New Study: Protecting Existing Coffee Forests is a Greater Climate Priority Than Planting New Trees
August 30 - 2025
Coffee Geography Magazine
A groundbreaking global study published on August 19 2025 in Communications Earth & Environment reveals a critical flaw in current efforts to make the coffee industry more sustainable. While corporate carbon payment programs heavily favor planting new trees, the research demonstrates that protecting existing, biodiverse coffee forests is far more effective for combating climate change and preventing biodiversity loss.
The meta-analysis, led by scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, synthesized data from 67 studies across Latin America, Africa, and Asia to provide the first-ever global estimate of carbon stored in coffee farming systems. They found that the world’s 10.2 million hectares of coffee farms currently hold an estimated 481.59 teragrams of carbon (TgC) in their aboveground biomass—roughly a third of the carbon stored in all of Europe’s temperate conifer forests.
The research evaluated two main strategies funded by carbon credits:
• Carbon Stock Creation: Incentivizing farmers to plant new trees on their land.
• Carbon Stock Protection: Paying farmers to conserve existing, threatened agroforests and prevent them from being cut down for more intensive farming.
The findings present a stark contrast between the potential of these two approaches. The study calculated that ambitious global tree-planting programs in coffee farms could sequester an additional 81.53–86.50 TgC. However, more than twice that amount of carbon (174.23–221.45 TgC) is at risk of being released into the atmosphere if current trends of agricultural intensification—clearing trees to plant sun-tolerant coffee monocultures—continue unchecked.
“Our results show that the carbon gains from planting new trees are completely overshadowed by the catastrophic losses we face if we don’t protect the complex, mature agroforests we already have,” said Dr. Emily Pappo of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, the study’s lead author. “It’s like trying to fill a bathtub with the tap running but the drain wide open. You have to plug the drain first.”
The study also uncovered a crucial divergence between climate and biodiversity goals. While tree diversity is a well-known driver of biodiversity in agroforests, the analysis found that it does not independently increase carbon storage. Instead, carbon gains were linked to tree density. This means that carbon-focused programs that prioritize planting a high density of fast-growing trees might sequester carbon but fail to provide the habitat complexity needed to support birds, insects, and other wildlife.
“There’s a real risk of decoupling these outcomes,” explained Dr. Pappo. “A carbon-first approach could create green deserts—stands of trees that are good for the climate but poor for biodiversity. To achieve both, we must explicitly prioritize protecting and planting a diverse mix of native species.”
The paper serves as a urgent call to action for corporations, certification bodies, and policymakers to redesign carbon payment programs. The authors argue that the current market’s preference for “creation” is based on an erroneous assumption that adding new trees is easier to measure and verify than proving that existing trees were saved from being cut down.
“Protection mechanisms are more challenging,” the authors note, citing difficulties in proving “additionality” and complex land tenure issues, “but our results, coupled with the reality of carbon marketplaces, indicate an urgent need for innovation in the protection sector.”
The study concludes that a dual strategy is essential: aggressively protecting high-carbon, high-biodiversity coffee forests from intensification while simultaneously strategically planting diverse trees in simplified systems. This approach, supported by stronger policies, long-term sourcing commitments, and improved monitoring, would ensure that the global coffee industry can help lead the way in both climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation.