University of AlbertaEnvironmental Research and Studies Centre

newsenvironmental

Volume 2, Issue 2

November 2002

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Is Coffee CostingThe Earth?by Michael Simpson

PhD Candidate, Departmentof Biological Sciences

Latté, cappuccino,espresso, IrishCream, HazelnutVanilla, white, black,

light, dark, to stay or to go - thelist of ways to have our caffeinefix is ever growing. And thechoice of locations, too. On theUniversity of Alberta campusalone there are at least 10outlets dealing primarily incoffee. Take a wander downWhyte Avenue and you willhave the option of drinkingMuddy Waters’, stopping atSafeway for an instant, havingyour Second Cup - twice,tasting Tim’s and Timothy’s, orreading a chapter in one of the5,688 locations that Starbuckshas opened across planet Earth.It is no surprise to find that two-thirds of all the coffee imbibedglobally is drunk from NorthAmerican mugs. But what arethe environmental costs ofsatisfying our caffeine craving?

Coffee may be a great pick-me-up on a cold Novembermorning, but its origins are along way from the winters ofcontinental Canada.Originally from Ethiopia, thecoffee tree has percolatedthroughout the tropics, fromIndonesia to the West Indiesand Central and SouthAmerica, The multi-billiondollar coffee industry literallyhas its roots in some of thepoorest nations of the world.

Coffee has proven to be anideal crop for farmers in

developing countries. The tree has few natural pests and thered fruits that surround the beans are not favoured by wildlife.In the wild it commonly grows under other trees, so farmershave traditionally cultivated it this way. Consequently,although conversion of land to coffee farms has contributedto the loss of tropical forest, traditional plantations havepreserved, in a simplified form, elements of the landscapethey replaced.

Like people, though, coffee trees are not averse to sun. Indeed,removing shade trees can allow farmers to increase the densityof coffee plants on their plantations and possibly keep at baya deadly fungus to which their crop is susceptible. As a result,the gross production capacity of sun-bathed coffee can besubstantially higher than that of a shaded crop. Since the1970s, many plantations have lost their shade on this rationale.

Conservationists don’t like it.

Just as the culturally diverse populations of Canadian citiesuse a variety of services to satisfy their needs, so differentinsect, bird and mammal species use different plants forforaging and nesting. Shaded plantations include several‘layers’ of vegetation, including the coffee plants themselvesand the canopy trees. The latter could be trees originallypreserved from the original forest or planted bananas, oranges,avocados and other fruit-bearing trees. Animals that love nutsand sweet things relish the flowers and produce these provide.From these facts alone, we can see that shade plantations arelikely to host a greater diversity of species than those underthe sun, including many that used the original forest before itwas cleared for cultivation.

Research into these issues has been limited, but it seems tosupport these predictions. Particular concern has centred onthe diversity and abundance of birds that occupy the tropicsof Central and South America, or migrate there to escapeharsh winters in the north. Studies have concluded that shadetrees offer perches for more species and more individuals.For conservationists the conclusion seems obvious – shadeis best.

These findings have prompted environmental organisationsto prick the consciences of consumers and corporations. Theresponse of coffee vendors has been to trumpet ‘specialty’blends that reflect the issues these organisations have attached

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Late in the morning ofMay 17, 2002, Ireceived anemergency call from a

local power company,explaining that anelectrocuted great hornedowl was badly injured at thebottom of an electric powerpole on an acreage west ofEdmonton. I work at theWildlife Rehabilitation Societyof Edmonton (WRSE), wherewe provide compassionatecare for injured and orphanedwildlife. When I arrived theresident told me that she hadheard a loud noise around4:00 a.m., followed by thesight of what looked likefireworks on the backside ofthe house.

I drove around back andfound the pole, with thehelpless owl lying on hisback, in the light rain. Hedidn’t try to defend himselfwhen I picked him up whichindicated to me that he wasin big trouble. I raced himback to the shelter where myco-worker and I examinedhim. But sadly themagnificent bird died whilewe were still assessing hisinjuries.

