Conclusion
In Cameroon, the focus is on making the production of cocoa—the powder from the cacao bean and the key ingredient in chocolate—more sustainable. Cocoa accounts for 12 percent of the country’s exports, and in many marginalidzed Indigenous communities, it is a key cash crop. But cocoa production has also been linked to deforestation. A 2013 World Bank report found that in the preceding decade, cacao farms had swallowed up 1,400 square kilometers of Cameroonian forest.
“While we need to develop, we also need to protect the environment,” says Haman Yanousa, a technical advisor in Cameroon’s Ministry of Environment. “We need a balance.”
That is happening in the town of Mintom, which skirts the 5,000-square-kilometer Dja Faunal Reserve. The community is a hotbed of cacao production. Cacao trees, with their red and yellow pods, surround a colorful collection of houses and shops. Millions of cacao seeds—which will be processed into cocoa—dry on tarps laid out in backyards.
Here, experts from the Rainforest Alliance, a non-governmental organization, showed residents how to prune cacao trees, clear undergrowth, manage pests and better dry beans. Farmers say their yields are rising and deforestation around the town has stopped.
Since 2021, the UNEP-led project has trained more than 120 community representatives, certified over 50,000 hectares of cacao farms and established three provincial technical monitoring committees that ensure local voices are integrated into governance structures.
René Etoua Meto’o is among those who have benefitted from those efforts. He says the training helped him “master” all stages of the cocoa production process. “I feed my family from the sales of the cocoa I produce,” he says.
Stories like that are a testament to the potential of sustainable development in the Congo Basin, says UNEP’s Akwah.
“This really is an area brimming with promise, but for too long, economic growth has come at the expense of nature,” he says. “Projects like this are showing that it is possible to protect the rainforest and jumpstart the kind of sustainable development that will make life better for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.” UNEP News
