The Understory | Issue 7 | Human Rights

Underst ry The Advancing the Human Rights of Rural People

Welcome to The Understory

The Rainforest Alliance’s newsletter for the passionate supporters who share our mission to create a better future for people and nature.

un·der·sto·ry [noun]: A layer of vegetation beneath the main canopy of a forest

IN THIS EDITION:

A MESSAGE FROM OUR ALLIANCE

Jordan Hart, Advocacy Officer, Regenerative Agriculture

SNAPSHOT

Communities Come Together to End Child Labor

OUR ALLIANCE IN ACTION

Nevertheless, This Cocoa Entrepreneur Persisted & The Indigenous Roots of Regenerative Agriculture

FEATURE STORY

Once Violently Displaced, an Indigenous Community Now Flourishes

MEET OUR ALLIANCE MEMBERS

Jessie Glickstein & Ketut Sudomo

JOIN OUR ALLIANCE

Connect with Our Coffee Klatch & Legacy Estate Planning

CONTACT US

OUR MISSION:

The Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities.

ABOUT THE RAINFOREST ALLIANCE:

4 million +

CERTIFICATION

We certify products that are grown in accordance with our standards, which support environmental, social, and economic sustainability.

58

countries around the world with active projects and/or certified farms

87

farmers and workers on certified farms projects with farmers and forest communities to improve livelihoods and protect nature

6 million +

hectares of global farmland certified against our sustainability standards

6,000 +

companies working with us to source certified ingredients and improve their business practices

Our multifaceted approach to shaping a more sustainable world:

SUPPLY CHAIN SERVICES

We advise companies on how to drive sustainability within their supply chains, source responsibly, monitor progress, and innovate to accelerate transformation.

LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT

We work with farmers and forest communities to conserve and restore landscapes while improving livelihoods.

ADVOCACY

We work with companies and governments to advance policies that promote sustainability improvements, human rights (such as gender equality), and youth education.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR ALLIANCE

TEAMING UP WITH NATURE TO PROTECT PEOPLE

BY JORDAN HART | ADVOCACY OFFICER, REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

Environmental and social challenges frequently go hand in hand, which is why the Rainforest Alliance addresses these issues in tandem. For example, the extensive use of toxic agrochemicals on farms endangers not only our ecosystems but also the health and livelihoods of the people who grow our food. Jordan Hart, our advocacy officer for regenerative agriculture, explains why we are campaigning for a global ban on one of the world’s most dangerous (and widely used) weed-killers.

Paraquat is an agrochemical that lives up to its billing: It kills weeds. The problem is that it also kills people and nature. Medical studies have tied its use to chronic health issues (such as lung and kidney problems), an alarming rate of farmer suicides, and even Parkinson’s disease. Unsurprisingly, its impact on the environment is just as grim; it pollutes waterways and poses serious threats to soil health and biodiversity.

So why is paraquat still so prevalent?

Talk to farmers, and they’ll tell you that it is a necessary evil to protect their livelihoods—an inexpensive and readily available fix. When it first hit the market in 1962, paraquat was sold under the slogan of “ending the war on weeds,” but 60 years later, that war is no closer to being won. In fact, its use has led to herbicide-resistant weeds.

Like many pesticides, paraquat has created a dependency—eliminating beneficial weeds and insects—which reduces the kind of crop diversity that

“We are calling on the global community to ban this chemical worldwide, to ensure that it causes no additional harm to people or the planet.”

helps to protect farms against harmful weeds, pests, and diseases. Instead of offering a solution, paraquat has driven a harmful and self-perpetuating cycle.

After Rustan Effendi began using it on his small cocoa farm in Indonesia, he discovered the chemical’s troubling effects firsthand. “The herbicide brought some negative impacts to my health, such as shortness of breath while spraying it.” Effendi also saw that it was killing off essential pollinators, which led to longer waits between cocoa harvests and unpredictable yields.

Although many countries have already forbidden paraquat’s use within their own borders, some still allow it to be exported for profit. This double standard places the greatest risk on vulnerable rural communities in tropical regions—the very workers and farmers who already have their hands full in the ongoing battle against climate change.

Thankfully, there is another way. The Rainforest Alliance works with farmers to adopt Integrated Weed Management (IWM) practices on their land—a holistic approach that favors biological, mechanical, and cultural practices over the application of dangerous chemicals.

After a study found that 43 percent of Indonesia’s cocoa growers were using paraquat, the Rainforest Alliance partnered with field staff and farmers to popularize IWM practices, through training and informative posters. By switching to IWM, Effendi has been able to target harmful weeds and pests while maintaining soft weeds that provide habitat for pollinators. “We’re thinking of how to preserve the land so our descendants can inherit the fertile soil that brings benefits in the long term.”

