As consumer demand for chocolate grows, the international cocoa industry is expanding production across the world’s tropical regions. The smallholder cocoa plantations at the forefront of this expansion have caused significant tropic forest destruction, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroying habitat in the process. Private-sector associations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have implemented certification schemes to reduce the deforestation caused by this expansion. Despite several empirically verified successes, systematic reviews find fundamental weaknesses in this approach, which does not consistently limit the conversion of forests to farms.

How can USAID collaborate with the private sector and governments to encourage and enable producers to cultivate cocoa exclusively on agricultural lands? Are there promising approaches based on the certification experience that can be used to prevent wholescale cocoa-driven forest loss, as occurred in Côte d’Ivoire? How can we prevent similar levels of deforestation in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other countries that have vast areas of at-risk forest? Using Côte d’Ivoire as an example, this case study summarizes recent research assessing certification, describes the major challenges of the approach, and identifies promising directions for curtailing cocoa-drive deforestation. It concludes by underscoring the essential role governments play in enabling certification to effectively mitigate deforestation.

Learn more about the ‘Agriculture’s Footprint: Designing Investment in Agricultural Landscapes to Mitigate Forest Impacts’ collection.