Food For Saving Forests

Make holiday meals even more meaningful by sustaining endangered and threatened species through your food choices.

Problem: In the last 14 months, Africa's only surviving wild population of northern white rhinoceroses at the Democratic Republic of Congo's Garamba National Park Project has been halved; only 17 to 24 remain, a plunge from their estimated 2,250 in 1960. Poaching gangs from Sudan have been blamed for killing the animals and taking their highly valued horns. Western black rhinos and many others are also under severe threat.

Solution: Coffee For the World gives $1.75 to the International Rhino Foundation for every bag of Badak Kawa coffee purchased. (You can choose the blend.) You also can select their Okuti Kawa coffee bag, which provides a donation to the Cheetah Conservation Fund, or their Kathmandu Kawa, which helps the snow leopard, and so on. Bags are illustrated with info about the species (not available in stores; $9.99 at www.Coffeefortheworld.com).

Solution: The Thanksgiving Coffee Company will donate up to 20 percent of the price of its fair-trade certified Gorilla Fund Coffee to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. According to Fair Trade International, "The money will support programs that assist communities near mountain gorilla habitat by providing health care, technical training, micro-credit and further enhance mountain gorilla protection." ($9.50 for a 12-oz. bag at www.thanksgivingcoffee.com, 800-648-6491.)

More Solutions: Choose certified shade-grown and "Bird-Friendly" coffee and chocolate, cultivated beneath forest canopies. These have been shown to be more biodiverse, with as many species of insects as in lowland rain forest, than monocrop farms, which have up to 97 percent fewer bird species than shade coffee plantations (Triple-certified French roast, $11.50/lb., www.cafecanopy.com).

Café Mam: Fair-trade, shade-grown Oregon Tilth-certified organic coffee produced by Mayan farmers in Chiapas preserves the forest canopy and uses terraces to reduce runoff (12-oz. can of whole beans/$7.50, www.cafemam.com).

Yachana Gourmet organic, fair-trade chocolate. Enjoy Jungle Chocolate with Brazil Nuts or Essence of Coffee in the knowledge that all profits are contributed to the Foundation for Integrated Education and Development (www.funedesin.org), which has preserved 3,600 acres of Ecuador rain forest and helped regional farmers. 4 mixes ($18.95 for six 2-oz. bags) at www.yachanagourmet.com, 800-637-7614.

Yerba Maté is a caffeine-packed herb tea described by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss as "like a whole forest concentrated in a few drops." Sales help preserve the 20,000-acre Guayakí Rainforest preserve in Paraguay, home to 330 bird species, 36 mammal species and threatened hardwoods like the Pau D'Arco. A member of the Fair Trade Federation. Gaucho Gourd Gift packs with 6 oz. of Yerba Maté, $25 (www.guayaki.com, 888-482-9254).

For more recommended brands, see coffee, tea and chocolate product reports at thegreenguide.com.

Avoid buying tropical hardwoods unless they're certified sustainable at www.certifiedwood.org.

Problem: Up to 35 percent of all mangrove forests, vital growing areas for marine and land animals and plants, have been destroyed in the last 20 years, mostly for shrimp farms. Alfredo Quarto, executive director of the Mangrove Action Project, notes that "three quarters of the wild fish in the Southern hemisphere require mangroves in their breeding cycle." Trap-caught, wild spot prawns are a greener substitute, and although "they can't be caught at the scale to feed current consumption levels, still people could enjoy them locally in California or Carolina," he adds.

Solution: Avoid farmed shrimp. Ecofish's Spot Prawns are available at Wild Oats Markets (for other locations, visit www.ecofish.com/merchants.htm or call 877-214-FISH). Or choose stone crab as a sustainable alternative.

Problem: The explosive growth of monoculture—planting vast tracts in a single crop, such as soy or corn—has meant the loss of rain forest and heirloom vegetables as well as less diversity in our food stocks. A century ago, there were 7,000 to 8,000 varieties of apples in the U.S.; now there are only about 200.

Solution: Slow Food's Ark of Taste seeks to save vanishing animal breeds, fruits and vegetables as well as prepared, cured and fermented foods that are being lost to commercial pressures. To help, you can nominate foods you feel should be preserved, as well as buy these endangered foods (www.slowfoodusa.org/ark).

For a selection of over 500 heirloom vegetable seeds to give a gardener or to grow on your own (typically $2.50 for packets of 50 to 100 seeds), see www.seedsavers.org.