By the UN Environment
Côte d’Ivoire has the fastest rate of deforestation in Africa—and one of the fastest in the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Ivorian forest cover is down to 8 percent.
The consequences have been dramatic: a major drop in rainfall and other devastating alterations in local climatic conditions that threaten the culture of cocoa, Côte d’Ivoire’s main agricultural commodity. Cocoa has brought prosperity to the country. However, decades of production have exhausted the soil. The decreasing fertility of unsustainably-operated plantations has led local farmers to encroach on forests in search of more productive land. As a result, the cocoa sector, a casualty of the climate crisis, is also the main driver of deforestation in Côte d’Ivoire. Read more>>
