Your afternoon chocolate bar may be fueling climate change, destroying protected forests and threatening elephants, chimpanzees and hippos in West Africa, research suggests.

Eric Worrall reports at Watts Up With That,

The Chocolate Climate Worriers have switched tactics, from claiming that climate is going to kill all the cocoa plants, to claiming we should feel guilty about wanting chocolate in the first place. "New Research Suggests Cocoa Trade Fueling Climate Change"

Is your chocolate bar damaging the environment?
17/09/2017 8:07 AM AEST

LONDON, Sept 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Your afternoon chocolate bar may be fueling climate change, destroying protected forests and threatening elephants, chimpanzees and hippos in West Africa, research suggests.

Well-known brands, such as Mars and Nestle, are buying through global traders cocoa that is grown illegally in dwindling national parks and reserves in Ivory Coast and Ghana, environmental group Mighty Earth said.

“Every consumer of chocolate is a part of either the problem or the solution,” Etelle Higonnet, campaign director at Mighty Earth, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“You can choose to buy ethical chocolate. Or you’re voting with your dollar for deforestation.”

Mars and Nestle told the Thomson Reuters Foundation they are working to tackle deforestation.

“We take a responsible approach to sourcing cocoa and have committed to source 100 percent certified sustainable cocoa by 2020,” Mars said in an email.…

Ivory Coast, Francophone West Africa’s biggest economy, is the world’s top cocoa grower.

While the bulk of its 1 million cocoa farmers ply their trade legally, Washington-based Mighty Earth estimates about a third of cocoa is grown illegally in protected areas.

Read more here.
Eric writes,

My sympathy is with the illegal farmers. The political situation is horrendous, the report mentions the investigators were prevented from inspecting some regions because of an outbreak of fighting between government forces and rebels. Yet rather than jumping on a boat and becoming part of the global refugee problem, or growing drugs, those “illegal farmers” are trying to make the best of their miserable situation by cultivating cocoa.

We should be giving the farmers a break; but green-obsessed Westerners are stirring up trouble for these unfortunates, drawing the attention of corrupt Ivory Coast authorities to a pile of money they haven’t stolen yet, trying to stir up climate controversy against their product, and complaining that these desperately poor farmers should be more sensitive to the environment.

For shame. Let these farmers get on with their lives, with their courageous efforts to make a decent living, to create safety and security for their families in the midst of nightmare circumstances the like of which few of us will ever have to endure.