The world’s chocolate industry is causing deforestation on a large scale in West Africa, according to The Guardian.
Cocoa traders selling to Mars, Nestlé, Mondelez and other large brands purchase beans grown illegally inside restricted areas in the Ivory Coast where rainforest cover declined by more than 80 percent since 1960, the report said.
The illegal product is mixed with “clean” beans or legal beans in the supply chain which means Mars bars, Ferrero Rocher chocolates and Milka bars could all be contaminated with illegal cocoa, the report said. An estimated 40 percent of the international cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast.
The Guardian travelled across the Ivory Coast and reported rainforests emptied for cocoa plantations, villages and farmers living in supposed protected national parks, police officials receiving bribes to ignore infractions and trading middlemen who provide to big brands unsympathetic to the source of beans.
When asked for comment, Mars, Mondelez and Nestlé, and traders Cargill and Barry Callebaut did not directly deny the specific accusation illegal deforestation cocoa reached their supply chains, the report said. All of the brands claimed they were making efforts to get rid of the commodity from their products.
Nearly 70 percent of international cocoa is made by 2 million farmers in a belt spanning from Sierra Leone to Cameroon, the report said. However, Ivory Coast and Ghana are the world’s first and second largest producers. They are also among the most affected by deforestation. Ivory Coast is losing its forests at a much quicker rate than any other African country. Less than 4 percent of Ivory Coast is covered in rainforest.
The growing global demand for chocolate means if efforts aren’t made to reduce deforestation, there will be no forests left by 2030, according to the environmental group Mighty Earth which is currently investigating deforestation caused by chocolate. The resulting irony is the local residents are so poor, they can’t afford to purchase a Mars bar.
Inside the protected forest of Mount Tia, Burkinabé farmer Salam Sawadougou was ripping a yellow cocoa pod off one of his plants in a four hectare (10 acre) area, the report said. In this forest, enormous ancient trees are all that remain.
“I burned it little by little,” Sawadougou says, explaining his cocoa required sun to grow. Most farmers believe recently deforested soil creates larger beans so they remove the trees individually so they can plant more cocoa as they go.
Recently, the annual rate of deforestation inside parks doubled, the report said. In both Ivory Coast and Ghana, the rate is twice as fast as deforestation in unprotected areas, the report said.
Many companies are aware of the issue of deforestation for cocoa production and said they are committed to handling the problem.
“We are committed to identifying the best ways to end deforestation and forest degradation in the global cocoa supply chain,” Chief Sustainability Officer at Mars Barry Parkin said. “We know that sustainable cocoa is too big a challenge for any one company to address. That is why we are partnering with others in the industry to try and drive change at a global scale.”
Nestlé claims it is “opposed to the deforestation of rainforests and peatlands around the world. Nestlé regards it as one of the most serious environmental challenges facing the world.”
The company pointed out in 2010 it said none of its products should be linked with deforestation and said it supports international efforts to secure zero net-deforestation by 2020, according to The Guardian.
— WN.com, Jubilee Baez
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