November 11, 2025 • 58 mins
You probably do not know this, but your morning cup of coffee carries a dark story. It's a story riddled with deforestation, child labor, slavery, corporate denial, and environmental injustice.
This week, Etelle Higonnet, founder of Coffee Watch, joins the Environmental Justice Lab to expose how the global coffee industry profits from environmental destruction and human suffering, and what must change. Etelle pulls back the curtain on the hidden costs of coffee production: forests cleared for plantations, farmers trapped in poverty, children and women enslaved, and powerful corporations dodging responsibility. But this isn’t just a story of despair. It’s a call to action. She lays out a vision for reform, from traceable supply chains to living wages and consumer activism that forces accountability.
If you drink coffee, you’re part of this system. But, according to Etelle, you can be part of the solution. Let's go!
Resources:
Wake up and Smell the Deforestation - Coffee Watch Report
Morally repugnant’: Brazilian workers sue coffee supplier to Starbucks over ‘slavery-like conditions - The Guardian
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support.
Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community:
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: theenvironmentaljusticelab@gmail.com
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support
This week, Etelle Higonnet, founder of Coffee Watch, joins the Environmental Justice Lab to expose how the global coffee industry profits from environmental destruction and human suffering, and what must change. Etelle pulls back the curtain on the hidden costs of coffee production: forests cleared for plantations, farmers trapped in poverty, children and women enslaved, and powerful corporations dodging responsibility. But this isn’t just a story of despair. It’s a call to action. She lays out a vision for reform, from traceable supply chains to living wages and consumer activism that forces accountability.
If you drink coffee, you’re part of this system. But, according to Etelle, you can be part of the solution. Let's go!
Resources:
Wake up and Smell the Deforestation - Coffee Watch Report
Morally repugnant’: Brazilian workers sue coffee supplier to Starbucks over ‘slavery-like conditions - The Guardian
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support.
Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community:
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: theenvironmentaljusticelab@gmail.com
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab podcast. I'm your host,
doctor Leslie Joseph. Thank you so much for being here,
and we have a very special guest with us on
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We have it tell Hignet.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
She is a lot of amazing things that we're gonna
get into later, but for now, for this discussion, you
just need to know. She is the CEO of Coffee Watch,
So we're gonna be talking about coffee a lot on
this podcast episode.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
And tell how are you today?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm tickled to be here with you. Thank you so
much having me on her show.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for being here.
I'm so glad you're able to make it. And let's
just start off with a nice introduction. I read your profile.
Read your bio is very extensive. You have lots of experiences,
lots of education, lots of travel. What are some of
(01:23):
the things about you've done in the past that you
want us to know about you.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I think the one thing that's really something I would
love your listeners to know about me is that I've
pretty much dedicated my life to for human rights in
the environment. And yeah, I think that love is the
(01:49):
most important thing.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
That's kind of what gets me up in the morning
every day, and not just in my private life, you know,
because I adore my baby, and I love my husband,
who I think is probably the best husband in the world,
and like ninety nine point nine percent sure there's no
better husbands out there. But also because you know, the
whole reason I do what I do is that I
(02:17):
love Mother Earth, this beautiful planet that we're on. It's
so special, it's so amazing as we hurtle through this
immense universe. You know, how lucky are we to have
this fabulous, gorgeous planet that supports human life and all
these wonderful people walking the earth with us. You know,
they deserve all of our love and kindness because they're
(02:41):
just like us.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Really absolutely.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And so I had this idea of kind of walking
through your background in history, all the places that you've been,
things that you've done. But there was big news coming
out of Gaza and Israel in the Middle East to
have a cease fire and to return hostages, return Palestinian detainees,
(03:08):
to hopefully allow aid into the God's Strip. And I wonder,
from your perspective and from your experience, what your thoughts
are about disagreement, the prospects of peace moving forward, human rights,
environmental justice, environmental recovery because of so much devastation that's
(03:32):
taken place, And just give us your thoughts about that,
and if you've seen anything similar in the past that
we can kind of look to that help us understand
what's going on now.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah. Well, you know, I worked in a number of
war zones and post conflict areas as a human rights
researcher and advocate. You know, I worked into war crimes, trimnals,
one for Cambodia, genocide in Cambodina, one in Sierra Leone,
(04:03):
and worked at places like Iraq and Liberia, and I
recused Burma also known as Me and Marso I have seen, yeah,
many many atrocities that human beings have perpetrated against one another.
You know, my formative experience was really working in Guatemala
(04:25):
right after the Peace of Courts were signed, which kind
of ended this brutal civil war during which they did
have a genocide against the indigenous people of Guatemala. And
so I have worked a lot on genocide and I
truly believe that countries can bounce back from genocide and
(04:49):
from atrocities and war crimes and civil wars. I've seen,
you know, firsthand, how a country like SyRI Leon that
was just devastated has progressed so much, you know, or Guatemala.
Not that things are perfect in these places. I believe
that humanity has. We have the capacity to do unspeakably
(05:14):
awful things to one another. Amputations, rapes, beheadings, extra judicial executions, bombings,
hostage taking, disappearances. We can do all those things. But
we also can love, we can rebuild. And actually, the
truth is, it's so much harder to love than to hate,
(05:35):
and so much harder to rebuild than to destroy. And
it looks like sometimes the biggest, baddest, you know, most
powerful people are the destroyers and the haters and the killers.
But the real power, the real heroism, I think, is
in the rebuilding. So I mean, when I saw that
we've now had this return of the twenty living hostages,
(05:57):
it's Raeli hostages, and about two thousand Palestinians who've been
in prison in Israel were exchange, it felt like this
amazing moment, you know, just almost kind of tearing up
thinking about what it feels like for the family members
of those people to see them again, you know their moms.
I'm a mom, and I just imagine, Yeah, how incredible
(06:23):
it must be to see those beloved people again. Sorry,
that's just so stupid to be crying. But I am
also kind of close to this issue because my husband
plays a kind of important role in the United Nations
in bringing medical aid to places like emergencies like Gasa.
(06:48):
It's been so hard to bring aid to Gaza. You know,
people were starving, that almost the entire population of the
Gaza strip had acute food and security, and over six
hundred and forty thousand people were considered to be quote
in a catastrophic level you know, phase five as defined
by the IBC. So just knowing that aid can come back,
(07:11):
that food can can be food, and medical aid and
other emergency stuff can make it to the people who
need it in Gaza. This is so beautiful, so important,
But you know the real test is yet to come. Right,
It's going to be about fifty three billion dollars to
rebuild Gaza. And there's been essentially an ecoside in Gaza. Right,
(07:35):
we went from having like forty percent of Gaza land
farmed to now about one percent of Gosm land is
farmable one point five is accessible and undamaged.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So how are.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
People going to you know, rebuild not just schools and
hospitals and systems that allow for life to continue, but
also how are we going to rebuild a really broken ecosystem.
You know, we talk a lot about humans, but we
were very human centric. Because we're humans, we don't talk
(08:08):
a lot about nature. But what is going to be
done to both rebuild for people and to rebuild for nature.
These are immense pressing questions and will probably require millions
of people to lean in and help. So if your
listeners are out there, I would just urge them to
please think of whatever it is that you can do
and buckle up and get ready to help if you can.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, So when you think about disagreement the way forward,
you mentioned that countries can bounce back. It's possible to
re establish a society and a livable condition for the
people who've experienced these kinds of atrocities, have been on
the other side of this destruction. What would you say
(08:53):
is most needed, like in the immediate term and maybe
the medium term put us on that path.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Is it a government thing that United Nations come in?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Are there certain countries that get involved to have the
rebuilding done.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
What should happen.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
We will need to have the United Nations involved to
have a credible peacekeeping mission and stabilization force. That's really vital.
But you know, I would say, I mean food needs
to get in first, medicine, medical equipment. But in the
sort of medium term at the idea of assault on
(09:33):
Gaza caused to collapse in basically the wastewater treatment, so
we have like sewage flooding and poisoning the land and
coastal waters. And also, if I'm not mistaken, flooding the
tunnels with seawater. You know, idea flooded Hamas's tunnels with seawater,
(09:56):
which is understandable as a military tactic, but also it
means that there's at some point the aquifer is going
to become unusable. So there's basically people need water to live, right,
So yeah, figuring out sewage treatment and water for the
(10:18):
medium round this is absolutely vital.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And then.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, you know, we're we're in a situation where almost
everything has been destroyed, so all the schools and hospitals
and homes. I think the real question now is how
do we build back better? Can we build buildings that
are energy self sufficient, that recycle water and use minimal
water in an environment where there's so little water to
(10:47):
be had. What are all the things that we can
do too, you know, ensure that people don't die of
heat waves which are just getting worse all across them
at least obviously no, I should say around the world. Yeah,
it comes to theaters near you. But in then at
(11:08):
least heat is a particularly acute problem in the summer.
And so yeah, how do we you know, build passive houses,
houses that require ninety five percent less energy to stay cool.
How do we, you know, rebuild a gaza that can
function ecologically and that can sistin people.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, and I guess the last question on this. You
mentioned fifty three billion dollars to rebuild.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That's the estimated price tag.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, where's that money come from? Is that is like
a fund somewhere out there.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
There's going to have to be.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And then people put into it.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And people like you and me and also governments and
companies and mosques and churches can and synagogues, they can
all put money into fund to rebuild. So first we
have to have a real plan, right, an executable, viable
plan that all parties can agree to, and then we
need to have it be on the path towards being executed.
(12:15):
And then we have to have a place where the
money can go, you know, that's a safe, credible place.
And then yeah, we need people to dig very deep
and to help.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, I notice when you were talking about gods that
what needs to happen. You move very seamlessly between human
rights in the environment. You kind of talk about them interchangeably,
and it's hard to know which when we're talking about
the way you put them together.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is that how you see things? I do.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I think it's totally inextricably intertwined. And you know, the
moment when I realized that human rights and environmental issues
are so intertwined, it hit me like a freight truck.
I was working in Iraq and there had been a
kind of genocide perpetrated by Saddam's forces against Shia Iraqis
(13:09):
in the south, and in particular, Saddam and his troops
had drained this entire wetland system, this enormous ecosystem, just
in order to really be able to hunt down and
punish and kill essentially what they considered to be an
irridentist threat, and it was an ecological cataclysm of epic
(13:31):
proportions for the entire sub region. It up ended the
rainfall and just a disaster. I won't even go to
all the details. It was terrible, but it went hand
in hand with this wildly brutal repression by Saddam's forces
of the Shia. You know, they had tanks rolling into
places like Karabella with banners saying no more she after today.