Later that summer aconservation officer broughtin two red-tailed hawks, bothfound on the same daybeneath power poles withinfive miles of each other.Given that one was an adultfemale and the other a youngfledgling, there is a possibility

Raptors vs. Lethal Linesby Cindy Platt

MSC Candidate,Department ofRenewable Resources

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to the coffee industry. The ‘special’ in these is not in theingredients, but in the way they were grown. ‘Shade’ coffee,the marketing tells us, offers the best chance of securing asustainable future for wildlife and people. Two other productcategories with an environmental flavour are ‘organic’ coffeesand those procured by ‘Fair Trade’

Intensive farming of any crop, coffee included, encouragesthe use of manufactured fertilizers and pesticides. And itfollows that the more we pour on, the more is likely to runoff into rivers and the ecosystems and human habitationsthese serve. Damaging effects have been recorded too oftenfor this risk to be taken lightly. They have also ensured thatthe term ‘organic’, despite its dubious validity, has proven tobe an effective marketing tool for food products grownwithout the use of synthetic chemicals. So it is no surprisethat coffees brewed from beans grown in this manner arefiltering through.

But organic certification is a slow process. Moreover, farmersmust believe that they can survive despite the losses theymight suffer by trusting to nature. This is particularly true intimes when the world price drops so low it is unprofitablefor small operators to harvest their beans. Farmers must beassured that it is worth staying in the coffee business ratherthan converting to crops that might be less like the forest thatonce covered their land. The roasted results of projects thataim to provide these incentives come with a big ‘Fair Trade’logo on the packet.

Again the name may be more rhetorical than descriptive, butFair Trade agreements make sense both for the farmers andtheir land. Typically they offer a guaranteed price linked towhat big operators are paying on the world market. Theyalso encourage smallholders to form co-operatives, sell directlyto buyers and obtain credit that will see them through hardtimes. Fair Trade initiatives are particularly pertinent to shadefarmers whose production may be less than that of sunplantations, but whose land is valued for its similarity tooriginal forest habitats.

Conservation and development organisations are pushingconsumers and retailers to adopt an ethic that puts concernfor biodiversity and poor farmers ahead of economic interests.And there is more to their rationale than just an appeal tohumanitarianism. But like other disputes concerning naturalresources, the coffeecontroversies reflect aconflict of values. Thereis no quick fix for suchdifferences. However wechoose to take our nextcuppa, we can do ourpart by trying to choosewisely.

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that these two weremother and offspring.Sadly, they were botheuthanized because of theextent of their injuries. Inmost cases there is nothingwe can do after-the-fact tosave these electrocutionvictims. If they are luckyenough not to lose

appendages or fracture bones, their tissue is literally cookedfrom the inside-out. Consequently they lose circulation andeventually their appendages start to self-amputate. The bestwe can do for them is humanely put them to sleep.

The frustration I have felt in not being able to save thesebirds was a big part of my decision to go back to school.Specifically, I wanted to study raptor electrocutions in Alberta,and ways to mitigate the problem. I started my MSc. programin the fall of 2002.

So just how do birds get electrocuted? Judging by the numberof birds seen perched on wires, one would assume thesestructures are safely insulated. This however is not the case.To understand this phenomenon, a few basics must beexplained.

There are two main types of power lines. Transmission linesare the massive structures commonly seen that causeinterference with your cell phone or radio when you drivenear them. They are typically >115 kilovolts (kV) andsurprisingly, are not the bird-shockers (though they do resultin many bird collisions and injuries). They are simply toolarge for that. The killer poles are called distribution lines,typically 69 kV or less, usually seen along the highways andin cities. They distribute power to houses and businesses.These are smaller poles and as such, the energized parts arecloser together making it easier for a bird to bridge the gapbetween currents and unwittingly become a current-carryingportion of the circuit.

Atop a distribution pole, some hardware is energized andsome is grounded. An electrocution occurs when a birdsimultaneously touches two energized conductors or anenergized conductor and a grounded wire. This can happenwith any part of their body, but typically it involves theirwings, feet, tail, beak or chest. Things get especially badwhen the bird is wet.

Fortunately, electrocution does not affect all birds. Only thoselarge enough to span the distance with two parts of theirbody are in danger. Typically, this includes raptors (eagles,hawks, falcons and owls), ravens and some large water birdssuch as herons.