This kind of holistic approach offers farmers like Effendi long-term solutions that work with nature, not against it. The benefits are a triple-win, protecting the health of workers, improving soil fertility, and increasing climate resilience for farming communities.

Since the earliest days of our certification program in 1993, the Rainforest Alliance has prohibited paraquat use, and we are now calling on the global community to ban this chemical worldwide, once and for all.

RUSTAN EFFENDI, A COCOA FARMER IN INDONESIA WHO SWITCHED FROM THE DANGEROUS HERBICIDE TO INTEGRATED WEED MANAGEMENT.

SNAPSHOT: OUR WORK IN TÜRKIYE

EARTHqUAkE RELIEf fOR HAzELNUT fARMING COMMUNITIES

The Rainforest Alliance has worked in Türkiye since 2014, partnering with local communities to safeguard the rights of farmworkers and their families. In early February 2023, two deadly earthquakes and their aftershocks devastated southeast Türkiye and Syria, affecting many of the seasonal hazelnut farmworkers we partner with. It was the largest disaster in 80 years—killing and injuring many thousands and displacing more than 13 million people from their homes.

In the aftermath of this unfathomable tragedy, the Rainforest Alliance connected with the Young Lives Foundation (YLF) to support 75 seasonal farmworking families that were affected. Together, we created a plan to address these families’ most urgent needs: nutrition and hygiene, along with financial aid to keep their children in school. We collected supplies for food and hygiene kits—with a focus on sourcing from local businesses—and

distributed them to 75 households in Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, and Şanlıurfa-Siverek. The Rainforest Alliance also provided financial support for their children’s education, while YLF field teams monitored school attendance.

This work builds on the collaboration we have had with YLF since 2022, when the Rainforest Alliance teamed up with local authorities, companies, and civil society organizations to establish hazelnut village working groups that take an active role in preventing and remediating child labor in the hazelnut harvest. In spite of the earthquakes, the working groups and project partners have continued these efforts.

We are more determined than ever to support seasonal farmworkers’ well-being and their children’s education.

Earthquake Region

Black Sea Region (Cities with certificate holders) Sustainable Hazelnut Villages Project Cities

OUR WORK IN TÜRKIYE

In the rugged hills of the Black Sea coast of Türkiye, hazelnut production is still mostly manual and heavily reliant on seasonal hired labor. Each year, the start of the summer harvest (August to midSeptember) is signaled by the arrival of migrant workers and their families—many of whom come from the southeast region that was devasted by earthquakes in February 2023.

NEvERTHELESS , THIS COCOA ENTREPRENEUR PERSISTED

In our last Understory, we introduced you to Kpomin Minrienne Kole Edi, a successful cocoa entrepreneur in Côte d’Ivoire who has been breaking many barriers for women farmers like herself.

As the founder and head of her own cocoa cooperative, Edi is a rarity—“I’ve only been in contact with one other woman co-op leader,” she says—and the road hasn’t been easy. Her male peers did not immediately accept the idea of a woman in power, and made their displeasure known. Over time, however, most have come to accept her leadership, and her co-op now includes men in its ranks.

Proving that she does not shy away from a challenge, Edi has also worked to eradicate child labor. But despite trying to put protections in place, the cooperative lacked the financial resources to

provide members with adequate education on the issue. In 2021, however, the 355-member coop received funding from the Rainforest Alliance’s Africa Cocoa Fund—an initiative designed to help farmers implement Rainforest Alliance Certification to preserve landscapes and improve livelihoods. This support has made it possible for Edi’s co-op to provide training on identifying and mitigating child labor risks.

Her cooperative has also deployed this funding to invest in women-led businesses, which have improved members’ financial security—making it possible for parents to pay for their children’s schooling and hire workers to help on their farms.

And that’s not all. Check out our next issue to read the final inspiring installment of Edi’s story…

PHOTO: STEVEN DE WINTER / SOLIDARIDAD

THE INDIGENOUS ROOTS Of REGENERATIvE AGRICULTURE

While a new wave of enthusiasm has crested in recent years, regenerative agriculture is actually a concept that originated with Indigenous peoples more than a thousand years ago. Here are just a few examples of regenerative farming practices promoted by the Rainforest Alliance that come from Indigenous peoples around the world:

Agroforestry: Some Indigenous communities, like the Lenca people in Honduras, know agroforestry simply as “traditional technique.” Agroforestry— or the concept of growing crops in a way that mimics the forest and offers shade, protection, and nutrients—is such common practice that there is no special name for it.