(13:54):
They raped people, they killed people, They put people in
vats of acid. You know, they killed family members in
front of Okay, it's two groom. I think for this
podcast we don't need to go into all the details.
But the point is the environmental and the human rights
problems we're very intertwined. That's when I it clicked for me.
(14:14):
But we don't have to talk about kaza Iraq. You
can talk about seafood. You know, there's a huge amount
of forced labor and slavery and seafood. If you eat
seafood on the regular, you're probably eating that. The same
vessels that operate as kind of floating prisons and mistreat
their workforce so badly, they also tend to be the
(14:38):
ones that are reaping the oceans, that are going into
marine protected areas, that are fishing juveniles out of season,
that are doing bottom trawling, that are basically deploying the
most ecologically harmful fishing techniques. Sometimes, you know, it's called
an environmental circles IU you fishing or pirate fishing, and
IU fishing stands for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. But
(15:06):
you know, you see it on land as you do
at sea. The companies that do the most deforestation for
palm oil typically also do land grabbing and grab indigenous
lands and violently repress local communities that stand up against
the deforestation, whether it's palm oil or cattle soil on land,
(15:27):
or seafood at sea, or Iraq or Gaza or pretty
much you you name it. Often environmental and human rights
crises go hand in hand, but so do the solutions.
That's the good news. Where maybe this is too dark
for I guess we've got to talk a little bit
(15:48):
about love and home here.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
We got to start somewhere. We've got to start somewhere.
So okay, so you met seafood, yes, palm oil, because.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Are some of the most destructive commodities that are very
commonly part of all of our lives, right, Like, people
probably don't know this, your listeners, some of them might.
But half of what you leave the supermarket with on average,
has palm oil in it.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Okay, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
It's in your chocolate, it's in your corn flakes, it's
in your shampoo, it's in your lipstick, it's in your detergent,
it's in your cartridge. Palm oil is just ubiquitous. It's
in your ice cream. It's all over the place.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
It's in your ice cream. And so.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
This is being done. You mentioned slavery, slavery, deforestation, land grabbing,
illegal activity, and that's just because they get away with it.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
So let me make a small paranthetical caveat there, which
is the palm oil industry used to be more known
for like debt bondage than for actual modern slavery. So
it had problems of debt bondage and union investing and
child labor and rape and other forms of SGBV sexual
(17:07):
gender based violence against women palm workers palm oil workers,
rather than like straight up slavery. But yeah, it was
known for really problematical late labor abuses and indigenous land
grabbing and deforestation. I will say that in the last
seventeen years, the palm oil industry has immensely improved. It's
(17:28):
like night and day. It is so much better. And
that's not an accident. It's not just like l L
la la la, and unicorns came and the palmer industry
got better. And Harry Potter is you know, now going
to Hogwarts and you know, real school. No, it's this
happened because of hard fought campaigns run by many angos,
(17:48):
and they managed to mobilize media attention and political attention.
And now the palm oil industry is just night and day,
much improved, labor issues, much improved when it comes to
land grabbing, way way better on deforestation, a lot less
peak draining. They you know, by and large, almost all
the industries committed to stopping forest fires. They used to
like forest fires like crazy arsivists.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Wow, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
But it's getting better, much better, immeasurably better. So that's
prove you can change an industry, you can make an
industry so much better.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Well, I guess that really segues well into our next topic,
which is coffee. We first talked about your concerns about
the coffee industry, And I said, but everybody drinks coffee,
(18:47):
and nobody wants to know about all these things that
you're concerned about, because every morning I'm being told I
can't talk to certain people until they've had their coffee,
and we can't have a conversation until that cup has
been at least maybe like half consumed with coffee. And
(19:12):
so you have to tell me, one, how did you
get into looking into the coffee industry as having these problems?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
What have you seen and what should we know about this.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Large, I mean very profitable industry that is in all
of our lives.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeah. Well, I'm an endless optimist. I'm like a cup
huff full person or a mug hulf full person if
you wish, because we're talking about coffee. But I've always
wanted to work on things that are absolutely terrible because
I truly think we can make them better. So whether
it's you know, World War two devastated Europe and now look,
Europe is so much better off, or you know Cambodi
(19:58):
and genocide ra Cambodia, and Cambodia has immeasurably improved. Still
got lots of problems. Resist dictator in charge, but immeasurably improved. Right,
all these places that had cataclysmic human rights abuses really
ruining those societies they can change. And industries that have
been destroying our natural environment that are like the worst
(20:19):
industries for forests or for the planet, they can change. Right.
We can kick our fossil fuel addiction and move to
renewable energies. We don't have to have stupid, old school,
dumb dumb cars. We can have smart evs.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
We can switch from silly old housing to passive housing.
We can, and we are on track to doing a
lot of really great things in the world. And coffee
drew me because it's absolutely terrible and it can be
so much better, and basically nobody's working on it. And
it may come as a shock to your listeners that
(20:52):
like around two percent of global filanthropic giving goes to
the climate crisis that we're in, maybe three percent if
you define it very loosey gusy generously, which is weird
because we are in a you know, climate crisis that
is potentially going to make human civilization collapse. So odd
that we're not putting money into that. Instead, we're putting
(21:14):
it into opera, so we can fiddle while the world
burns or whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
You no neuro style.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
But so, you know, climate's kind of the orphan of
global philanthropy, and so I'm very drawn to working on
climate and the biodiversity crisis that we're because you know,
we're in a mass extinction that's like the hallmark of
the age of the anthropasy. And is this mass extinction
that we've triggered. We're like worse than the comet that
wiped out the dinosaurs. Problems et on that level. But
(21:40):
eighty percent of biodiversity lass.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Comes from agriculture, Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And only eight percent of the two percent that I
was talking about, Only eight percent of the two percent
of money that goes from philanthropics giving to climate work
goes to fixing agg which is insane. We're in a
mass extinction, but we're putting almost nothing into that fixing it, right,
So that really drew me to wanting to work on agriculture,
which is a third of climate change and eighty percent
(22:07):
of mass extinction. And within that realm of big agg
there are a lot of spaces that are appalling and terrible,
like palm oil and cattle and soy. But I was
very drawn to working on coffee because I used to
work on all that other stuff that has more people
working on it, and there's just nobody working on deforestation
for coffee or trying to shift the industry really from
(22:31):
monoculture to agroforestry. So I thought, well, nobody wants to
do it. Let me use my knighthood for something good.
I will try to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Oh wow, so you took on coffee.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I thought, yes, I will try to take on the
coffee industry and see what happens.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
So what what have you seen in the coffee industry
that's appalling that we need to be fully aware of.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
It's the number six driver of deforestation in the world.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
In the world, So they're clearing force to plant coffee.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Correct, it's also a wash with pesticide soaked monoculture instead
of like regenerative igro forestry.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
But that makes it harder to grow coffee, doesn't it
when you use those kind of practices.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Look, in the short run, humanity is so addicted to pesticides, right.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
We are pesticides.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
We just love pesticides. We're in some kind of weird
love affair, and coffee is no exception. And you know,
when we look at how coffee is poisoning people and ecosystems,
conventional coffee is among the most heavily chemically treated foods
in the world, and many coffee growing countries use pesticides
(23:54):
that are banned banned in the United States and Europe
about like two hundred and fifty pounds applied per acre,
which is insane and stupid because of vanishingly small and
not actually directly targets pests, Like more than ninety percent
of the pesticide application is lost to the environment, which
(24:15):
means it's not even solving the pest problems that bedevil coffee.
It's just causing soil degradation and eCos of deterioration and
groundwater contamination and biodiversity laws. And I should add doesn't
just destroy ecosystems and contribute to the mass extinction that
we're in, it also really hurts workers. There's just like
(24:37):
one great survey that was done in twenty eleven. This
is super understudied, so there's not a lot of recent literature.
But in twenty eleven, in the key coffee growing heart
of Brazil, which is called Mina shit Ice, a coffee
worker survey found that fifty nine percent of workers experienced
at least one symptom of pesticide poisoning, that twenty one
(25:01):
agricultural workers in that state died from chemical poisoning in
twenty twelve. And that state is like the king of
coffee and Brazil, and there's not a lot of other
stuff grown there. It's really coffee, kind of like you know,
you think of peaches, they're in Doordia, oranges.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Soy in Iowa.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
I mean, that's today's coffee.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
And people are getting sick from prestige disposure while deforcing everything.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's only the people we know of, you know, the
bitter truth is it is probably worse than that, because
very few of the farm workers in Brazil have like
the resources and wherewithal an education to fight for their rights.
They overwhelmingly don't have any access to good medical treatment,
(25:48):
and their health problems often.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Aren't even really recorded because they just need the job.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Did you know that coffee is the top driver of
sleepy in Brazil a couple of years ago and is
generally considered to be one of the top drivers of
slavery in Brazil. You're in Europe, like workers in Brazil
do not have a lot of power in coffee. They're
very badly treated. Debt bondage, human trafficking. It's it's grim,
(26:20):
it's really grim.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Okay, we got to talk about a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
But just to say, like why is it that they
wouldn't go and see lots of doctors and get lots
of treatment, you know, I mean if you're in debt
bondage and you've been trafficked and you're like, you know,
earning zero basically.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, so you corrected me earlier.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
You said debt bondage in the palm or industry, but
you said slavery here.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yes, so people are being taken.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Trafficked. They're mostly tricked and trapped by what we would
call in America coyotas, but in Brazil you call them
got this. They bring you under false pregenses, get you
to sign these papers.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You and you're just working and just hold up in
a shack.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
They're in shocks that are like you know, basically made
for chickens and with like no running water, no toilets,
you know, bats and rots and cockroaches, and like it's
it's terrible, it's really it's it's really crazy. Yeah, between
(27:25):
nineteen ninety six and twenty twenty three, Brazilian Labor Inspection
Department forces found three thousand and seven hundred workers in
slave like conditions and coffee plantations throughout Brazil, and they
only investigated we think, zero point one percent of Brazilian farms.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So if you were going to do the math and
investigate one percent of Brazilian farms, would you find thirty
thousand slaves? Or if you're investigated ten percent of the farms,
you find three hundred thousand. You we don't know. Now
we've entered the realm of the hypothetical. But there are
(28:09):
over two hundred thousand coffee farms in Brazil that employ
roughly eight million farmers and farm workers. And some of
these farms are like gigantic immense. One farm allegedly makes
more coffee than all Olivia commanded. So there are small
family farms all over Brazil, but there's also these titanic
giant plantations.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Okay, but you just mentioned.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
There were Brazilian inspection forces, yes, that went in and
witness these conditions, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
I have to imaginate this something.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Yes, the three thousand, seven hundred that I mentioned people
who are who are found in modern slavery and freed.
