Coffee responsibly grown in a rain forest farm in Costa Rica will be showcased by a major Ontario university.

York University’s annual fair trade fair will take place Wednesday, Feb. 24 in the Bear Pit near Central Square from 10am to 4pm. The fair will feature a range of fair trade products including arts and crafts, coffee and tea, chocolate, t-shirts and more. In addition to fair trade products, the event also serves as a forum for students, faculty, and staff to learn more about fair trade and fair trade initiatives at York University.
What is fair trade?

Simply put, fair trade is about ensuring that producers, typically from developing countries, receive a fair price for their products. But Fair Trade is also about information. Fair Trade Canada describes it as a “way for all of us to identify products that meet our values so we can make choices that have a positive impact on the world.”

In recent years, York has developed a number of fair trade initiatives. For instance, York has its own brand of fair trade certified coffee, Las Nubes, which is grown in the Las Nubes rain forest in Costa Rica (of which York is a part owner). Also, in 2011 York became the first university in Canada to sell certified, fair trade clothing in its campus bookstore.

Las Nubes (“The Clouds”) is a rain forest in Costa Rica which has generously been donated to York University by Dr. Woody Fisher, a prominent Toronto physician, medical researcher and co-founder of the Canadian Liver Foundation. York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies created the Dr. Woody Fisher Fund for Neotropical Conservation to protect this rainforest habitat through an agreement with Costa Rica’s Tropical Science Center.

Las Nubes is located on the Pacific slope of the Talamanca range in Southeast Costa Rica, an hour outside the city of San Isidro El General. To the northeast of the property is Chirripó National Park which continues into La Amistad, an international biosphere reserve which Costa Rica shares with Panama. Las Nubes thus forms part of one of the largest rainforest ecosystems in Central America.

The Río Peñas Blancas is the main river flowing through Las Nubes with its crystal-clear water cascading over rapids and waterfalls. Several deep gorges dissect Las Nubes. Downstream lies Los Cusingos, the lowland wet forest homestead of the world-renowned ornithologist Dr. Alexander Skutch. The Tropical Science Center now protects Los Cusingos as a bird sanctuary.

The Fisher Fund for Neotropical Conservation, created in honour of Dr. Woody Fisher, supports the protection of the biological and ecological values of the Las Nubes Rainforest and adjacent area.

Working with the Faculty of Environmental Studies of York University and the Tropical Science Center in San José, the Fisher Fund has made significant achievements in research and conservation programs in biodiversity protection, rural sustainability, environmental education in local schools, and the use of Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing as decision-support tools for environmental management.