Chocolate makers vow to stop damaging forests
BRITAIN: Chocolate companies are contributing to the loss of tropical forests by buying cocoa from land recently stripped of trees and wildlife, Mars has admitted.
Twelve of the biggest chocolate companies, including Mars, Cadbury, Ferrero, Nestle and Hershey’s, committed yesterday to end the deforestation caused by their industry.
At an event hosted in London by Prince Charles, the companies said they would focus initially on saving forests in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two biggest cocoaproducing countries, which have lost more than 10 per cent of their forests since 2000.
Mars admitted that it did not know all the farms that produced its cocoa, and some could have come from newly deforested land.
Barry Parkin, chief sustainability officer at Mars, said: ‘‘The whole industry collectively, the thousands of companies involved, are contributing to deforestation. Nobody knows [where cocoa comes from] because there isn’t direct traceability back to any particular farm. These 12 companies have put their hands up and said we are going to do something about it.’’
Parkin said the companies would produce a specific plan with targets and deadlines in November. It would include measures to double productivity from existing farms to avoid the need to destroy more forests to feed the growing global demand for chocolate.
Charles said cocoa had until now been absent from the list of industries with commitments to end the deforestation they had caused. The palm oil, soy and paper industries have already made similar commitments.
‘‘Perhaps the most powerful direct reason for action is that deforestation threatens to undermine the very resilience of the cocoa sector itself, and with it the livelihoods of the millions of smallholders who depend on it, due to the increased climate variability that follows forest loss,’’ Charles said.
Gerard Manley, chief executive of Olam, one of the biggest cocoa suppliers to chocolate companies, said: ‘‘The vast majority of cocoa grown by farmers over the past 30 years has been on land where the forest was destroyed to plant cocoa trees.
‘‘By harnessing the collective powers of the governments, companies and NGOS, we can help protect and restore the forest landscape, which in turn will help protect the future of cocoa.’’
- The Times