They were freed by the fisket. So these Brazilian guys,
I mean, honestly, I'm so grateful that they came and
did their thing. But it's just that it's not enough.
(29:02):
Right if it' zero point one percent of the farms.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Right, clearly not.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
But could it be scaled and is there a possibility
for this that happen more broadly across the country.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
If the coffee industry wanted it to be done, it
could be done because they could pay for the fisketies
of sound to have enough money to do it. Or
what if they just all accepted that they were going
to pay a living wage to farm workers and a
living income price for coffee farmers. That would be enough
(29:34):
to probably completely flip the script for the whole coffee industry.
And I should just add there are virtually no coffee
farm workers in the entire world that earn a living
wage and almost no coffee farmers that have a living
income price. This is pretty serious because you have around
(29:55):
twenty five million coffee farmers and one hundred million farm workers,
so this is a lot of people we're screwing over
very deeply, earning like less than three dollars a day,
sometimes less than two dollars and fifteen cents a day.
That's the threshold the World banks. That's for extreme poverty.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Okay, well, hold on, hold on. We know this.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
We know this.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I mean even a general person knows that because we
have these these stickers on our packaging, and so we're
able to be able to purchase the coffee from the
places that do you know fair trade.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Fair trade does not guarantee a living wage or a
living income price. It does not pay it. Neither does Rainforest,
Neither does Rainforest Alliance, nor does cafe practices, which is
what Starbucks uses, or four C which is you know,
Nassli uses that a lot. We think eighty three percent
of four C maybe is for Nassi. But there are
(30:54):
no certifications in coffee today that pay a living wage
to farm workers, not a.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Single one, not one.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Not B Corporation. My wife likes an espresso, they do
B Corporation do.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Not pay a living wage or a living income price.
I'm really sorry. There's a lot of things that certifications
do that are better than nothing. Right, Like we talked
about how we're in a mass extinction, and a lot
of that is because of these agrochemicals, these pesticides and
the sexicides and funchicides that we're spring like or cuckoo
banana pants addicts. Right, So organic and that sense is
(31:30):
really nice because organic means we're not using poison. Yay,
no poison. It's kind of a low bar. But organic
doesn't look at other things. So organic doesn't even pretend
to pay a living income price for its coffee or
a living wage. They have no commitment.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Is there a certification that claims to at least none? None? None,
leslie imagine?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So what are they doing?
Speaker 3 (31:56):
They do different things, right, Like organic is actually chemical.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Free, so yeah, you no poison, fair trade.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
No frare trade, does not pay a living wage.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
For farm workers, so what are they doing.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
They do a lot of things to strengthen co ops
and help farmers to have more access to trainings. And
they're more or less traceable, not fully traceable because of
something called mass balance, but more traceable and more transparent
on that traceability, which is nice because transparency on traceability
(32:32):
is like kind of where you want to be. They
they're not a a for agrochemicals like organic would be,
but they're probably they could be plus on agrochemicals, so
it's way better than nothing. It's like, definitely not an
f on chemicals. I think they do a fair amount
on gender issues, like gender is a huge problem in coffee,
(32:55):
so a lot of inequality women get treated way worse,
they get less money, they get raved.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
It's bad.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
It's for investigating this right now. It's really grid So yeah,
it's a lot of things that different certifications try to do.
But let's see, it's kind of hegelty picklety. If you
asked me to sing the alphabet and I was like
abc Z, you would say that I'm illiterate, I would
I would right, and you would say like, that is
not the alphabet, And then you turn to another certification
(33:23):
they're like d e q rs. You'd be like, this
is not normal. Why are you're not singing the alphabet?
You should be traceable and paying a living income and
also no, Yeah, so the certification schemes are really hit
or miss and hegelty pickalty. They're unreliable, they're better than nothing.
Often they're way better than nothing, but it's disappointing. It's
(33:45):
very disappointing because I.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Mean, I knew for sure, like the Rainforest Alliance, it
gave me the impression that this coffee is coming from
these amazing environments and ecosystems that are well protected and
at the very least the coffee is being grown in
(34:08):
a sustainable manner, and we will call sustainable.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, I mean, Rainforest Alliance is a pretty good guaranteur
of no deforestation. It's a decent, albeit not perfect, guaranteur
of agro forestry as opposed to monoculture. Right, they really
promote agro forestry in their certification. It's maybe not like
an A plus agroforestry, the way the Smithsonian Bird Friendly
(34:34):
certification is an A plus on agroforestry, but Rainforest Alliance
could be seen as a B plus on agro forestry.
And then for chemicals it's not that bad. It's not
like an A the way Organic is for chemicals, or
fair Trade is maybe a B plus for chemicals, but
for coffee, Rainforest Aliance on chemicals maybe it's like a
B minus, which again is way way way better than enough. Right,
(34:57):
it's not an A, but it's way better than So
they have something on traceability. It's not perfect because of
mass balanced. But it's something they have, something on deforestation,
something on acroforestry, something on chemicals. They just don't pay
a living wage. They don't pay a living income price.
They don't insist that their workers should be allowed to
(35:19):
have a union. A lot of coffee workers cannot join
a union.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
If they do, they get killed, want to get killed
or put in jail.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yeah, So Vietnam is the number two coffee producing country
in the world. It makes me think maybe eighteen nineteen
percent of global coffee give or take depending on the year. Vietnam,
you are not allowed to have a union. If you
and I were Vietnamese coffee farmers and we tried to
start a union, we would I have in jail.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Would the government be doing that?
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yes, the government would put in jail and we might
get tortured and killed. China is the thirteenth coffee producer
in the world. We think arles, and they also are
not allowed to have unions. Almost all the coffee farmers
in China or in Unan, a lot of them are indigenous. Actually,
a lot of coffee farmers are also indigenous in the
(36:07):
Central Highlands region. So maybe it's like no accident that
all these indigenous people are being so deeply screwed. But
in China, if you and I were Chinese coffee farmers
and we tried to start a coffee like union, a
workers union, we would also end up in jail. In Columbia,
Columbia is the third biggest coffee producing country in the world,
is literally, bar none, the most dangerous place in the
(36:28):
world to be an organizer for a union, including like
a rural farm workers union. You just a lot of
people get killed and attacked and tortured and things for that.
Brazil is pretty rough to Brazils the top coffee producing country,
and a lot of environmental and human rights defenders are
under extremely severe attack. It's like tops the charts sort of.
(36:50):
Ye're in year out for attacks on environmental human rights
defenders and Boson, Natu and meh hollowed out the Brazilian unions,
including the coffee unions. They have yet to bounce back.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Wow. Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
If we were in Guatemala trying to do a union
for coffee, we'd probably get killed.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Okay, So I.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Mean, I don't know. Personally, I think it's really important
that workers be allowed to have a union, you know,
even if you don't want to be in a union.
People should be allowed to form unions to defend their rights,
and particularly when they are working and excruciating, backbreaking, difficult,
dangerous work that has really big problems.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Right, Yeah, so that's very important.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
I think.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I would agree.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I mean, any kind of mechanism that offers some type
of protection for somebody should at least be available.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
If you're in the US and you're in a union,
or somebody in your family is in a union, and
that like makes the difference for your financial bottom line
of your family, you should think twice about your coffee
because they kill union leaders for trying to organize workers
and coffee.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Okay, And so you saw all this, you know all this,
and so you started a company, a nonprofit, nonprofit coffee Watch.
And so this is a TELS saying, you know what,
we can make this better. I just spent the last
twenty minutes telling you how people get murdered for trying
(38:28):
to form a union. There's forced labored, there's trafficking, but
it can be better.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
I want to change all that.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
And so it's called coffee Watch. What does coffee Watch?
What's coffee Watch's mission what's the mission.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
To combat environmental and human rights abuses in the industry
and make the world better with every cup? I really
think we could have good coffee instead of don coffee.
I mean, we've just like chosen murdering union leaders coffee
instead of union proud coffee. We've chosen child they coffee
over kids go to school coffee, and rape coffee over
women in powerment coffee, and screwing the planet coffee over
(39:07):
a regenerative agro forestry with no deforestation. Why have we
chosen that? It's so random and silly and cuckoo. We
can totally choose better. We know how to do it.
It's like within our grasp and I am fighting for
that and I'm in it to win it, and I
totally think we can win. I think we can do.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
This, And so how are you going to do that?
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Like?
Speaker 2 (39:25):
What is the actual.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Approach to combating these injustice around the world in the
coffee industry?
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah? Well, I feel that I have been immensely lucky
in the past to have worked for two war crimes
tribunals for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty and green Peace
with Mighty Earth and National Wildlife Federation and along the way.
Each of those employers taught me so much about how
(39:55):
you can change an industry or government, whether it's with
better laws or better law enforcement. It's almost like I
got to work in all these different car garages and
I learned about all the toolboxes, you know, and if
you work in five different garages, you end up with, Wow, oh,
here's all the different tools that I can use. Then
(40:16):
even if you're going to go start a bicycle garage
or something, or a snowmobile garage, still you've learned all
those skills. So I'm all the skills that I picked
up in my previous work. I'm now trying to apply
that to coffee. So we started about ten months ago
and we have done four undercover investigations. We've published six reports.
(40:43):
We've launched litigation against some of the biggest coffee companies
in the world like Naslie, Starbucks, McDonald's, duncan Ill. We
have started working with investors to ask investors to pressure
coffee companies in their portfolio. We've started reporting crimes to
(41:04):
law enforcement agencies. We went from zero to a million
views on social media. I've never done social media before.
It's like not my thing. I'm trying to learn. It
was amazing team. That's curing me of my ludite sort
(41:25):
of idiocy when it comes to posting on social And yeah,
we have more undercover investigations planned. We have satellite mapping
that we've now conducted to find all the deforestation for
coffee in Brazil, and we're working on doing that for Vietnam,
which is the second biggest coffee producing country, for Columbia,
(41:46):
and for Indonesia, which are numbers three and four. So hopefully, yeah,
within one year of starting, we will have figured out
all the deforestation for coffee in the top for coffee
producing countries. That's about two thirds of the world's cffe
And we're going to keep suing and investigating and reporting
and posting until this changes.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
What kind of response have you gotten from your reports,
from your investigations from the people you're trying to influence.