Estimates of mortality by electrocution in Alberta are currentlyunknown. There are many reasons for this. First of all,distribution poles are often found in rural areas where thereare few people. If the electrocution causes a power outage,linemen from the power company sometimes visit the site tocorrect the problem. Yet many companies do not have systemsin place for reporting these mortalities, or often only feathersremain, which may go unnoticed. Predators learn quickly tohunt under power lines for easy meals. Furthermore, somelines now are equipped with switches that automatically resetthe poles, without linemen even needing to go out to thesite.

Nor can we make mortality estimates from the birds admittedto the WRSE and other wildlife rehabilitators; we expect thenumber of electrocuted birds we see are likely only a tinyfraction of the actual victims. One could reasonably speculatethat the chance of a bird actually surviving the event andbeing found by someone is miniscule.

Over the past 30 years power pole retrofitting options havebeen designed and they have proven successful. Publicawareness is slowly increasing and consumers are starting todemand that their local power companies retrofit the poles.However the responsibility for fixing the problem does notlie solely on utilities. It also requires the co-operation ofgovernment agencies, academic institutions, the conservationcommunity and the public. I will be working with ATCOElectric over the next two years seeking ways to minimizebird electrocutions in Alberta.

Late in August 2002 while working at the WRSE I received acall from a panicked lineman who had gone out to a powerline to fix an outage that caused the town of Morinville tolose telephone service for most of a day. At the base of thepole he found a “hawk”, which he was rushing to the shelter.To my astonishment, he arrived and produced a merlin, whichis a very small falcon – not the typical size of bird that getselectrocuted. Today he is near release. This was the firstshocked bird that I had personally treated that had no moresignificant injuries than singed feathers. Maybe this rare caseof survival serves as a symbol of hope for the reduction ofraptor mortality by electrocution.

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The University of AlbertaSolar Vehicle Projectby Dwayne Wohlgemuth

Dwayne Wohlgemuth is astudent at the Universityof Alberta and is the pastdesign leader of the UASVP.Find out more about theUASVP at www.ualberta.ca/~solarcar, or The AmericanSolar Challenge atwww.formulasun.org.

The University ofAlberta SolarVehicle Project(UASVP) is taking

on an incredible challenge—designing and building a carthat can reach speeds of 100km/h using only as muchpower as a four-slice toaster.

Students at the universitystarted the project in 1997with the goal of building asolar powered vehicle tocompete in Sunrayce, aninternational race held in theUnited States. Now calledthe American Solar

Challenge (ASC), therace starts in

Ch icago

and continues 3,700kilometres across the U.S. toLos Angeles. As many as 60solar powered vehicles fromaround the world gatherevery two years. The latestrace occurred in July of 2001.To date, the UASVP has builttwo solar powered vehicles,with the third currently in thedesign phase.

The project is much morethan simply designing a solarpowered car, however. Aneducation team has beenvisit ing schools in theEdmonton area since theproject’s inception in order

to promote renewable energy, environmental awareness, andthe project. Students of all ages learn about greenhouse gases,electricity, and how solar energy can provide emission-freepower. The car and the team have been present at manyEdmonton events including Earth Day, Klondike Days, andthe Edmonton Auto and Truck Show.

Most teams that compete at ASC are managed by students,and the University of Alberta team is no exception. Theproject’s students come from a variety of disciplines includingengineering, business, science, and the arts. Participants learnabout technical aspects such as energy efficient vehicledesign, solar energy, battery technology, and control systemdesign. In addition, students gain valuable skills in the areasof communications, leadership and teamwork.

The greatest challenge of building a solar car is that it mustoperate efficiently on only one to two kilowatts of power—about as much as many kitchen appliances. Therefore, thecar must be light, aerodynamic, and use energy-efficientcomponents. Nonetheless, solar cars are quite capable ofattaining highway speeds. The winner of the 2001 World

Solar Challenge in Australiaaveraged 92 km/h over a3,000 km race.

While vehicles powered bysolar energy may never be practical, these cars

nonetheless promote alternative energy and its efficientuse. Much of the technology that makes solar cars run soefficiently can be integrated into every vehicle on the road.The auto industry is slowly catching on, with the emergenceof more fuel efficient vehicles and the rapidly expandinghybrid-electric car market.

