Ivory Coast forest vanishing, despite pledges to contrary
ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast lost 47,000ha of forest in its cocoagrowing regions in 2020, an environmental group says, despite industry pledges to halt deforestation.
The West African country is the world’s top cocoa producer but has lost more than 85% of its forest cover since 1960, mainly due to cocoa farming, according to the Government.
The area deforested last year showed some improvement from 2015, when about 60,000ha were being destroyed annually, the USbased environmental group Mighty Earth, which maps deforestation based on satellite data, said.
Major chocolate companies and industry leaders, along with the governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana, pledged in 2017 to eliminate the production and sourcing of cocoa from protected forests and national parks.
‘‘They made commitments . . . but none have been honoured regarding both the monitoring and the investments . . . in forest protection,’’ Mighty Earth said.