Towards a climate change adaptation strategy for coffee communities and ecosystems in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, Mexico

Abstract

The mountain chain of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas in southern Mexico is globally significant for its biodiversity and is one of the most important coffee production areas of Mexico. It provides water for several municipalities and its biosphere reserves are important tourist attractions. Much of the forest cover outside the core protected areas is in fact coffee grown under traditional forest shade. Unless this (agro)forest cover can be sustained, the biodiversity of the Sierra Madre and the environmental services it provides are at risk. We analyzed the threats to livelihoods and environment from climate change through crop suitability modeling based on downscaled climate scenarios for the period 2040 to 2069 (referred to as 2050s) and developed adaptation options through an expert workshop. Significant areas of forest and occasionally coffee are destroyed every year by wildfires, and this problem is bound to increase in a hotter and drier future climate. Widespread landslides and inundations, including on coffee farms, have recently been caused by hurricanes whose intensity is predicted to increase. A hotter climate with more irregular rainfall will be less favorable to the production of quality coffee and lower profitability may compel farmers to abandon shade coffee and expand other land uses of less biodiversity value, probably at the expense of forest. A comprehensive strategy to sustain the biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods of the Sierra Madre in the face of climate change should include the promotion of biodiversity friendly coffee growing and processing practices including complex shade which can offer some hurricane protection and product diversification; payments for forest conservation and restoration from existing government programs complemented by private initiatives; diversification of income sources to mitigate risks associated with unstable environmental conditions and coffee markets; integrated fire management; development of markets that reward sustainable land use practices and forest conservation; crop insurance programs that are accessible to smallholders; and the strengthening of local capacity for adaptive resource management.Response to Reviewers: Major revisions of the paper have been made following the guidance provided by the reviewer: 1)The paper has been shortened through elimination of some non-essential detail, especially in the introduction and the discussion of the adaptation options.2)The methods section has been expanded through a more detailed explanation of the public participation process and of the analytical process. Substantial statistical analysis of the variability among different Global Circulation Models has been added. We now present confidence intervals of 15 GCMs in the maps of predicted future coffee suitability and also a map showing the agreement among models in Figure 3. We also show the prediction of coffee suitability by altitude for individual models, in addition to mean and confidence intervals. Error bars have also been added to ...

Coupling of pollination services and coffee suitability under climate change

“…Those practices include weed management (maintaining beneficial native species at levels that do not compete with crops to provide forage and other resources for bees), reduced biocide use, and increased plant diversity across field margins, edges, pathways, and live fences (20). Coffee management strategies include foliage-shade adjustment to reduce temperature stress, increased water efficiency, irrigation, use of drought-and heat-stress-adapted varieties (21,22), and soil conservation to improve moisture content. Such strategies would improve pollination and maximize benefits for farmers in areas of positive coupling, minimize impacts for those in areas of negative coupling, and compensate for the reduction in coffee suitability by improving pollination services in areas of decoupling.…”

Perceptions of climate trends among Mexican maize farmers

“…Global circulation models for Chiapas concur that the state will experience an increase in average temperatures and a decrease in rainfall (Schroth et al, 2009). These changes will be different in each of the nine economic regions of the state, which include the Centro, Altos, Fronteriza, Frailesca, Norte, Selva, Sierra, Soconusco and Istmo-Costa (Schroth et al, 2009).…”

“…These changes will be different in each of the nine economic regions of the state, which include the Centro, Altos, Fronteriza, Frailesca, Norte, Selva, Sierra, Soconusco and Istmo-Costa (Schroth et al, 2009). In Chiapas, maximum temperatures will increase between 3°C and 3.6°C and minimum temperatures between 2.5°C and 2.8°C.…”

Impact of climate change on the agro-ecological innovation of coffee agroforestry systems in Central Kenya

“…The adaptation capacity to the changes depends on the market dynamics of products and capacity of the different actors (Schroth et al, 2009, for instance, reports climate change directly or indirectly affects vineyard value chain including firms and actors in the supply chain beyond its direct impacts on wine producer's income. Hence, adaptation capacities depend on the type of sectors, actors' interaction and coordination.…”