The technology used to make solar cars more efficientincludes deep-groove low friction bearings, high-pressuretires, and drastic weight reduction. The shapes of the carsare also carefully scrutinized to ensure the best compromisebetween aerodynamics, interior space, and layout. Lightemitting diodes, or LEDs, were used in the tail-lights andsignal lights of both UASVP cars, and are now being widelyused in the auto industry. They last much longer thantraditional incandescent bulbs and are astronomically moreefficient, using about 10% as much energy.

Much of the efficiency of a solar car is attributable to itselectric motor. The motor can be operated as a generator,converting the car’s kinetic energy, or energy of motion,into electricity during braking. This unique feature can vastly

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enhance efficiency, and is a major contributor to increasedfuel efficiency in commercially available hybrid-electric cars.Many solar cars, including those of UASVP, have their electricmotors placed inside the hub of a wheel, eliminating theneed for a drive-train. Complicated drive-trains are requiredin most cars, but result in lost energy, added weight, andthe need for more parts and lubricants.

In addition to the challenge of efficiency, UASVP ischallenged with raising sufficient funds to build the car andto compete. Most funding is donated by corporate sponsors,but some also comes from various grants and from theUniversity. Major sponsors have included Suncor, VanguardAviation Inc., Climate Change Central, BP Solar, Epcor, andNAIT. For the American Solar Challenge in 2001, the team’stwo-year budget was approximately $120,000 for constructionand competition costs.

Nanook was the first vehicle the UASVP designed. Whilethe vehicle travelled to Sunrayce ’99, it was not entered inthe race because it failed to pass safety and performancetesting. Inukshuk, the second car, traveled to the ASC inJuly of 2001 and became the first solar-powered vehicle fromWestern Canada to compete in and complete the ASC, placing28th out of 35 teams and traveling at speeds of approximately50 km per hour. There were eight Canadian teams, of whichUASVP was the only one from Western Canada.

Inukshuk utilized a chromoly chassis and a Kevlarhoneycomb outer shell to maximize strength and safety whileminimizing weight. The car was powered by a 1000-wattsolar array constructed from ASE Americas solar cells, andalso had 160 kg of lead acid batteries, which could powerthe car for as much as five hours. During the race, the sunhad to provide all of the car’s power, while the batteriesprovided energy during cloudy periods.

A third, unnamed car is currently in the design phase, andwill be lighter and faster than the previous cars. Four wheelswill be replaced with only three wheels in order to greatlyreduce weight, and extremely low weight lithium-ionbatteries will likely replace the heavy lead acid batteriespreviously used. This alone will reduce the car’s weight byover 130 kg. The overall dimensions of the car will also bereduced, a measure that will reduce the cost and weight ofthe car as well as increase its practicality. It will still beunusually large for a one-person vehicle, at five metres longand just under two metres wide.

Plant Diversity inEdmonton’s River Valley:A Poetic Wish, or Reality?by Adele Mandryk

BSc., MSc. Candidate,Department ofRenewable Resources

Can modern industrialized cities, the proverbialtumours on the landscape, play a positive role inharbouring regional vegetative diversity? Can God’sgrandeur flame out from this unlikely source and

shine so close at hand within the river valley system ofEdmonton? Chet Raymo, professor of physics and astronomy,in his book Skeptics and True Believers: The ExhilaratingConnection between Science and Religion says: “scientificknowledge enlivens our very experience and tunes us to thedeepest mysteries of creation, the hidden rhythms of the worldthat evades our limited senses”. Are these deepest mysteriesof creation to be found in Edmonton? In our own NorthSaskatchewan River Valley?

I spent the summer of 2002 studying the forest communitiesin the river valley system in urban Edmonton. Though thework was often slow and methodical I found a hiddenrepository of dynamic plant communities surviving andsometimes flourishing. A rhythm obscured to casualobservation, biotic life persists unabated in the NorthSaskatchewan River valley system in spite of altered habitatscreated by modern and ongoing economic development.

The knowledge I have gained from the vitality of this systemhas changed my perspective of how the natural worldsurvives within a city landscape. I can no longer lookpassively with only mild appreciation for its aesthetics. Ihave a new appreciation for the vigour of diversity: energyand matter intersecting and moving continuously throughthe valleys and rifts created by millennia of flowing waterand geologic forces. I have experienced the liminal spacebetween knowledge and mystery and have emergeddetermined to understand these urban forest communitiesin context with their regional watershed.

