this way, SMBC has brought conservation to the marketplace, allowing consumers to make a bird friendly choice when it comes to coffee. Since it's inception, the BF program has grown many-fold, incorporating growers, importers and roasters in its efforts. Sales increased more than 64\% between 2012 and 2016. Today, more than 2,000 growers of Bird Friendly® coffee worldwide produce over 1.2 million pounds of coffee beans. The BF program's rigorous criteria, deemed the “gold standard” for shade by many coffee experts, identifies certified organic farms with those shade characteristics that maintain a forest-like cover for migrant songbirds like warblers, thrushes, tanagers and orioles, among many others. It's an effective model for producing food for people while still protecting biodiversity.
