Members of Cocoa & Forests Initiative has announced plans to take action against ending cocoa driven deforestation, a problem that has arisen and becomes more apparent in recent years. This has come about after pledges made at the UN climate Change conference and involves big brands like Mars, Nestle and Hershey.
The focus has been discussed and aims to underline growing more cocoa, but all the while using less land. This has been committed with companies at the conference in Germany. This will highlight increasing cocoa production on sustainable land, and to help diversify crops. This will in turn help farmers heighten their earnings and ultimately reduce the high demands
and pressure on our forests.
The areas that are affected are National parks, and reserves and sourcing will continue for 25 years, under the new system that has been discussed. It hopes to restore those affected
forests to a healthy state.
Companies that have been sourcing from those areas commit to 100% traceability by the end of 2019, which means easier monitoring of the forests and their long term health. Some of which who have committed already include, Nestle, Mars, Sainsburys, Ferrero, Hershey and
Godiva among others. Companies are also told they must publicly disclose individual
action plans by the end of 2018.
The chocolate industry and the governments are now finally setting about the task in a serious
way to help out forests whilst helping those involved and continuing our cocoa
production in sustainable ways.