Cocoa Giant Ivory Coast Says Deforestation Fight Is Picking Up
- Deforestation rate fell in 2019-21, compared with 1990-2015
- Top grower is readying for EU legislation on sustainability
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Ivory Coast signaled it’s making progress in fighting deforestation, a key issue that the world’s top cocoa producer faces in order to keep exporting to the crucial European Union market.
Satellite monitoring indicates that the country reduced its annual deforestation rate to about 26,000 hectares (64,000 acres) in the three years to 2021, from an average 300,000 hectares a year between 1990 and 2015, the forestry ministry said. A Cocoa and Forests Initiative adopted with neighboring Ghana in 2018 played a large part in the reduction, it said.