S8: E6
Guests: Kirstin Hill
Role: Bird Friendly Program Manager
From: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Online: s.si.edu/birdfriendly • Click to learn Where to Buy Bird Friendly Coffee.
What they drink: Iced oat milk latte (warm weather) or Maple latte
I can pinpoint the moment my relationship with birds took a turn. I was walking along a trail with my father-in-law at the Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park. It was a nice trail that entered into the marsh at the back of a subdivision. We walked along fences separating nature from civilization for a moment. We followed a bend towards the lake. No other humans or buildings or reminders that the world was out there—‘cept for the trail itself—interrupted our communion with nature...
Except for the call of the birds. Birds were chatting all around us. The titters and trills and singing and chip-chip-chipping all blended together into a raucous cacophony. Woodpeckers kept time with their drumming. It was all one noise for me. Not so for my father-in-law.
“Chickadees,” he’d say, or “Sparrow” or “Red-winged blackbird.”
“How do you know,” I asked.
“I heard it.”
He could identify the birds by their call. He started learning when he was young by listening to a record* and then going outside to try and find the sounds. What a cool skill, I thought, and probably said so.
Not long after that, a hand-me-down pair of binoculars made their way into my car. I bought a bird identification book—Sibley’s, I think—from a used bookstore. Then I had a second set of binoculars. When did that happen? My book had notes in it next to birds I had seen.
What does any of this have to do with coffee? I didn’t know it then, but coffee farms make for excellent coffee habitats. At least, they can. The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center developed the Bird Friendly® certification program to create value and reward coffee farms that have incidentally or intentionally chosen to develop landscapes that provide respite for our winged friends during annual migrations.
What a cool idea.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Smithsonian Bird Friendly® certification was established in the 1990s in an effort to create value for coffee farmers who grow shade grown coffee that ultimately helps ensure habitats for bird species.
Bird populations are declining drastically and rapidly. More than 3 billion birds or 30% of the bird population since the 1970s. Birds face increasing challenges to their annual migrations, including but not limited to, loss of habitat to development, climate change impacts on habitat and weather, light pollution, and even the increase in human built structures impeding their paths.
Smithsonian Bird Friendly® coffee producers must also be certified as organic farms. Often the certifications are done in tandem to minimize the cost of certification.
The Smithsonian Bird Friendly® certification is the environmental gold standard in sustainable food production.
When you purchase Bird Friendly® certified coffee or cocoa, you preserve critical habitat for birds and wildlife, fight climate change, protect biodiversity, and support farmers committed to conserving bird and wildlife habitat by farming sustainably.
• Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute Migratory Bird Center
OTHER LINKS FROM THE SHOW
R!WC INDUSTRY PARTNERS
A huge, on-going thank you to this show’s industry partners. Click these links!
Roastar • Zumbar Coffee & Tea • First Light Coffee Whiskey • Steady State Roasting • Mostra Coffee • Coffee Cycle • Camp Coffee Company • Ignite Coffee Company • Ascend Coffee Roasters • Marea Coffee • Cape Horn Coffee Roasters • Hacea Coffee Source • Crossings Coffee • Acento Coffee Roasters
Coffee People: Kirstin Hill, Bird Friendly Program Manager