This has just been a lot of negative pushback, a
lot of well thanks for sharing.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
It depends you know. The companies have answered most of
our reports by sort of just writing the usual corporate
twaddle I guess you could say, and not making any
big commitments to change, which is what I hope they
will do, because the second they do that, I will
(42:43):
stop bothering them and gore, drink margaritas on a beach
and never call them again. But look, you know we've
only been up for ten months, so maybe that's part
of it. We've exchanged messages with a lot of companies calls. Yeah,
I've yet to see any big change from the companies
On the media side. I mean, our stuff spend in
(43:06):
the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, I
use Topeople, lots of other outlets, probably thirty forty million
these from that. So at least I feel like we're
raising awareness in the media and on social media in
a way that hasn't been done yet for coffee so much.
(43:30):
And yeah, my father always says I embody the endless
tramp of optimism over experience. But I truly believe that
when people like wake up and smell the deforestation and
the modern slavery and child labor and other abuses, they'll
be like, this is not cool. I do not want
this in my coffee. I am going to do something
about it. And then they will go look at our
page and see all the different actions they can take,
(43:52):
and then maybe they will start to take action in
their own life and their community. And I really really
really think that's going to turn around the coffee industry.
And yeah, for governments, it's kind of in a mixed bag.
We published a report on abuses in China, no answer.
Published a report on abuses in Mexico. President talked about
(44:14):
our report in a big presidential press conference for several minutes.
That was kind of like cool, considering she has other
fish to fry with Trump tarts and whatnot. We published
reports about Brazil and Columbia, no answer from the government
at all. I think they're just hoping we'll go away,
(44:35):
and also they don't care.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, is there some kind of.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
International mechanism that could pressure some of the governments that
aren't really responding to what you're finding in their countries?
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Consumer pressure, for sure, consumer pressure. Consumers banning together to
demand something better. Oh my gosh. Companies freak out every
time when that happens, and so do producer governments.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Actually, okay, I mean that makes the most sense. Let
me ask you this, what would I wrote this question down?
What would a better coffee world look like to you?
Speaker 3 (45:27):
I think that world is maybe five years away, you know,
the palma industry has been transformed. There are so many
big positive changes that have swept so many industries that
it could happen in coffee. In five years. I dream
of an industry that's like nine traceable, committed to deforestation, fresourcing.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
What do you mean by traceable?
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Traceable that they know where their coffee is from. Most
companies don't know where their coffee is really from.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Oh, but they're the ones they produce.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
They buy it from somebody who bought it from somebody
who bought it, somebody who grew it. There's usually many
many middlemen.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
If I get marketplace and you're just buying it off
the shelf, if somebody else stocked.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Let me just check something here. I think there are
usually twenty intermediaries in traditional coffee systems between the farmer
and you. When you drink a coffee.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Wow, okay, so it's better world. The coffee is traceable.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
In this better world. Five years from now, we've achieved
ninety percent traceability. And because they fundamentally distrust a lot
of companies, they've made their traceable supply chains transparent and
searchable online. So there's traceability and transparency on that traceability
(46:54):
in that better world, all those companies have committed to
no deforestation world out robust satellite mapping monitoring, Like every
month they check all their coffee, which they now know
where it's from, so they can check it to see
it has got deforestation in it or not, with some
kind of rapid response mechanism where if an alert comes
(47:16):
up on your satellite map, boom, you do something about it.
In my dream world, the coffee industry now pays a
living wage to farm workers. All the certification schemes pay
a living wage and a living income price to farm
workers and farmers. In my dream world, there's been an
enormous push to allow unions and their unions slowly building
(47:38):
up all over the world to represent coffee farmers, and
those unions get some kind of seat at the table,
you know, they can defend their own rights. Yeah. In
my dream world, where we've shifted closer to organic, really
curbing and minimizing all that crazy pesticide use, especially HHPs,
(48:02):
just phasing out all the highly hazardous pesticides, none of them,
and minimizing the chemicals to really make sure you're using
only what you absolutely need, only when you absolutely need it,
and everything else is headed towards organic with integrated pest management.
(48:22):
That's my dream. I don't think that's too much to ask, right,
No poison, no slavery. Living income. Living income, by the way,
just to explain to people, which is literally exactly what
it sounds like. It means you can live on it.
It's not a dignity income. It's not a well being income.
You are not like food insecure and wearing rags in
a shack. It means you have basic housing, basic food,
(48:43):
basic accommodation. I think it's not too much to ask.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Now. I don't either.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
But the problem is I live in America, the United
States of America, and it feels like all we really
care about is the price of something. And I imagine
that the pushback. People wouldn't want to admit it. Oh,
(49:12):
I don't want to savor.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
You're right. I don't want this. I don't want this
to You're right.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
But they would also say, you know, Starbucks is already
five dollars a cup. I feel like a tael wants
me to pay ten.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
No, no, no, it costs two cents more per cup
to make it sustainable. All those things I talked about
is two.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Cents more for two cents. Yeah, that's good to know.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
It's it's not that the coffee needs to be a
lot more expensive. Actually, it's that the money in the
coffee has to go to the right place in a
better way right now. But one percent of the coffee
price is what farmers get. Farmers get one percent on
(50:03):
the coffee price. They get about zero point zero four
cents per cup. That's insane. Can we not pay them
one cent per cup?
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Let's pay them one cent per cup? Let's pay them
two cents per fing cup? Am I crazy?
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Here?
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Does that sound unachievable?
Speaker 4 (50:25):
And communist demise some kind of like raving foaming at
the mouth antifa communist terrorist because my mouth came from.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Where's that the money going? That's the that's the obvious question.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Oh, roasters. It goes to retailers. It goes to cover
like taxes and rent for cafes and all that beautiful decor.
And you know, she she fropthing machines and you're super
special like pumpkin spice. So we're basically having like frothed
(51:02):
pumpkin spicce with extra ice lighting at the expense of
child labor and slavery. And deforestation. Oh no, okay, other cluckers,
that's what I say.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
Okay, So I'm going to edit this episode. I'm going
to put it out. My wife's going to hear it,
and I'm going to say to her, what.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
You're going to say? All this stuff that you've just
learned that's bad about coffee, don't even spend one day
feeling anguished. Do not spiral into a downward doom loop.
The only reason I am telling this stuff to people
is because we can change the coffee industry. But I
(51:58):
need people to help me. I need them to lean in.
Go to coffeewatch dot org. You can click on volunteer,
you can click on how you can without even helping
coffee Watch in any way, become an ambassador for sustainable
coffee by doing screenings of films with your friends and
your family. Just like watch those films. There are films
(52:19):
that have great films that have been made about problems
and solutions and coffee. Spread the word buy from the heart,
buy responsibly. We have put a whole guide on how
to do that on our website. And if you manage
to change your coffee, that's amazing. But what if you
also managed to change the coffee at your university, at
(52:39):
your company, at your local library, or your brother in
law runs a restaurant, or you go all the time
to a cafe and you have his favorite cafe and
your friends with all the baristas and you talk to
the manager. You can change the coffee in your life.
You can be a super ninja for sustainability coffee. Obviously,
(53:01):
you can change your own coffee. That's like amazing, and yes,
please do that. But be a change agent, like, think
about all the coffee you've drunk your whole life. Don't
feel guilty you did not know, but use that rage
about what you've discovered to fuel a fiery fight in
your heart so that you can be a change agent.
(53:24):
And even if you don't want to change your coffee
because you're addicted to one specific kind of Duncan donuts,
frappucino whatever, or Starbucks, you know, machio whatever, I don't
even know what they're all called. I should because I
work in coffee. But if you are addicted to that
and it's really your thing, keep buying it. Post pictures
of yourself on social media every time you buy a cup,
(53:46):
and write a message to the company saying like, WTF, man,
when are you going to go deforestation free, traceable living income,
living wage unions. I'm really upset about what you are
doing and not doing, and as a loyal customer, like
I'm begging you, I'm asking you to do better. Companies
respond to that too. There's lots of petitions you can sign.
(54:07):
We put all of them on our website. We just
found all the best petitions that people have done around
the world to make coffee better. Petitions have power. Click
all those petitions takes yourly ten minutes of your life,
lots of things. People are amazingly empowered, assuming that your
listeners are not living in North Korea or like in
a gulag, and they have power.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
We have powered.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
You know, coffee companies have millions of dollars. We have
millions of good people walking this earth. We drink coffee.
Who can demand change? Do that? Just do it.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
That's exactly right, That is exactly right.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
I don't drink coffee, but I will share what I
know now and I'm going to try to do it.
Not in a shamy way, no, but I am going
to try to encourage people.
Speaker 3 (54:56):
No one should feel ashamed. Most people have no idea.
Lest thing most people have. No I didn't even know
what was wrong with coffee until I really started getting
ready to launch a coffee watch. Most people have no idea.
No one should feel ashamed or guilty. This is actually
an amazing opportunity. We have this gift, this power that's
(55:16):
been given to us by life. We're just lucky to
have this power. Let us use it. And you don't
have to be perfect from one day to the next.
Just set yourself these goals. This month, I will sign
all the petitions. Next month, I'm going to do my
research and figure out which ethical coffee I like. I'm
going to buy a whole bunch of samples and test it,
and then I'm going to order that so it will
come every month.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
To my house.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
The month after, I'm going to talk to all my
friends and family and my university or my office, you
know whatever. You just set yourself these goals. You don't
have to do it all at once, you know, just
work your way through. Be a coffee ninja for sustainability.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
Oh Man coffee ninja for sustainability. I like it. I
like it.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
No shame, no guilt, just power and action and hope
and love, because this is about love.
Speaker 2 (55:59):
You know.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
You talked about how you bring a cup of coffee
to your beloved partner every morning and how it makes
her day.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Like living ball.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
And you know often we have coffee with our friends
and our family. It is something that brings us together
in a space of love, and it can be an
expression of love for the planet and all the farmers
and farmworkers that were part of making it. It's our choice.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
Yeah, yeah, I like what you said too. Because we
have such much, so much invested in coffee. It's only
right to make sure that everybody enjoys life the way
we do when we have some. So I really do
appreciate that. And you know, we are out of time.
We could have kept going for so long. Thank you,
(56:48):
Thank you for being here o. I'm so grateful to you,
oh man.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
So give us the web address one more time.
