Cocoa and Forest Initiative

Did you know that two-thirds of the world's supply of cocoa comes from Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Ghana, and from 2002 -2019 they respectively lost 25% and 8% of their primary forest? 

Sadly, this was a result of deforestation due primarily to cocoa farming. Alarmed by this, the governments of these countries plus 35 leading cocoa and chocolate companies joined together to develop the Cocoa and Forests Initiative. This was adopted at the November 2017 UN Climate Change Conference (COP23).

Key actions of the Cocoa and Forest Initiative to end deforestation and restore forest areas since 2017 include: 

• Distribution and planting of millions of multi-purpose trees,
• Traceability of cocoa, from the farm to first purchase point,
• Farmer training to grow more cocoa on less land, plant forest trees and map farms to better understand where their cocoa comes from and reduce incentive to encroach on forests to plant cocoa,
• Farmer finance support: 4,500 rural savings groups with 109K member in 2020.

As of July 13, 2022, more than 28 million trees have been planted in the Ivory Coast by their government, led by the Ministry of Water and Forests, and 9,488 ha (~23,445 acres) of degraded Ghana forest has been restored. 4,302 farmers have registered 50,344 forest trees and new milestones have been met in regard to traceability, with both countries averaging 72% traceability in their direct supply chains. Plus, satellite forest monitoring has also been adopted, providing images of the land to track progress or further issues.

Both Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire hope to accelerate collaboration with public and private groups to continue preserving forests and fostering reforestation in protected areas.