An NGO estimates that chocolate producers have not kept their commitments made in 2017. Cocoa cultivation continues to cause deforestation, especially in Côte d'Ivoire.
Behind the (beautiful) speeches, the actions. Except that the latter do not really reflect the commitments made by the players in the cocoa sector. In 2019, like several of its competitors, the French number one in Cémoi chocolate, said it wanted to "strengthen its commitment against deforestation through the Cocoa & Forests initiative".
A commitment made by cocoa players who had "also promised to set up a joint monitoring mechanism", recalls the NGO Mighty Earth, who is surprised that "more than three years later, no system of this type has been put in place, despite promises made by various important players in the sector, including the industry at a hundred billion dollars a year, Ivorian technical ministries and the cocoa regulatory body - Conseil Café Cacao (CCC) ”.
From hope to disappointment
The non-governmental organization publishes the third version of its interactive map "associated with an integrated database covering nearly 5 cocoa cooperatives in Côte d'Ivoire, the largest cocoa producing country in the world". The idea: to promote "the traceability and transparency of the cocoa sector in Côte d'Ivoire, with the hope that this movement of openness will spread throughout the country, but also in Ghana and beyond".
But at the start of 2021, the results are far removed from the promises made by the players in the chocolate sector. In November 2017, in the midst of COP23, they joined forces to put in place the elements favorable to a “more sustainable future”. The Cocoa & Forests initiative was praised by NGOs, including Mighty Earth, which saw this commitment "as one of the best initiatives of the private sector in terms of environmental protection".
“Sadly, we have seen that despite their promises, the destruction of West African forests for cocoa cultivation continues, and that these big companies as well as the governments of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana are responsible for this incessant destruction, and yet avoidable ”, indicated the NGO in 2018.
47 hectares of forests destroyed in 000 in Côte d'Ivoire
An NGO sounding the alarm: 90% of West Africa's primary forests have already been destroyed since the early 1960s, including 14 million hectares of tropical forest in Côte d'Ivoire alone . Mighty Earth also specified, at the beginning of February, that 47 hectares of forests were destroyed in Côte d'Ivoire in 000 alone, in order to promote the cultivation of cocoa.
For the NGO, we must seek the roots of deforestation in several phenomena. In addition to the desire to produce more for multinationals, it is because of the lack of political will that the Cocoa & Forests initiative is not respected. “Corruption, low prices and poor quality land systems” are some of them, according to Mighty Earth. The lack of a joint monitoring mechanism is also lacking.