Shade-grown coffee has long been promoted as a key means of protecting bird diversity in tropical coffee regions. The research was led by ecologists with SELVA with co-authors from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, which administers Smithsonian Bird Friendly, the coffee industry’s most rigorous third-party standards for shade-grown coffee. The certification currently requires 40% canopy cover, 10 different shade tree species per hectare and organic certification, which aligns with the study’s recommended thresholds. Inside the StudyIn the new study, published in the June issue of the Journal of Applied Ecology, researchers tracked bird communities across sun coffee, shade-grown coffee and forest habitats in Cundinamarca Department in Colombia’s Eastern Andes. A 2025 DCN feature on how shade coffee lends conservation a hand explored the ecological services birds provide to coffee farms, including eating coffee berry borers.