Speaker 3 (56:58):
Coffee watch dot org. And then at the bottom of
our web page is all of our social media. You
can just click on whatever silly billionaires not to you,
Jason billionaire social media that you use.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
That's gonna be your next four ray in five years
as we fix the coffee industry. Oh man, Well, I
appreciate you so much, and I'm so thankful that you
took this hour to spend with us, share your knowledge,
your wisdom, your heart, your optimism. It's infectious. I'm feeling
better now that we talk. So we're gonna go out here.
(57:36):
We're gonna make this world a better place because of
what you've just shared. And like I tell all my guests,
you're welcome anytime. If you got another thing you want
to share, another venture. We want to be aware of
another book you're writing, let us know we'd love to
talk to you about it.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
I get your children. I love children voices. I hear
them very nice. Well, Attel, thank you so much for
being here.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
Thank you it was great.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Absolutely this has been another episode of the Environmental Justice Lab,
where we are for the people.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
And the planet. Thank you. Have a great day.
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab podcast. I'm your host,
doctor Leslie Joseph. Thank you so much for being here,
and we have a very special guest with us on
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We have it tell Hignet.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
She is a lot of amazing things that we're gonna
get into later, but for now, for this discussion, you
just need to know. She is the CEO of Coffee Watch,
So we're gonna be talking about coffee a lot on
this podcast episode.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
And tell how are you today?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm tickled to be here with you. Thank you so
much having me on her show.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for being here.
I'm so glad you're able to make it. And let's
just start off with a nice introduction. I read your profile.
Read your bio is very extensive. You have lots of experiences,
lots of education, lots of travel. What are some of
(01:23):
the things about you've done in the past that you
want us to know about you.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I think the one thing that's really something I would
love your listeners to know about me is that I've
pretty much dedicated my life to for human rights in
the environment. And yeah, I think that love is the
(01:49):
most important thing.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
That's kind of what gets me up in the morning
every day, and not just in my private life, you know,
because I adore my baby, and I love my husband,
who I think is probably the best husband in the world,
and like ninety nine point nine percent sure there's no
better husbands out there. But also because you know, the
whole reason I do what I do is that I
(02:17):
love Mother Earth, this beautiful planet that we're on. It's
so special, it's so amazing as we hurtle through this
immense universe. You know, how lucky are we to have
this fabulous, gorgeous planet that supports human life and all
these wonderful people walking the earth with us. You know,
they deserve all of our love and kindness because they're
(02:41):
just like us.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Really absolutely.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And so I had this idea of kind of walking
through your background in history, all the places that you've been,
things that you've done. But there was big news coming
out of Gaza and Israel in the Middle East to
have a cease fire and to return hostages, return Palestinian detainees,
(03:08):
to hopefully allow aid into the God's Strip. And I wonder,
from your perspective and from your experience, what your thoughts
are about disagreement, the prospects of peace moving forward, human rights,
environmental justice, environmental recovery because of so much devastation that's
(03:32):
taken place, And just give us your thoughts about that,
and if you've seen anything similar in the past that
we can kind of look to that help us understand
what's going on now.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah. Well, you know, I worked in a number of
war zones and post conflict areas as a human rights
researcher and advocate. You know, I worked into war crimes, trimnals,
one for Cambodia, genocide in Cambodina, one in Sierra Leone,
(04:03):
and worked at places like Iraq and Liberia, and I
recused Burma also known as Me and Marso I have seen, yeah,
many many atrocities that human beings have perpetrated against one another.
You know, my formative experience was really working in Guatemala
(04:25):
right after the Peace of Courts were signed, which kind
of ended this brutal civil war during which they did
have a genocide against the indigenous people of Guatemala. And
so I have worked a lot on genocide and I
truly believe that countries can bounce back from genocide and
(04:49):
from atrocities and war crimes and civil wars. I've seen,
you know, firsthand, how a country like SyRI Leon that
was just devastated has progressed so much, you know, or Guatemala.
Not that things are perfect in these places. I believe
that humanity has. We have the capacity to do unspeakably
(05:14):
awful things to one another. Amputations, rapes, beheadings, extra judicial executions, bombings,
hostage taking, disappearances. We can do all those things. But
we also can love, we can rebuild. And actually, the
truth is, it's so much harder to love than to hate,
(05:35):
and so much harder to rebuild than to destroy. And
it looks like sometimes the biggest, baddest, you know, most
powerful people are the destroyers and the haters and the killers.
But the real power, the real heroism, I think, is
in the rebuilding. So I mean, when I saw that
we've now had this return of the twenty living hostages,
(05:57):
it's Raeli hostages, and about two thousand Palestinians who've been
in prison in Israel were exchange, it felt like this
amazing moment, you know, just almost kind of tearing up
thinking about what it feels like for the family members
of those people to see them again, you know their moms.
I'm a mom, and I just imagine, Yeah, how incredible
(06:23):
it must be to see those beloved people again. Sorry,
that's just so stupid to be crying. But I am
also kind of close to this issue because my husband
plays a kind of important role in the United Nations
in bringing medical aid to places like emergencies like Gasa.
(06:48):
It's been so hard to bring aid to Gaza. You know,
people were starving, that almost the entire population of the
Gaza strip had acute food and security, and over six
hundred and forty thousand people were considered to be quote
in a catastrophic level you know, phase five as defined
by the IBC. So just knowing that aid can come back,
(07:11):
that food can can be food, and medical aid and
other emergency stuff can make it to the people who
need it in Gaza. This is so beautiful, so important,
But you know the real test is yet to come. Right,
It's going to be about fifty three billion dollars to
rebuild Gaza. And there's been essentially an ecoside in Gaza. Right,
(07:35):
we went from having like forty percent of Gaza land
farmed to now about one percent of Gosm land is
farmable one point five is accessible and undamaged.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So how are.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
People going to you know, rebuild not just schools and
hospitals and systems that allow for life to continue, but
also how are we going to rebuild a really broken ecosystem.
You know, we talk a lot about humans, but we
were very human centric. Because we're humans, we don't talk
(08:08):
a lot about nature. But what is going to be
done to both rebuild for people and to rebuild for nature.
These are immense pressing questions and will probably require millions
of people to lean in and help. So if your
listeners are out there, I would just urge them to
please think of whatever it is that you can do
and buckle up and get ready to help if you can.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, So when you think about disagreement the way forward,
you mentioned that countries can bounce back. It's possible to
re establish a society and a livable condition for the
people who've experienced these kinds of atrocities, have been on
the other side of this destruction. What would you say
(08:53):
is most needed, like in the immediate term and maybe
the medium term put us on that path.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Is it a government thing that United Nations come in?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Are there certain countries that get involved to have the
rebuilding done.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
What should happen.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
We will need to have the United Nations involved to
have a credible peacekeeping mission and stabilization force. That's really vital.
But you know, I would say, I mean food needs
to get in first, medicine, medical equipment. But in the
sort of medium term at the idea of assault on
(09:33):
Gaza caused to collapse in basically the wastewater treatment, so
we have like sewage flooding and poisoning the land and
coastal waters. And also, if I'm not mistaken, flooding the
tunnels with seawater. You know, idea flooded Hamas's tunnels with seawater,
(09:56):
which is understandable as a military tactic, but also it
means that there's at some point the aquifer is going
to become unusable. So there's basically people need water to live, right,
So yeah, figuring out sewage treatment and water for the
(10:18):
medium round this is absolutely vital.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And then.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, you know, we're we're in a situation where almost
everything has been destroyed, so all the schools and hospitals
and homes. I think the real question now is how
do we build back better? Can we build buildings that
are energy self sufficient, that recycle water and use minimal
water in an environment where there's so little water to
(10:47):
be had. What are all the things that we can
do too, you know, ensure that people don't die of
heat waves which are just getting worse all across them
at least obviously no, I should say around the world. Yeah,
it comes to theaters near you. But in then at
(11:08):
least heat is a particularly acute problem in the summer.
And so yeah, how do we you know, build passive houses,
houses that require ninety five percent less energy to stay cool.
How do we, you know, rebuild a gaza that can
function ecologically and that can sistin people.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, and I guess the last question on this. You
mentioned fifty three billion dollars to rebuild.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That's the estimated price tag.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, where's that money come from? Is that is like
a fund somewhere out there.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
There's going to have to be.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And then people put into it.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And people like you and me and also governments and
companies and mosques and churches can and synagogues, they can
all put money into fund to rebuild. So first we
have to have a real plan, right, an executable, viable
plan that all parties can agree to, and then we
need to have it be on the path towards being executed.
(12:15):
And then we have to have a place where the
money can go, you know, that's a safe, credible place.
And then yeah, we need people to dig very deep
and to help.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, I notice when you were talking about gods that
what needs to happen. You move very seamlessly between human
rights in the environment. You kind of talk about them interchangeably,
and it's hard to know which when we're talking about
the way you put them together.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is that how you see things? I do.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I think it's totally inextricably intertwined. And you know, the
moment when I realized that human rights and environmental issues
are so intertwined, it hit me like a freight truck.
I was working in Iraq and there had been a
kind of genocide perpetrated by Saddam's forces against Shia Iraqis
(13:09):
in the south, and in particular, Saddam and his troops
had drained this entire wetland system, this enormous ecosystem, just
in order to really be able to hunt down and
punish and kill essentially what they considered to be an
irridentist threat, and it was an ecological cataclysm of epic
(13:31):
proportions for the entire sub region. It up ended the
rainfall and just a disaster. I won't even go to
all the details. It was terrible, but it went hand
in hand with this wildly brutal repression by Saddam's forces
of the Shia. You know, they had tanks rolling into
places like Karabella with banners saying no more she after today.
(13:54):
They raped people, they killed people, They put people in
vats of acid. You know, they killed family members in
front of Okay, it's two groom. I think for this
podcast we don't need to go into all the details.
But the point is the environmental and the human rights
problems we're very intertwined. That's when I it clicked for me.
(14:14):
But we don't have to talk about kaza Iraq. You
can talk about seafood. You know, there's a huge amount
of forced labor and slavery and seafood. If you eat
seafood on the regular, you're probably eating that. The same
vessels that operate as kind of floating prisons and mistreat
their workforce so badly, they also tend to be the
(14:38):
ones that are reaping the oceans, that are going into
marine protected areas, that are fishing juveniles out of season,
that are doing bottom trawling, that are basically deploying the
most ecologically harmful fishing techniques. Sometimes, you know, it's called
an environmental circles IU you fishing or pirate fishing, and
IU fishing stands for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. But
(15:06):
you know, you see it on land as you do
at sea. The companies that do the most deforestation for
palm oil typically also do land grabbing and grab indigenous
lands and violently repress local communities that stand up against
the deforestation, whether it's palm oil or cattle soil on land,
(15:27):
or seafood at sea, or Iraq or Gaza or pretty
much you you name it. Often environmental and human rights
crises go hand in hand, but so do the solutions.