My research involved characterizing 80 forest stands withinthe Edmonton City limits. I investigated all slopes anddirections from the river’s high water mark to the top-of-bank along the 40km length of the North Saskatchewan Riverand laterally along all major and medium ravine systemsconnected to the North Saskatchewan River. My researchteam and I characterized 100 x 100m plots of forest for soil,

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Solar Car Vehicle Project, continued from page 4

The world is chargedwith God’s grandeur.It will flame out, likeshining from shook foil.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins

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University of Alberta

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Mailing Address:3-23 Business BuildingUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta, CanadaT6G 2R6

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moisture, percent canopy cover and the age of dominant andco-dominant trees. We recorded tree, shrub and herbaceousplant species by name, percent cover and vigour and recordedthe presence of lichen on trees and shrubs and moss groundcover. We also quantified the level of human and naturaldisturbance and noted indicators of animal and bird activityand what type of activities buffered the forest stands and theplots we sampled. From this data we seek to understand whatregional plant diversity is contained in the City river systemand what pattern emerges across the urban landscape. Whatdoes urban diversity mean to the rest of the watershed region?What is left of Aspen Parkland terrestrial plant diversity in theupland, away from the river system, and how does this compareto what exists on the slopes of the river system in Edmonton?It is assumed that outside the city boundaries diversity isnaturally higher than within. Have the tables turned? Is theremore plant diversity in Edmonton than outside it? Is the urbanportion of the river system an important key to protectingregional plant diversity?

This work has important implications for Edmonton inunderstanding how to manage the river valley system to keepit functioning as an intact ecosystem. The benefits toEdmontonians of a naturally diverse forest ecosystem, stretchinglongitudinally and laterally across the City is immense. Diverse,functioning forest stands offer many ecological services andare an efficient way to keep Edmonton cooler and its air andwater cleaner. The need to actively manage our NorthSaskatchewan River Valley forests for diversity and long-termsustainability is an important task that must be undertaken onan ongoing basis. My summer work shows clearly that it isnot enough to passively hold the river valley in reserve,minimizing human activity and suppressing fire. To bedynamic…to be diverse…the system must be actively managedto simulate or to allow for natural disturbance process such asflooding and fire.

My work also has important implications for the NorthSaskatchewan River Watershed region, a huge area thatdrains mostly Aspen Parkland, to the south, and the southern

fringes of the Boreal landscape, to the north, across Alberta,Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The North Saskatchewan Riverand its tributaries form a complex corridor network acrossthe land that links the Rocky Mountain chain to the HudsonBay and connects to the north-south Rocky Mountain corridorthat stretches from Yellowstone to the Yukon. Together thesenatural corridors join to form a giant ‘T’, connecting threeprovinces, one territory, two countries and a myriad ofecosystems and habitat types: perhaps the skeleton for abioregional conservation network to succour and fostermaximum biodiversity.

In this context, what role does the Edmonton portion of the rivervalley system play in this much larger picture? Is the Edmontonportion of the river corridor a bottleneck? Does it effectively dividethe North Saskatchewan River Corridor into separate systems, or isthere enough connectivity left that a bioregional conservationnetwork could be efficiently created with minimal need for costlyrestoration? The next portion of my research will be designed toanswer these questions and others.

What I know with certainty from the early stages of myresearch, is that the plant diversity of the Edmonton NorthSaskatchewan River System is much more significant to localplanning and much more important to regional diversity thanpreviously thought. The urban portion of the river systemappears to be an important key to biodiversity conservationwithin the city and cannot be considered outside of its contextwith the North Saskatchewan River Watershed.

For now, plant diversity in the North Saskatchewan Riversystem, in Edmonton, is a reality, not just a poetic wish.Dynamic forest communities are still with us but they areunder tremendous pressure. The continued relationship ofurban forests to the rural landscape is paramount and mustbe seriously considered as this city expands. We have in ourmidst the mystery of persistent biodiversity and it is withinthis urban green space that we can experience the naturalrhythm of a dynamic river valley system and learn toappreciate the vast contribution it makes to urban living andto the larger watershed, of which it is an integral part.

Plant Diversity in Edmonton’s River Valley, continued from page 5