A jaunty bird…

Ethiopia’s Yellow-fronted parrot is getting renewed conservation aid, despite alarming social upheavals, reports DAVID WAUGH

- David Waugh

IT SEEMS that the world is becoming more fractious, with people taking to the streets in protest at perceived injustices. In the past full year of the Loro Parque Fundación and NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, the BirdLife International partner of Germany) project for the conservation of the endemic Yellow-fronted parrot (Poicephalus flavifrons) in Ethiopia, such discontent has impacted negatively on progress.

Previously unaffected by nationwide political protests, unrest finally arrived at the Kafa Biosphere Reserve. Demonstrations were largely peaceful but local youth groups, expressing their dissatisfaction with the lack of land and employment opportunities, misplaced their frustration on two project nurseries. The vandalism destroyed planting beds and shade roofs, as well as about 31,200 seedlings, these forming part of the 173-hectare reforestation effort to expand breeding and feeding areas for the local yellow-fronted parrots. Efforts are underway to secure funding to ensure the replacement of the destroyed seedlings.

At about the same time, scientists published the first full assessment of risks to the world’s coffee plants, including the two species used for the coffee we drink, which shows that 60 per cent of 124 known species are on the edge of extinction. That figure gives cause for concern, as wild coffee is critical for sustaining the global coffee crop. Ethiopia is the home of Arabica coffee, where it grows naturally in the upland rainforests where yellow-fronted parrots are also found. Wild Arabica is used to supply seeds for coffee farming and is also harvested directly.