Jes Hooper
Jes Hooper is the founder of The Civet Project (Instagram @thecivetproject), a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the plight of civets used in coffee production. Civet coffee (also known as kopi luwak) is a luxury coffee that has been pre-digested and defecated by civets, small nocturnal carnivores from Southeast Asia. Known as the most expensive coffee in the world, one cup of civet coffee can reach prices of up to $70/ £50. This high price point is set based on false marketing claims of product rarity. However, as a 2024 report Tackling the Civet Coffee Tourism Industry shows, civets are wild-caught for mass civet coffee production and are housed in hidden industrial farms throughout Southeast Asia.
CAF awarded a grant to Jes to: enable her to secure partnerships between Indonesian and Vietnamese NGOs and academics from Vietnamese universities; film a 30-minute documentary on the civet trade; and develop a network to tackle the conservation, welfare, and human health impacts of the civet trade.
The film Civet Coffee: From Rare to Reckless premiered in April 2024. In the film, researchers traveled to Vietnam in search of the true cost of civet coffee tourism on animal welfare, conservation, and human health. Shocking undercover footage revealed a hidden link between wildlife trafficking, farming, and tourism, all of which included unhygienic conditions that could easily spread disease between wildlife and humans. With tourism as the principle driver behind the civet coffee industry, the team set about investigating the role of world leading travel companies, starting with Tripadvisor.
As a result of The Civet Project’s work, leading travel providers (including Tripadvisor, TUI, Booking.com, Klook, AirBnB) have all committed to removing the sale of civet coffee tours from their platforms; the documentary won an industry award for film of impact; and 195 animal welfare organizations have signed The Civet Project’s appeal letter to the UK government urging them to include civet coffee attractions in the latest animal welfare abroad act. This would make it illegal to promote civet coffee tourism to UK consumers.
You can watch a trailer to the film below and the whole film at this link.
Jes was interviewed on the Knowing Animals podcast. Jes is a postgraduate researcher in Anthropology at the University of Exeter, and a member of the IUCN SSC Small Carnivore Specialist Group. Her doctoral research focused on human–civet interactions and “disappearance” in the Anthropocene. She lives in Lewes, England.