That's the good news. Where maybe this is too dark
for I guess we've got to talk a little bit
(15:48):
about love and home here.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
We got to start somewhere. We've got to start somewhere.
So okay, so you met seafood, yes, palm oil, because.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Are some of the most destructive commodities that are very
commonly part of all of our lives, right, Like, people
probably don't know this, your listeners, some of them might.
But half of what you leave the supermarket with on average,
has palm oil in it.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Okay, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
It's in your chocolate, it's in your corn flakes, it's
in your shampoo, it's in your lipstick, it's in your detergent,
it's in your cartridge. Palm oil is just ubiquitous. It's
in your ice cream. It's all over the place.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
It's in your ice cream. And so.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
This is being done. You mentioned slavery, slavery, deforestation, land grabbing,
illegal activity, and that's just because they get away with it.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
So let me make a small paranthetical caveat there, which
is the palm oil industry used to be more known
for like debt bondage than for actual modern slavery. So
it had problems of debt bondage and union investing and
child labor and rape and other forms of SGBV sexual
(17:07):
gender based violence against women palm workers palm oil workers,
rather than like straight up slavery. But yeah, it was
known for really problematical late labor abuses and indigenous land
grabbing and deforestation. I will say that in the last
seventeen years, the palm oil industry has immensely improved. It's
(17:28):
like night and day. It is so much better. And
that's not an accident. It's not just like l L
la la la, and unicorns came and the palmer industry
got better. And Harry Potter is you know, now going
to Hogwarts and you know, real school. No, it's this
happened because of hard fought campaigns run by many angos,
(17:48):
and they managed to mobilize media attention and political attention.
And now the palm oil industry is just night and day,
much improved, labor issues, much improved when it comes to
land grabbing, way way better on deforestation, a lot less
peak draining. They you know, by and large, almost all
the industries committed to stopping forest fires. They used to
like forest fires like crazy arsivists.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Wow, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
But it's getting better, much better, immeasurably better. So that's
prove you can change an industry, you can make an
industry so much better.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Well, I guess that really segues well into our next topic,
which is coffee. We first talked about your concerns about
the coffee industry, And I said, but everybody drinks coffee,
(18:47):
and nobody wants to know about all these things that
you're concerned about, because every morning I'm being told I
can't talk to certain people until they've had their coffee,
and we can't have a conversation until that cup has
been at least maybe like half consumed with coffee. And
(19:12):
so you have to tell me, one, how did you
get into looking into the coffee industry as having these problems?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
What have you seen and what should we know about this.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Large, I mean very profitable industry that is in all
of our lives.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeah. Well, I'm an endless optimist. I'm like a cup
huff full person or a mug hulf full person if
you wish, because we're talking about coffee. But I've always
wanted to work on things that are absolutely terrible because
I truly think we can make them better. So whether
it's you know, World War two devastated Europe and now look,
Europe is so much better off, or you know Cambodi
(19:58):
and genocide ra Cambodia, and Cambodia has immeasurably improved. Still
got lots of problems. Resist dictator in charge, but immeasurably improved. Right,
all these places that had cataclysmic human rights abuses really
ruining those societies they can change. And industries that have
been destroying our natural environment that are like the worst
(20:19):
industries for forests or for the planet, they can change. Right.
We can kick our fossil fuel addiction and move to
renewable energies. We don't have to have stupid, old school,
dumb dumb cars. We can have smart evs.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
We can switch from silly old housing to passive housing.
We can, and we are on track to doing a
lot of really great things in the world. And coffee
drew me because it's absolutely terrible and it can be
so much better, and basically nobody's working on it. And
it may come as a shock to your listeners that
(20:52):
like around two percent of global filanthropic giving goes to
the climate crisis that we're in, maybe three percent if
you define it very loosey gusy generously, which is weird
because we are in a you know, climate crisis that
is potentially going to make human civilization collapse. So odd
that we're not putting money into that. Instead, we're putting
(21:14):
it into opera, so we can fiddle while the world
burns or whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
You no neuro style.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
But so, you know, climate's kind of the orphan of
global philanthropy, and so I'm very drawn to working on
climate and the biodiversity crisis that we're because you know,
we're in a mass extinction that's like the hallmark of
the age of the anthropasy. And is this mass extinction
that we've triggered. We're like worse than the comet that
wiped out the dinosaurs. Problems et on that level. But
(21:40):
eighty percent of biodiversity lass.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Comes from agriculture, Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And only eight percent of the two percent that I
was talking about, Only eight percent of the two percent
of money that goes from philanthropics giving to climate work
goes to fixing agg which is insane. We're in a
mass extinction, but we're putting almost nothing into that fixing it, right,
So that really drew me to wanting to work on agriculture,
which is a third of climate change and eighty percent
(22:07):
of mass extinction. And within that realm of big agg
there are a lot of spaces that are appalling and terrible,
like palm oil and cattle and soy. But I was
very drawn to working on coffee because I used to
work on all that other stuff that has more people
working on it, and there's just nobody working on deforestation
for coffee or trying to shift the industry really from
(22:31):
monoculture to agroforestry. So I thought, well, nobody wants to
do it. Let me use my knighthood for something good.
I will try to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Oh wow, so you took on coffee.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I thought, yes, I will try to take on the
coffee industry and see what happens.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
So what what have you seen in the coffee industry
that's appalling that we need to be fully aware of.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
It's the number six driver of deforestation in the world.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
In the world, So they're clearing force to plant coffee.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Correct, it's also a wash with pesticide soaked monoculture instead
of like regenerative igro forestry.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
But that makes it harder to grow coffee, doesn't it
when you use those kind of practices.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Look, in the short run, humanity is so addicted to pesticides, right.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
We are pesticides.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
We just love pesticides. We're in some kind of weird
love affair, and coffee is no exception. And you know,
when we look at how coffee is poisoning people and ecosystems,
conventional coffee is among the most heavily chemically treated foods
in the world, and many coffee growing countries use pesticides
(23:54):
that are banned banned in the United States and Europe
about like two hundred and fifty pounds applied per acre,
which is insane and stupid because of vanishingly small and
not actually directly targets pests, Like more than ninety percent
of the pesticide application is lost to the environment, which
(24:15):
means it's not even solving the pest problems that bedevil coffee.
It's just causing soil degradation and eCos of deterioration and
groundwater contamination and biodiversity laws. And I should add doesn't
just destroy ecosystems and contribute to the mass extinction that
we're in, it also really hurts workers. There's just like
(24:37):
one great survey that was done in twenty eleven. This
is super understudied, so there's not a lot of recent literature.
But in twenty eleven, in the key coffee growing heart
of Brazil, which is called Mina shit Ice, a coffee
worker survey found that fifty nine percent of workers experienced
at least one symptom of pesticide poisoning, that twenty one
(25:01):
agricultural workers in that state died from chemical poisoning in
twenty twelve. And that state is like the king of
coffee and Brazil, and there's not a lot of other
stuff grown there. It's really coffee, kind of like you know,
you think of peaches, they're in Doordia, oranges.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Soy in Iowa.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
I mean, that's today's coffee.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
And people are getting sick from prestige disposure while deforcing everything.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's only the people we know of, you know, the
bitter truth is it is probably worse than that, because
very few of the farm workers in Brazil have like
the resources and wherewithal an education to fight for their rights.
They overwhelmingly don't have any access to good medical treatment,
(25:48):
and their health problems often.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Aren't even really recorded because they just need the job.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Did you know that coffee is the top driver of
sleepy in Brazil a couple of years ago and is
generally considered to be one of the top drivers of
slavery in Brazil. You're in Europe, like workers in Brazil
do not have a lot of power in coffee. They're
very badly treated. Debt bondage, human trafficking. It's it's grim,
(26:20):
it's really grim.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Okay, we got to talk about a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
But just to say, like why is it that they
wouldn't go and see lots of doctors and get lots
of treatment, you know, I mean if you're in debt
bondage and you've been trafficked and you're like, you know,
earning zero basically.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, so you corrected me earlier.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
You said debt bondage in the palm or industry, but
you said slavery here.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yes, so people are being taken.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Trafficked. They're mostly tricked and trapped by what we would
call in America coyotas, but in Brazil you call them
got this. They bring you under false pregenses, get you
to sign these papers.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You and you're just working and just hold up in
a shack.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
They're in shocks that are like you know, basically made
for chickens and with like no running water, no toilets,
you know, bats and rots and cockroaches, and like it's
it's terrible, it's really it's it's really crazy. Yeah, between
(27:25):
nineteen ninety six and twenty twenty three, Brazilian Labor Inspection
Department forces found three thousand and seven hundred workers in
slave like conditions and coffee plantations throughout Brazil, and they
only investigated we think, zero point one percent of Brazilian farms.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So if you were going to do the math and
investigate one percent of Brazilian farms, would you find thirty
thousand slaves? Or if you're investigated ten percent of the farms,
you find three hundred thousand. You we don't know. Now
we've entered the realm of the hypothetical. But there are
(28:09):
over two hundred thousand coffee farms in Brazil that employ
roughly eight million farmers and farm workers. And some of
these farms are like gigantic immense. One farm allegedly makes
more coffee than all Olivia commanded. So there are small
family farms all over Brazil, but there's also these titanic
giant plantations.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Okay, but you just mentioned.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
There were Brazilian inspection forces, yes, that went in and
witness these conditions, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
I have to imaginate this something.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Yes, the three thousand, seven hundred that I mentioned people
who are who are found in modern slavery and freed.
They were freed by the fisket. So these Brazilian guys,
I mean, honestly, I'm so grateful that they came and
did their thing. But it's just that it's not enough.
(29:02):
Right if it' zero point one percent of the farms.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Right, clearly not.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
But could it be scaled and is there a possibility
for this that happen more broadly across the country.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
If the coffee industry wanted it to be done, it
could be done because they could pay for the fisketies
of sound to have enough money to do it. Or
what if they just all accepted that they were going
to pay a living wage to farm workers and a
living income price for coffee farmers. That would be enough
(29:34):
to probably completely flip the script for the whole coffee industry.
