Food-security corridors: A crucial but missing link in tackling deforestation in Southwestern Ghana

Kumeh, Eric Mensah; Bieling, Claudia; Birner, Regina

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105862

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Furthermore, a lot happens outside companies' supply chains, with about half of deforestation in Côte d'Ivoire not directly linked to cocoa. Yet, as cocoa occupies large parts of agricultural land (Kalischek et al 2022), it drives deforestation indirectly by pushing other crops inside protected areas (Ajagun et al 2022, Kumeh et al 2022. To address deforestation, cocoa companies need to work beyond their individual supply chains.…”

Section: Prospects For Curbing Cocoa-driven Deforestationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transparency, traceability and deforestation in the Ivorian cocoa supply chain

Renier

Vandromme

Meyfroidt

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Cocoa production has been identified as a major global driver of deforestation, but its precise contribution to deforestation dynamics in West Africa remains unclear. It is also unknown to what degree companies and international markets are able to trace their cocoa imports, and satisfy their sustainable sourcing commitments. Here, we use publicly-available remote-sensing and supply chain data for Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer, to quantify cocoa-driven deforestation and trace 2019 cocoa exports and the associated deforestation from their department of origin, via trading companies, to international markets. We find 2.4 Mha of cocoa deforestation and degradation over 2000–2019, i.e. 125 000 ha y−1, representing 45% of the total deforestation and forest degradation over that period. Only 43.6% (95% CI: 42.6%–44.7%) of exports can be traced back to a specific cooperative and department. The majority of cocoa (over 55%) thus remains untraced, either indirectly sourced from local intermediaries by major traders (23.9%, 95% CI: 22.9%–24.9%), or exported by untransparent traders—who disclose no information about their suppliers (32.4%). Traceability to farm lags further behind, and is insufficient to meet the EU due-diligence legislation’s proposed requirement for geolocation of product origins. We estimate that trading companies in the Cocoa and Forests Initiative have mapped 40% of the total farms supplying them, representing only 22% of all Ivorian cocoa exports in 2019. We identify 838 000 hectares of deforestation over 2000–2015 associated with 2019 EU imports, 56% of this arising through untraced sourcing. We discuss issues of company- and state-led traceability systems, often presented as solutions to deforestation, and stress the need for transparency and for the sector to work beyond individual supply chains, at landscape-level, calling for collaboration, stronger regulatory policies, and investments to preserve the remaining stretches of forests in West Africa.

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Section: Prospects For Curbing Cocoa-driven Deforestationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transparency, traceability and deforestation in the Ivorian cocoa supply chain

Renier

Vandromme

Meyfroidt

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Addressing inequality requires confronting the EU’s entitlement and ability to impose governance and legality standards on economically less privileged countries (Ramcilovic-Suominen and Mustalahti 2022 ). It requires shifting from the individualist logic that encourages and overlooks elitist representation mechanisms known to obscure or misrepresent forest communities' voices and their daily experiences and relations with their environment (Kumeh et al 2022 ; Myers et al 2020 ). It also requires discussing historic and present contributions and responsibilities for ecological degradation, climate change, unequal opportunities and terms exchange between different countries.…”

Section: The Eu’s Response To Tropical Deforestation: Bypassing the C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By situating the deforestation question within dependency, degrowth and decoloniality theories, this paper critically examines whether emerging EU policies seek to deliver meaningful changes to the bloc’s role in causing deforestation in the global South, particularly through its import of agro-commodities such as soy, palm oil, cocoa, coffee, and biomass, notably wood pellets and bioethanol. The paper pays attention to two of the bloc’s policy communications that speak to deforestation-causing commodities—i.e., ‘Stepping up EU Action to Protect and Restore the World’s Forests’ (hereafter: SAPReF) and the EU Updated Bioeconomy Strategy (UBS)—due to how tropical deforestation directly affects climate, biodiversity and peoples’ ways of living in global South (Hoang and Kanemoto 2021 ; Kumeh et al 2022 ; Urzedo and Chatterjee 2021 ), and the policy window currently available within the bloc to explore solutions to tropical deforestation (European Commission 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is the EU shirking responsibility for its deforestation footprint in tropical countries? Power, material, and epistemic inequalities in the EU’s global environmental governance

Kumeh

Ramcilovic‐Suominen

2023

Sustain Sci

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This paper critically examines the European Union’s (EU) role in tropical deforestation and the bloc’s actions to mitigate it. We focus on two EU policy communications aimed at the challenge: stepping up EU action to protect and restore the world's forests and the EU updated bioeconomy strategy. In addition, we refer to the European Green Deal, which articulates the bloc’s overarching vision for sustainability and transformations. We find that by casting deforestation as a production problem and a governance challenge on the supply side, these policies deflect attention from some of the key drivers of tropical deforestation—the EU’s overconsumption of deforestation-related commodities and asymmetric market and trade power relations. The diversion allows the EU unfettered access to agro-commodities and biofuels, which are important inputs to the EU’s green transition and bio-based economy. Upholding a ‘sustainability image’ within the EU, an overly business-as-usual approach has taken precedence over transformative policies, enabling multinational corporations to run an ecocide treadmill, rapidly obliterating tropical forests. Whereas the EU's plan to nurture a bioeconomy and promote responsible agro-commodities production in the global South are relevant, the bloc is evasive in setting firm targets and policy measures to overcome the inequalities that spring from and enable its overconsumption of deforestation-related commodities. Drawing on degrowth and decolonial theories, we problematise the EU’s anti-deforestation policies and highlight alternative ideas that could lead to more just, equitable and effective measures for confronting the tropical deforestation conundrum.

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“…These conditions demonstrate that social forestry functions are widely recognised globally [3]. The idea of social forestry increasing the contribution of forests through food security is highlighted in numerous studies including [4][5][6]. Therefore, the strategies of integrated food security with social forestry are a positive effort to sustain the forest food security and community livelihood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Numerous studies worldwide have been conducted to promote food security through forest resources management and consumption [5]. Rural households are still heavily dependent on forest food to secure their daily needs [6], dietary, and other health purposes. Nevertheless, forest services contribution to food security is often overlooked, due to the focus on agricultural food production and forest conservation [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systematic review on linking community livelihood in social forestry with food security

Yahya

Amir

Lintangah

et al. 2022

IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci.

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Food security issues, particularly forest resources, have gained increasing worldwide attention over the past few years. Although studies have discussed various food security contributions, few have addressed the connection between community livelihood with food security, particularly in social forestry areas. Thus, the study aims to address the gap from an overview of community livelihood and food security in various Asian countries. The study retrieved approximately 142 articles from different databases and filtered 71, highlighting 30 case studies related to social forestry and food security, published between 2010 and 2021 cross schemes in Asia. The key indicators of community livelihood and food security mainly stated access to forest area, consumption of forest resources and non-timber forest products. The findings could improve future planning and management of social forestry and enhance food security for rural development and community livelihood. Ultimately, the study proposed a framework of forest-food security linkages, specifically for social forestry areas.

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Food-security corridors: A crucial but missing link in tackling deforestation in Southwestern Ghana

Cited by 18 publications

References 51 publications

Transparency, traceability and deforestation in the Ivorian cocoa supply chain

Transparency, traceability and deforestation in the Ivorian cocoa supply chain

Is the EU shirking responsibility for its deforestation footprint in tropical countries? Power, material, and epistemic inequalities in the EU’s global environmental governance

A systematic review on linking community livelihood in social forestry with food security

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