Nestle is expanding its programme to tackle deforestation caused by the expansion of cocoa planting in Ivory Coast, bringing cocoa trading companies directly on board.
With 40% of the global market, Ivory Coast is the world’s top cocoa producer.
The west African country had 16 million hectares of forest in the 1960s, which has subsequently been reduced to less than three million, owing primarily to cocoa plantations.
Nestle, the Swiss food conglomerate behind KitKat and Smarties, initiated a project in 2020 to restore and conserve the Cavally Forest in southwest Ivory Coast.
Cavally, one of the country’s last surviving deep woods, is a nature reserve comprising more than 67,000 hectares, although it is endangered by deforestation linked to the cocoa business and illegal gold mining.
The Nestle initiative was a collaboration between the Ivorian government and the Earthworm Foundation, an NGO in charge of project implementation.
At a media briefing this week at its headquarters in Vevey on Lake Geneva, Nestle said the first phase had led to “a significant reduction in deforestation”, with the natural regeneration of 7,000 hectares and the reforestation of almost 1,500 hectares.
