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The current crisis in the coffee market provides an opportunity to explore alternative markets. In Latin America, coffee is traditionally produced under a diverse and dense canopy of shade trees. The structural and floristic diversity contained therein harbors a high biodiversity of associated organisms. The recent trend of reducing this shade cover so as to increase production raises concerns about the potential loss of biodiversity. This concern has given rise to a variety of conservation programs, including shade coffee certification, a market-based conservation strategy. Shade coffee certification programs offer the opportunity to link environmental and economic goals. Although the idea of shade certification is to compensate farmers for the biodiversity conservation service provided by their shaded plantations, the premium offered may not compensate for the low yields of the most shaded plantations. Here we present …