Traditional coffee plantations can be thought of as modified forest habitats. Even where a single species of tree is planted as cover, the trees often produce flower and fruit crops used by omnivorous birds, such as Tennessee warblers and orchard orioles. Evidence suggests that up-mountain and northward movements are timed to take advantage of the blossoming of plantation trees. In southern Mexico, coffee plantations cover an area over half the size of all of the major moist tropical forest reserves, providing critical woodland habitat in mid-elevation areas where virtually no large reserves are found. Shaded coffee plantations are often the last refuge for forest-adapted organisms.
Birds are only one indicator of the role that coffee plays in protecting biological diversity.
Ongoing studies of insects, canopy trees, orchids, and amphibians show that coffee plantations are often critical refuges protecting forest species where there is no longer any forest. In Costa Rica, insect diversity in shaded coffee rivals that found in lowland rainforest areas. More Than Just a Hill of Beans Shade coffee presents a tremendous opportunity for both conservation and economic gain, in that such a relatively benign form of agriculture has been and continues to be so significant an economic engine for the Latin American and Caribbean region. It is primarily grown by families on small farms. Coffee is the third most common import in the U.S., behind oil and steel, respectively.