And I should just add there are virtually no coffee
farm workers in the entire world that earn a living
wage and almost no coffee farmers that have a living
income price. This is pretty serious because you have around
(29:55):
twenty five million coffee farmers and one hundred million farm workers,
so this is a lot of people we're screwing over
very deeply, earning like less than three dollars a day,
sometimes less than two dollars and fifteen cents a day.
That's the threshold the World banks. That's for extreme poverty.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Okay, well, hold on, hold on. We know this.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
We know this.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I mean even a general person knows that because we
have these these stickers on our packaging, and so we're
able to be able to purchase the coffee from the
places that do you know fair trade.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Fair trade does not guarantee a living wage or a
living income price. It does not pay it. Neither does Rainforest,
Neither does Rainforest Alliance, nor does cafe practices, which is
what Starbucks uses, or four C which is you know,
Nassli uses that a lot. We think eighty three percent
of four C maybe is for Nassi. But there are
(30:54):
no certifications in coffee today that pay a living wage
to farm workers, not a.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Single one, not one.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Not B Corporation. My wife likes an espresso, they do
B Corporation do.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Not pay a living wage or a living income price.
I'm really sorry. There's a lot of things that certifications
do that are better than nothing. Right, Like we talked
about how we're in a mass extinction, and a lot
of that is because of these agrochemicals, these pesticides and
the sexicides and funchicides that we're spring like or cuckoo
banana pants addicts. Right, So organic and that sense is
(31:30):
really nice because organic means we're not using poison. Yay,
no poison. It's kind of a low bar. But organic
doesn't look at other things. So organic doesn't even pretend
to pay a living income price for its coffee or
a living wage. They have no commitment.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Is there a certification that claims to at least none? None? None,
leslie imagine?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So what are they doing?
Speaker 3 (31:56):
They do different things, right, Like organic is actually chemical.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Free, so yeah, you no poison, fair trade.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
No frare trade, does not pay a living wage.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
For farm workers, so what are they doing.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
They do a lot of things to strengthen co ops
and help farmers to have more access to trainings. And
they're more or less traceable, not fully traceable because of
something called mass balance, but more traceable and more transparent
on that traceability, which is nice because transparency on traceability
(32:32):
is like kind of where you want to be. They
they're not a a for agrochemicals like organic would be,
but they're probably they could be plus on agrochemicals, so
it's way better than nothing. It's like, definitely not an
f on chemicals. I think they do a fair amount
on gender issues, like gender is a huge problem in coffee,
(32:55):
so a lot of inequality women get treated way worse,
they get less money, they get raved.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
It's bad.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
It's for investigating this right now. It's really grid So yeah,
it's a lot of things that different certifications try to do.
But let's see, it's kind of hegelty picklety. If you
asked me to sing the alphabet and I was like
abc Z, you would say that I'm illiterate, I would
I would right, and you would say like, that is
not the alphabet, And then you turn to another certification
(33:23):
they're like d e q rs. You'd be like, this
is not normal. Why are you're not singing the alphabet?
You should be traceable and paying a living income and
also no, Yeah, so the certification schemes are really hit
or miss and hegelty pickalty. They're unreliable, they're better than nothing.
Often they're way better than nothing, but it's disappointing. It's
(33:45):
very disappointing because I.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Mean, I knew for sure, like the Rainforest Alliance, it
gave me the impression that this coffee is coming from
these amazing environments and ecosystems that are well protected and
at the very least the coffee is being grown in
(34:08):
a sustainable manner, and we will call sustainable.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, I mean, Rainforest Alliance is a pretty good guaranteur
of no deforestation. It's a decent, albeit not perfect, guaranteur
of agro forestry as opposed to monoculture. Right, they really
promote agro forestry in their certification. It's maybe not like
an A plus agroforestry, the way the Smithsonian Bird Friendly
(34:34):
certification is an A plus on agroforestry, but Rainforest Alliance
could be seen as a B plus on agro forestry.
And then for chemicals it's not that bad. It's not
like an A the way Organic is for chemicals, or
fair Trade is maybe a B plus for chemicals, but
for coffee, Rainforest Aliance on chemicals maybe it's like a
B minus, which again is way way way better than enough. Right,
(34:57):
it's not an A, but it's way better than So
they have something on traceability. It's not perfect because of
mass balanced. But it's something they have, something on deforestation,
something on acroforestry, something on chemicals. They just don't pay
a living wage. They don't pay a living income price.
They don't insist that their workers should be allowed to
(35:19):
have a union. A lot of coffee workers cannot join
a union.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
If they do, they get killed, want to get killed
or put in jail.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yeah, So Vietnam is the number two coffee producing country
in the world. It makes me think maybe eighteen nineteen
percent of global coffee give or take depending on the year. Vietnam,
you are not allowed to have a union. If you
and I were Vietnamese coffee farmers and we tried to
start a union, we would I have in jail.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Would the government be doing that?
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yes, the government would put in jail and we might
get tortured and killed. China is the thirteenth coffee producer
in the world. We think arles, and they also are
not allowed to have unions. Almost all the coffee farmers
in China or in Unan, a lot of them are indigenous. Actually,
a lot of coffee farmers are also indigenous in the
(36:07):
Central Highlands region. So maybe it's like no accident that
all these indigenous people are being so deeply screwed. But
in China, if you and I were Chinese coffee farmers
and we tried to start a coffee like union, a
workers union, we would also end up in jail. In Columbia,
Columbia is the third biggest coffee producing country in the world,
is literally, bar none, the most dangerous place in the
(36:28):
world to be an organizer for a union, including like
a rural farm workers union. You just a lot of
people get killed and attacked and tortured and things for that.
Brazil is pretty rough to Brazils the top coffee producing country,
and a lot of environmental and human rights defenders are
under extremely severe attack. It's like tops the charts sort of.
(36:50):
Ye're in year out for attacks on environmental human rights
defenders and Boson, Natu and meh hollowed out the Brazilian unions,
including the coffee unions. They have yet to bounce back.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Wow. Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
If we were in Guatemala trying to do a union
for coffee, we'd probably get killed.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Okay, So I.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Mean, I don't know. Personally, I think it's really important
that workers be allowed to have a union, you know,
even if you don't want to be in a union.
People should be allowed to form unions to defend their rights,
and particularly when they are working and excruciating, backbreaking, difficult,
dangerous work that has really big problems.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Right, Yeah, so that's very important.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
I think.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I would agree.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I mean, any kind of mechanism that offers some type
of protection for somebody should at least be available.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
If you're in the US and you're in a union,
or somebody in your family is in a union, and
that like makes the difference for your financial bottom line
of your family, you should think twice about your coffee
because they kill union leaders for trying to organize workers
and coffee.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Okay, And so you saw all this, you know all this,
and so you started a company, a nonprofit, nonprofit coffee Watch.
And so this is a TELS saying, you know what,
we can make this better. I just spent the last
twenty minutes telling you how people get murdered for trying
(38:28):
to form a union. There's forced labored, there's trafficking, but
it can be better.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
I want to change all that.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
And so it's called coffee Watch. What does coffee Watch?
What's coffee Watch's mission what's the mission.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
To combat environmental and human rights abuses in the industry
and make the world better with every cup? I really
think we could have good coffee instead of don coffee.
I mean, we've just like chosen murdering union leaders coffee
instead of union proud coffee. We've chosen child they coffee
over kids go to school coffee, and rape coffee over
women in powerment coffee, and screwing the planet coffee over
(39:07):
a regenerative agro forestry with no deforestation. Why have we
chosen that? It's so random and silly and cuckoo. We
can totally choose better. We know how to do it.
It's like within our grasp and I am fighting for
that and I'm in it to win it, and I
totally think we can win. I think we can do.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
This, And so how are you going to do that?
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Like?
Speaker 2 (39:25):
What is the actual.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Approach to combating these injustice around the world in the
coffee industry?
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah? Well, I feel that I have been immensely lucky
in the past to have worked for two war crimes
tribunals for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty and green Peace
with Mighty Earth and National Wildlife Federation and along the way.
Each of those employers taught me so much about how
(39:55):
you can change an industry or government, whether it's with
better laws or better law enforcement. It's almost like I
got to work in all these different car garages and
I learned about all the toolboxes, you know, and if
you work in five different garages, you end up with, Wow, oh,
here's all the different tools that I can use. Then
(40:16):
even if you're going to go start a bicycle garage
or something, or a snowmobile garage, still you've learned all
those skills. So I'm all the skills that I picked
up in my previous work. I'm now trying to apply
that to coffee. So we started about ten months ago
and we have done four undercover investigations. We've published six reports.
(40:43):
We've launched litigation against some of the biggest coffee companies
in the world like Naslie, Starbucks, McDonald's, duncan Ill. We
have started working with investors to ask investors to pressure
coffee companies in their portfolio. We've started reporting crimes to
(41:04):
law enforcement agencies. We went from zero to a million
views on social media. I've never done social media before.
It's like not my thing. I'm trying to learn. It
was amazing team. That's curing me of my ludite sort
(41:25):
of idiocy when it comes to posting on social And yeah,
we have more undercover investigations planned. We have satellite mapping
that we've now conducted to find all the deforestation for
coffee in Brazil, and we're working on doing that for Vietnam,
which is the second biggest coffee producing country, for Columbia,
(41:46):
and for Indonesia, which are numbers three and four. So hopefully, yeah,
within one year of starting, we will have figured out
all the deforestation for coffee in the top for coffee
producing countries. That's about two thirds of the world's cffe
And we're going to keep suing and investigating and reporting
and posting until this changes.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
What kind of response have you gotten from your reports,
from your investigations from the people you're trying to influence.
This has just been a lot of negative pushback, a
lot of well thanks for sharing.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
It depends you know. The companies have answered most of
our reports by sort of just writing the usual corporate
twaddle I guess you could say, and not making any
big commitments to change, which is what I hope they
will do, because the second they do that, I will
(42:43):
stop bothering them and gore, drink margaritas on a beach
and never call them again. But look, you know we've
only been up for ten months, so maybe that's part
of it. We've exchanged messages with a lot of companies calls. Yeah,
I've yet to see any big change from the companies
On the media side. I mean, our stuff spend in
(43:06):
the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, I
use Topeople, lots of other outlets, probably thirty forty million
these from that. So at least I feel like we're
raising awareness in the media and on social media in
a way that hasn't been done yet for coffee so much.