Intercropping: The Maya people practiced a polyculture technique called milpa, a method of intercropping plants like maize, beans, and squash. Milpa increases biodiversity by encouraging a symbiotic relationship between the plants, microorganisms, insects, and animals.

Water management: In many parts of the world, like India, Indigenous communities recognize sacred groves, forests, and pools to protect biodiversity and conserve areas of cultural importance. In the trans-Himalayan region of India, Indigenous people use methods like water storage ponds and complex irrigation systems to sustainably manage water.

The Rainforest Alliance believes that collectively, we—NGOs, governments, companies, thought leaders, and individuals around the world—should do all we can to champion Indigenous voices and rights, especially their land rights. If the rising popularity of regenerative agriculture marks a shift in how we grow food, then the leadership and well-being of Indigenous peoples must be at the center.

Click here to learn more about how we work with Indigenous peoples.

PHOTO: SERGIO IZQUIERDO

ONCE vIOLENTLy DISPLACED, AN INDIGENOUS COMMUNIT y NOW fLOURISHES

“When we first got here, there was only one tree. It was all the shade we had between all of us—and it was hot,” Fernando Santis Pérez, president of La Ramona, an ejido in Chiapas, Mexico, recalled. “And all that—” he said, motioning toward the emerald hills, “was pasture.”

Seeing this vibrant village now, with about 30 homes flanked by lush gardens, not to mention a covered basketball court, two chapels, and two one-room schoolhouses, it is hard to believe that just 18 years ago this land was severely degraded—and virtually uninhabitable. But when 20 Indigenous Tzotzil families arrived here in 2005, they were just glad to have any patch of earth to call their own. Driven out of their ancestral lands 140 miles away in the 1990s, they had wandered from place to place, until

finally, they settled these 100 hectares and formed an ejido (communally owned land). The community got to work, clearing a road through the rugged hills, building homes, planting shade trees, and cultivating coffee.

Despite its Herculean efforts, the community of La Ramona continued for some years to struggle with poor coffee plants, degraded soil, and climate challenges. Then, in 2018, the Rainforest Alliance teamed up with Olam Food Ingredients (OFI) as part of a five-year USAID initiative called Alliance for Sustainable Landscapes and Markets. The overall goal of this work was to allow La Ramona, along with seven other nearby communities, to farm in ways that let them thrive economically while restoring the land to its original richness.

Since the initiative started, La Ramona (named for the famed woman Zapatista commander) has transformed the landscape from a near-desert, with soils all but destroyed by the previous owner’s poor farming practices, into a healthy and productive ecosystem. La Ramona has planted 30,000 trees and 65,000 coffee plants, boosting its production to an average of 18 quintals of coffee parchment per hectare (compared to 5 to 8 quintals that nearby communities produce). “It’s cooler now, too,” Santis said.

The Rainforest Alliance’s Daniel Dominguez, who worked closely with La Ramona, said that the conservation and production achievements are impressive, but the “human side—education, governance, nutrition, and self-determination—is just as important if the community is to sustain itself over the long term.”

That’s why the initiative also provided or coordinated training on everything from firefighting to nutrition to business skills. The coffee cooperative that La Ramona and the initiative’s seven other communities belong to, Unión de Productores Región Fraylesca Oro Verde, received significant support as well. (Oro Verde achieved Rainforest Alliance Certification in 2021.)

Although the initiative recently ended, La Ramona continues to flourish. With its increased income, the community—which has grown from 20 to 35 families— has purchased 50 more hectares. It is also currently building a Catholic church and expanding a Seventh Day Adventist chapel. Though it was religious conflicts that led to the community’s violent expulsion nearly 20 years ago, Santis insisted that no such divisions exist in La Ramona. “There’s no discrimination here. After what our families went through, how could we do that?”

“Anyway,” he said, smiling. “All that is in the past now.”

JESSE GLICkSTEIN

Jesse Glickstein believes that finding solutions to the most pressing environmental and social issues facing our world requires action by a wide range of stakeholders, including nonprofits, companies, governments, and local communities.

A lawyer specializing in the environment and human rights, Glickstein has spent the past decade working for two Fortune 500 companies and an Am Law 100 firm on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. His work has covered areas related to the environment, human rights, conflict minerals, renewable energy, supply chains, and ESG reporting.

