Africa climate and business reporter Taiwo Adebayo reported on cocoa plantations spreading illegally into protected areas of Nigeria’s Omo Forest Reserve and traced how the cocoa from the reserve is used by companies that supply major chocolate makers globally. Visuals were handled by photographer Sunday Alamba and video journalist Dan Ikpoyi.
Over two visits and several days, The Associated Press repeatedly documented farmers harvesting cocoa beans where that work is banned in forest conservation areas. The AP reviewed company and trade documents and interviewed more than 20 farmers, five licensed buying agents and two brokers operating within the reserve, highlighting for the first time a concrete case of adverse environmental impact in the West Africa-chocolate industry supply networks.
Cocoa grown illegally in a Nigerian rainforest heads to companies that supply major chocolate makers
Workers bag cocoa beans at a warehouse inside the conservation zone of the Omo Forest Reserve in Nigeria, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. Farmers, buyers and others say cocoa heads from deforested areas of the protected reserve to companies that supply some of the world’s biggest chocolate makers.
AP PHOTO / SUNDAY ALAMBA