- hot-spots
- deforestation
- Cote d'Ivoire
- Massive deforestation in Côte d'Ivoire
Problems
Massive deforestation in Côte d'Ivoire
The country has historically been known in English as Ivory Coast, and corresponding translations in other languages. In October 1985 the government requested that the country be known as Côte d'Ivoire in every language. The basic landscape of Côte d'Ivoire was made up of dense forests, broadly subdivided into hygrophilous forests and mesophilic forests, which originally occupied a third of the territory to the south and west. It is completed by open forests or wooded or wooded savannahs, which extend from the Center to the North, with however many points of dense dry forest. Small mangroves also exist on the coast. Côte d'Ivoire is also home to two species of hippopotamus, that of the savannah widespread throughout Africa, and the pygmy species, located in the forests of the country. Some animals, famous in the more humid southern zone, are becoming rarer, like some subspecies of the common chimpanzee. Many other species are endangered. Since the colonial period, the areas of dense forests have experienced, through human action (shrub plantations, logging), a significant reduction. Since independence, the area covered by forests has fallen from 16 million to 3 million hectares.
Causes of massive deforestation in Côte d'Ivoire
A significant reduction in dense forest areas is due to massive clearing in favor of cocoa cultivation, of which Côte d'Ivoire is the world's leading producer. Rubber tree cultivation comes second with a 23% impact on forests. According to a report by the French NGO Nitidae, based in Lyon, the rubber industry is endangering the country’s ecosystems and biodiversity, with an average of 30,000 tonnes exported from the port of Abidjan and San Pedro in the southwest. Ivory Coast has lost up to 80 percent of its natural forests in just 50 years due to: ● agriculture, ● bush fires, ● illegal forest exploitation, ● artisanal mining, the International Union for Conservation of Nature says. Major chocolate companies and industry leaders, along with the governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana, pledged to eliminate the production and sourcing of cocoa from protected forests and national parks. “They made commitments ... but none have been honored regarding both the monitoring and the investments made in the forest protection sector,” said U.S.-based environmental group Mighty Earth’s West Africa representative, Amourlaye Toure.
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Timelines
2023
October
"Ivory Coast must speed up efforts to make cocoa stocks destined for the European market comply with European Union (EU) deforestation law that will come into full effect from January 2025," - the EU's ambassador to Ivory Coast said. Francesca Di Mauro told Reuters the world's top cocoa producer, which ships around 70% of its annual output to the EU, had some points of concern to the EU, especially around child labor, farming on protected forests, and the declassification of existing protected forests. "Ivory Coast should not be tempted to declassify current protected forests where cocoa is produced to make them legal and compliant with the new European regulation," she said. She added that the Ivory Coast is considering transforming heavily degraded forests into agro-forest areas and speeding up reforestation to achieve its goal of doubling the forest cover from the current 10% to 20%. The EU law requires importers of commodities such as coffee, cocoa, beef, soy, rubber and palm oil to produce a due diligence statement proving their goods do not contribute to the destruction of forests, or risk hefty fines. Di Mauro said that when the regulation enters into force all cocoa supplies need to comply.
March 28
RADD alerts have highlighted at least 3,300 hectares of forest disturbances in Ghanaian cocoa-growing regions and 2,600 hectares of disturbances in Ivorian cocoa-growing regions since January 1st, 2023. This is particularly concerning as Côte d’Ivoire is estimated to have lost 90% of its forest cover over the past thirty years, of its forests over. With new legislation soon banning the sale of agricultural products linked to deforestation on EU markets, companies and governments in West Africa now have no choice but to take seriously their previous commitments to protect forests in cocoa-growing regions.
2022
February
Mighty Earth published the Sweet Nothings report which highlighted the unfulfilled promises of cocoa buyers and chocolate companies to halt cocoa-driven deforestation in West Africa and beyond. The investigation uncovered evidence of ongoing tropical forest destruction in the key cocoa-growing regions of Côte d’Ivoire. Deforestation across Côte d’Ivoire cocoa growing regions remained stubbornly high. RADD alerts — radar alerts that highlight forest loss in near-real time — picked up over 8,000 hectares (ha) of forest disturbance in Côte d’Ivoire, the most since 2019.
2021
The national forest cover is currently estimated at only 10% by the new Forestry and Wildlife Inventory (IFFN) published.
2020
Ivory Coast lost 47,000 hectares (116,000 acres) of forest in its cocoa-growing regions, despite industry pledges to halt deforestation.
2019
According to the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Mighty Earth, nearly 14,000 hectares of forest disappeared in Ivory Coast and Ghana (the world’s second largest cocoa producer) for cocoa cultivation, the equivalent of 15,000 football fields.
2018
Since 2000, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the oil palm industry caused 7% of global deforestation. With estimates showing just ~1 035 000 ha of primary humid tropical forest remaining in Côte d’Ivoire, these losses are very significant. 2.6% of remaining forests have been lost in Cote d’Ivoire over the past four years.
2017
Ivory Coast stepping up initiatives to curb deforestation and the resulting drought. To this end, the Ivorian government has been promoting sustainable and environmentally friendly cocoa. In November, the UN Climate Change Conference, the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana – along with cocoa traders and leading chocolate manufacturers (including Nestlé, Hershey’s, Mondelez, Unilever, and Mars) – signed the Cocoa and Forests Initiative (CFI) Framework for Action.
2014
The New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) was adopted as a political declaration calling for the end of natural forest loss and the restoration of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2030.
1979
National inventory of forests in Ivory Coast.