Mongabay writes about a newly published study of cacao farming in Indonesia. The bottom line seems to be that while clearing the forest is more profitable, at least short term, growing cacao under a thinned canopy maintains the diversity of wild species and reduces environmental impacts. But some economic incentive may be needed to promote this option over clear-felling. That option, they note, could be premium priced shade-grown chocolate, just like premium coffee.
The real problem is that under our current capitalist world system, inequality is so extreme that the people who still live in the interface with the forest are so poor, so marginalized and so desperate, that they really don’t have any other choice but to go for what will give them a little immediate cash, regardless of the environnmental or long-term consequences, even though they know they are destroying their future. Solution? End this unjust system.
Ron, do you really think it is “the people who live in the interface with the forest” who are cutting it down? I don’t. I do think that if those people had secure tenure, and maybe a price premium for shade grown cocoa, like the shade-grown coffee farmers get, they might be in a slightly better position to resist those who would cut the forest down.