(43:30):
And yeah, my father always says I embody the endless
tramp of optimism over experience. But I truly believe that
when people like wake up and smell the deforestation and
the modern slavery and child labor and other abuses, they'll
be like, this is not cool. I do not want
this in my coffee. I am going to do something
about it. And then they will go look at our
page and see all the different actions they can take,
(43:52):
and then maybe they will start to take action in
their own life and their community. And I really really
really think that's going to turn around the coffee industry.
And yeah, for governments, it's kind of in a mixed bag.
We published a report on abuses in China, no answer.
Published a report on abuses in Mexico. President talked about
(44:14):
our report in a big presidential press conference for several minutes.
That was kind of like cool, considering she has other
fish to fry with Trump tarts and whatnot. We published
reports about Brazil and Columbia, no answer from the government
at all. I think they're just hoping we'll go away,
(44:35):
and also they don't care.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, is there some kind of.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
International mechanism that could pressure some of the governments that
aren't really responding to what you're finding in their countries?
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Consumer pressure, for sure, consumer pressure. Consumers banning together to
demand something better. Oh my gosh. Companies freak out every
time when that happens, and so do producer governments.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Actually, okay, I mean that makes the most sense. Let
me ask you this, what would I wrote this question down?
What would a better coffee world look like to you?
Speaker 3 (45:27):
I think that world is maybe five years away, you know,
the palma industry has been transformed. There are so many
big positive changes that have swept so many industries that
it could happen in coffee. In five years. I dream
of an industry that's like nine traceable, committed to deforestation, fresourcing.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
What do you mean by traceable?
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Traceable that they know where their coffee is from. Most
companies don't know where their coffee is really from.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Oh, but they're the ones they produce.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
They buy it from somebody who bought it from somebody
who bought it, somebody who grew it. There's usually many
many middlemen.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
If I get marketplace and you're just buying it off
the shelf, if somebody else stocked.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Let me just check something here. I think there are
usually twenty intermediaries in traditional coffee systems between the farmer
and you. When you drink a coffee.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Wow, okay, so it's better world. The coffee is traceable.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
In this better world. Five years from now, we've achieved
ninety percent traceability. And because they fundamentally distrust a lot
of companies, they've made their traceable supply chains transparent and
searchable online. So there's traceability and transparency on that traceability
(46:54):
in that better world, all those companies have committed to
no deforestation world out robust satellite mapping monitoring, Like every
month they check all their coffee, which they now know
where it's from, so they can check it to see
it has got deforestation in it or not, with some
kind of rapid response mechanism where if an alert comes
(47:16):
up on your satellite map, boom, you do something about it.
In my dream world, the coffee industry now pays a
living wage to farm workers. All the certification schemes pay
a living wage and a living income price to farm
workers and farmers. In my dream world, there's been an
enormous push to allow unions and their unions slowly building
(47:38):
up all over the world to represent coffee farmers, and
those unions get some kind of seat at the table,
you know, they can defend their own rights. Yeah. In
my dream world, where we've shifted closer to organic, really
curbing and minimizing all that crazy pesticide use, especially HHPs,
(48:02):
just phasing out all the highly hazardous pesticides, none of them,
and minimizing the chemicals to really make sure you're using
only what you absolutely need, only when you absolutely need it,
and everything else is headed towards organic with integrated pest management.
(48:22):
That's my dream. I don't think that's too much to ask, right,
No poison, no slavery. Living income. Living income, by the way,
just to explain to people, which is literally exactly what
it sounds like. It means you can live on it.
It's not a dignity income. It's not a well being income.
You are not like food insecure and wearing rags in
a shack. It means you have basic housing, basic food,
(48:43):
basic accommodation. I think it's not too much to ask.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Now. I don't either.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
But the problem is I live in America, the United
States of America, and it feels like all we really
care about is the price of something. And I imagine
that the pushback. People wouldn't want to admit it. Oh,
(49:12):
I don't want to savor.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
You're right. I don't want this. I don't want this
to You're right.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
But they would also say, you know, Starbucks is already
five dollars a cup. I feel like a tael wants
me to pay ten.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
No, no, no, it costs two cents more per cup
to make it sustainable. All those things I talked about
is two.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Cents more for two cents. Yeah, that's good to know.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
It's it's not that the coffee needs to be a
lot more expensive. Actually, it's that the money in the
coffee has to go to the right place in a
better way right now. But one percent of the coffee
price is what farmers get. Farmers get one percent on
(50:03):
the coffee price. They get about zero point zero four
cents per cup. That's insane. Can we not pay them
one cent per cup?
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Let's pay them one cent per cup? Let's pay them
two cents per fing cup? Am I crazy?
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Here?
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Does that sound unachievable?
Speaker 4 (50:25):
And communist demise some kind of like raving foaming at
the mouth antifa communist terrorist because my mouth came from.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Where's that the money going? That's the that's the obvious question.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Oh, roasters. It goes to retailers. It goes to cover
like taxes and rent for cafes and all that beautiful decor.
And you know, she she fropthing machines and you're super
special like pumpkin spice. So we're basically having like frothed
(51:02):
pumpkin spicce with extra ice lighting at the expense of
child labor and slavery. And deforestation. Oh no, okay, other cluckers,
that's what I say.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
Okay, So I'm going to edit this episode. I'm going
to put it out. My wife's going to hear it,
and I'm going to say to her, what.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
You're going to say? All this stuff that you've just
learned that's bad about coffee, don't even spend one day
feeling anguished. Do not spiral into a downward doom loop.
The only reason I am telling this stuff to people
is because we can change the coffee industry. But I
(51:58):
need people to help me. I need them to lean in.
Go to coffeewatch dot org. You can click on volunteer,
you can click on how you can without even helping
coffee Watch in any way, become an ambassador for sustainable
coffee by doing screenings of films with your friends and
your family. Just like watch those films. There are films
(52:19):
that have great films that have been made about problems
and solutions and coffee. Spread the word buy from the heart,
buy responsibly. We have put a whole guide on how
to do that on our website. And if you manage
to change your coffee, that's amazing. But what if you
also managed to change the coffee at your university, at
(52:39):
your company, at your local library, or your brother in
law runs a restaurant, or you go all the time
to a cafe and you have his favorite cafe and
your friends with all the baristas and you talk to
the manager. You can change the coffee in your life.
You can be a super ninja for sustainability coffee. Obviously,
(53:01):
you can change your own coffee. That's like amazing, and yes,
please do that. But be a change agent, like, think
about all the coffee you've drunk your whole life. Don't
feel guilty you did not know, but use that rage
about what you've discovered to fuel a fiery fight in
your heart so that you can be a change agent.
(53:24):
And even if you don't want to change your coffee
because you're addicted to one specific kind of Duncan donuts,
frappucino whatever, or Starbucks, you know, machio whatever, I don't
even know what they're all called. I should because I
work in coffee. But if you are addicted to that
and it's really your thing, keep buying it. Post pictures
of yourself on social media every time you buy a cup,
(53:46):
and write a message to the company saying like, WTF, man,
when are you going to go deforestation free, traceable living income,
living wage unions. I'm really upset about what you are
doing and not doing, and as a loyal customer, like
I'm begging you, I'm asking you to do better. Companies
respond to that too. There's lots of petitions you can sign.
(54:07):
We put all of them on our website. We just
found all the best petitions that people have done around
the world to make coffee better. Petitions have power. Click
all those petitions takes yourly ten minutes of your life,
lots of things. People are amazingly empowered, assuming that your
listeners are not living in North Korea or like in
a gulag, and they have power.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
We have powered.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
You know, coffee companies have millions of dollars. We have
millions of good people walking this earth. We drink coffee.
Who can demand change? Do that? Just do it.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
That's exactly right, That is exactly right.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
I don't drink coffee, but I will share what I
know now and I'm going to try to do it.
Not in a shamy way, no, but I am going
to try to encourage people.
Speaker 3 (54:56):
No one should feel ashamed. Most people have no idea.
Lest thing most people have. No I didn't even know
what was wrong with coffee until I really started getting
ready to launch a coffee watch. Most people have no idea.
No one should feel ashamed or guilty. This is actually
an amazing opportunity. We have this gift, this power that's
(55:16):
been given to us by life. We're just lucky to
have this power. Let us use it. And you don't
have to be perfect from one day to the next.
Just set yourself these goals. This month, I will sign
all the petitions. Next month, I'm going to do my
research and figure out which ethical coffee I like. I'm
going to buy a whole bunch of samples and test it,
and then I'm going to order that so it will
come every month.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
To my house.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
The month after, I'm going to talk to all my
friends and family and my university or my office, you
know whatever. You just set yourself these goals. You don't
have to do it all at once, you know, just
work your way through. Be a coffee ninja for sustainability.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
Oh Man coffee ninja for sustainability. I like it. I
like it.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
No shame, no guilt, just power and action and hope
and love, because this is about love.
Speaker 2 (55:59):
You know.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
You talked about how you bring a cup of coffee
to your beloved partner every morning and how it makes
her day.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Like living ball.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
And you know often we have coffee with our friends
and our family. It is something that brings us together
in a space of love, and it can be an
expression of love for the planet and all the farmers
and farmworkers that were part of making it. It's our choice.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
Yeah, yeah, I like what you said too. Because we
have such much, so much invested in coffee. It's only
right to make sure that everybody enjoys life the way
we do when we have some. So I really do
appreciate that. And you know, we are out of time.
We could have kept going for so long. Thank you,
(56:48):
Thank you for being here o. I'm so grateful to you,
oh man.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
So give us the web address one more time.
Speaker 3 (56:58):
Coffee watch dot org. And then at the bottom of
our web page is all of our social media. You
can just click on whatever silly billionaires not to you,
Jason billionaire social media that you use.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
That's gonna be your next four ray in five years
as we fix the coffee industry. Oh man, Well, I
appreciate you so much, and I'm so thankful that you
took this hour to spend with us, share your knowledge,
your wisdom, your heart, your optimism. It's infectious. I'm feeling
better now that we talk. So we're gonna go out here.
(57:36):
We're gonna make this world a better place because of
what you've just shared. And like I tell all my guests,
you're welcome anytime. If you got another thing you want
to share, another venture. We want to be aware of
another book you're writing, let us know we'd love to
talk to you about it.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
I get your children. I love children voices. I hear
them very nice. Well, Attel, thank you so much for
being here.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
Thank you it was great.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Absolutely this has been another episode of the Environmental Justice Lab,
where we are for the people.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
And the planet. Thank you. Have a great day.
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