highland coffee production and migratory birds
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Coffee drying in the sun.

By far Guatemala's main industry is coffee production. In fact, as the international price of coffee goes, so goes the Guatemalan economy. Hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans are directly employed in coffee production and millions more depend on the money that enters the Guatemalan economy from the coffee business.

Selling coffee in the market.

Enormous tracks of land are devoted to coffee. This land used to be pristine forests; forests that supported a rich ecology. Birds, in particular, thrived here. For millions of years annual bird migration from the US, Canada and Mexico have passed through Guatemala and still do.

Basically two types of coffee farming exist. Lowland coffee denudes the countryside of everything but coffee. Pesticides and modern fertilizers pollute the water and air. Animal life is all but non-existent.

Highland coffee, on the other hand, is superior in quality and needs no pesticides or fertilizer. Even more important to the local ecology, shade trees are planted to protect the coffee from the bright tropical sun. These shade trees offer a place for the migratory birds to flourish.

Highland coffee production, such as we have here in Atitlan, is one of the few occasions when the needs of modern man are not fulfilled at the cost of the rest of the species we share this planet with.

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Lake Atitlan Resort Association ~ Tropical Travel Association
Barrio Jucanya - Panajachel, Guatemala 01070 ~ Guatemala tel: ++502 5583 8328
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