COCE is the name of a research project and stands for "Conservation and Use of Wild Populations of Coffea arabica in the Montane Rainforests of Ethiopia".
The project is financed by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and carried out by the Center for Development Research, ZEF Bonn in Germany and with the Institute of Biodiversity Conservation and the Ethiopian Coffee Forest Forum in Ethiopia.
Background
The montane rain forests in southeast Ethiopia, the birthplace of wild Coffea arabica, were the origin of a large part of modern commercially used Coffea breeds. Due to the dwindling size of the montane rain forests as a result of clearing, the precious resource of wild Arabica coffee, and the genetic diversity it contains, is increasingly threatened.
Approximately 40% of Ethiopia's land area was covered by dense forests at the end of the 1960s. This has now fallen to 2.7 percent. The former Kingdom of Kaffa in the southwest of the country is now a part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's Region, one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia. The rapidly developing town of Bonga is the economic center of the Kaffa region. In the Kaffa region there are only 200,000 acres of undisturbed African montane rain forest remaining. However, these are extremely threatened in their existence, because of pressure on this forest region—due to the growing population, infrastructure projects such as road construction and investors plans—which has been increasing steadily.
List of key partner organizations
Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BfN), Bonn, Germany Bureau for Environmental and Ecological-economic Assessment (BETA), Wageningen, Netherlands Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), Montpellier, France Centro de Investigação das Ferrugens do Cafeeiro (CIFC), Oeiras, Portugal Department of Biology Education, University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Department of Biology, University Addis Abeba, Ethiopia Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit mbh (GTZ), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia / Eschborn, Germany EcoSecurities, Environmental Finance Solutions, Oxford, United Kingdom Ethiopian Coffee Forest Forum (ECFF), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia EU Coffee Improvement Program (CIP IV) Evolve – Consulting for Sustainable Development, Kirchzarten, Germany GEO schützt den Regenwald e. V., Hamburg, Germany Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (IBC), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Institut für Nutzpflanzenwissenschaften und Ressourcenschutz (INRES), University of Bonn, Germany Institut für Pflanzenernährung, University of Bonn, Germany International Coffee Genome Network (ICGN), Montpellier, France Jima Agricultural Research Center, Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR, former EARO), Jimma, Ethiopia Kraft Foods, Bremen, Germany Landwirtschaftlich-Gärtnerische Fakultät – Fachgebiet Ressourcenökonomie, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Germany Lernprozesse für nachhaltige Entwicklung, Wuppertal, Germany National Herbarium of Ethiopia, University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Nees Institut für Biodiversität der Pflanzen, University of Bonn, Germany Regional Coffee Producer Associations, Ethiopia Science Development, Wuppertal, Germany
Unannotated references https://web.archive.org/web/20120727104914/http://www.coffee.uni-bonn.de/ http://www.geo.de/GEO/natur/oekologie/regenwaldverein/nachrichten/61313.html http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/tender/data/d18/AOF79818.pdf http://www.evolve-sustainable-development.de/downloads/Certification%20options%20for%20Ethiopian%20wild%20forest%20coffee%20-%20CoCE%20Project%20report.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20131031102859/http://www.zef.de/367.html http://www.ecff.org.et/component/content/article/10-yayu/6-yayu-coffee-forest-biosphere-reserve.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160303220447/http://www.citeulike.org/user/klauso/article/12011979 http://www.biota-africa.org/spier_propfinal_detail_ba.php?ref_id=507&Page_ID=L975_13&PHPSESSID=btmse7ug8du88l97dbmt1s1692 http://www.tropentag.de/2010/abstracts/full/404.pdf http://gadaa.com/OromoStudies/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Wild-Arabica-Coffee-Populations-Under-Severe-Threat-Farmers-Perception-of-Existence-Access-to-and-Conservation-needs-in-the-Montane-Rainforests-Oromia-South.pdf