Beyond his day job, Glickstein has demonstrated a profound commitment to public service, providing a wide range of pro bono services. These include representing unaccompanied immigrant children in legal proceedings; drafting, analyzing, and negotiating power-purchasing agreements to reduce energy costs for schools and nonprofit institutions; visiting arrested protesters to assess the conditions of their confinement; and working as a legal observer through the National Lawyers Guild. He also serves on the Coalition for Green Capital’s inaugural Environmental Justice Advisory Board.

Glickstein became a Rainforest Alliance Ambassador because he shares our multifaceted approach to protecting people and the planet. “You cannot try to fix environmental issues while ignoring the way that your solutions might impact people,” he says. “The Rainforest Alliance looks at the world’s environmental and social challenges through both lenses, and tries to address the underlying causes in tandem.”

“You cannot try to fix environmental issues while ignoring the way that your solutions might impact people.”

JESSE GLICKSTEIN LAWYER & RAINFOREST ALLIANCE AMBASSADOR

kETUT SUDOMO

For Ketut Sudomo, farming is a family tradition. He has been growing cocoa in Jembrana, Bali, for nearly five decades, farming the three hectares that he inherited in 1975. Following the lead of his ancestors, he continues to work the land with an eye toward conserving it for the next generation. With the help of the Rainforest Alliance, he has learned even more about applying integrated weed management techniques to benefit his farm.

Instead of relying on dangerous herbicides like paraquat, Sudomo plants shade trees, diversifies his crops, and raises livestock, whose manure provides a natural productivity-boosting fertilizer. “Raising a goat and cultivating cocoa trees are activities that perfectly complement each other,” he says. “It’s not hard to find the feed since we can get it from the cocoa tree, such as the cocoa pods or young leaves.”

He also believes in using a portable grass machine or sickle to prune weeds and grass; this reduces competition for soil nutrients while keeping himself and his cocoa trees safe in the process. “Chemical substances can be eliminated,” he says. For his efforts, he is protecting his soil’s fertility and benefiting from the trimmings.

For Sudomo, the rewards of cocoa farming are many. “We are very happy growing cocoa trees, because it’s where our income comes from, as well as our hope.”

“We are very happy growing cocoa trees, because it’s where our income comes from, as well as our hope.”

KETUT SUDOMO COCOA FARMER BALI, INDONESIA

CONNECT WITH OUR COffEE kLATCH

Our Coffee Klatch Series is a special opportunity to connect with Rainforest Alliance program staff. Each quarter, a different member of the Rainforest Alliance team shares their work in an intimate and interactive conversation, followed by Q&A. If you’re interested in joining our Coffee Klatch Series, please reach out to Arati Patel at apatel@ra.org.

In a recent Coffee Klatch, Adriana Cortes, senior director of programs in South America, shed light on our ambitious plan to create a green corridor in the Amazon and how our collaborations with local organizations, governments, investors, and the private sector are driving more sustainable regional bioeconomy conditions.

To watch recordings of earlier Coffee Klatches, click HERE.

LEAvE yOUR LEGACy

Have you included the Rainforest Alliance in your estate planning?

By making a planned gift to the Rainforest Alliance, you create a meaningful legacy for future generations. Donors who include the Rainforest Alliance in their estate plans or wills are among our most dedicated supporters and are welcomed into the Judith Sulzberger Legacy Society.

Join today and receive lifetime benefits including updates on our work, invitations to special events, and recognition in our annual report.

To learn more, visit www.rainforest-alliance.org/giftplanning or contact Gabriela Sanchez, Planned Giving Lead at gabrielasanchez@ra.org.

PRESENTING OUR 2022 ANNUAL REPORT

2022 was a milestone year for our alliance in which we celebrated 35 years of working at the forefront of sustainability transformation—a shared journey we’ve taken together with our community partners and dedicated supporters like you.

Our anniversary was also a key moment to consider the future. In the closing chapters of this report, we unveil the fruits of those big discussions—a preview of our 2030 Strategy in which we focus on accelerating action to address the intertwined crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and systemic poverty.

To tackle these urgent challenges at the necessary speed and scale, we need to take a “We’re all in” approach. So, please dive into our interactive Annual Report and discover what’s possible when our alliance is united in action.

THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF OUR ALLIANCE.

With each donation, you are helping the Rainforest Alliance make a lasting impact on the planet and ensure a more sustainable future for generations to come. So we extend our heartfelt gratitude to our invaluable community of donors for your unwavering support of our mission. Your generous contributions allow us to safeguard the world’s precious rainforests, preserve biodiversity, and empower local communities. Thank you for standing with us as a vital part of our alliance.

STA y IN TOUCH

We’d love to hear from you!

Please reach out directly to Gabriela Sanchez at gabrielasanchez@ra.org

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