Up to 70% of the world’s cocoa is produced by 2 million farmers in a belt that stretches from Sierra Leone to Cameroon, but Ivory Coast and Ghana are the giants, the world’s first and second biggest producers. They are also the biggest victims of deforestation. Ivory Coast is losing its forests at a faster rate than any other African country. The increasing global demand for chocolate means that if nothing is done, by 2030 there will be no forest left or enough rain to grow cocoa. In addition, the effect that the decimation of West African rain forests has on global climate change, scientists say it also dramatically reduces rainfall. In recent weeks, the governments of Ghana and the Ivory Coast have been drafting new measures to rescue their remaining forests and replant degraded ones. These measures will not only mitigate the effects of climate change, it will also foster a far more sustainable way of farming cocoa on which the Ghanaian and Ivorian economies rely. Read more https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/08/rare-victory-for-rainforests-as-nations-vow-to-stop-death-by-chocolate Photo credit: Ruth Maclean for the Guardian
Rare victory for rainforests as nations vow to stop ‘death by chocolate’
by Jacques Bahati | Nov 10, 2017