Our craving for chocolate is taking homes and taking lives

Our chocolate cravings are causing primates to become extinct via deforestation.

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Would you quit eating chocolate if you knew it would save a life? How about many lives? According to reports this week, human consumption of chocolate is helping to push many species of primates towards the brink of extinction.

Not long ago, a diverse range of primates inhabited the Ivory Coast but their numbers have continually dwindled due to illegal cocoa farming which has all but wiped them out. About ten years ago, primate numbers were thriving in comparison to where they are today. West Africa is much more quiet now as many species’ voices have been taken away from the landscape via deforestation.

The Ivory Coast provides more than one third of the world’s cocoa, which is the main ingredient in chocolate based products, reported Scientific American March 3. That number for last year alone was 1.7 million metric tons. This number contributes to a $83 billion a year chocolate business, which surpasses the Gross Domestic Product of over 130 nations.

Illegal cocoa farms are destroying habitats and taking along their inhabitants with them. Over the course of a few years, almost 75 percent of the “protected” forests in question have been replaced. In 13 of 23 protected areas, primates have been wiped out, making many of them endangered and others possibly extinct.

This problem is being addressed by a community-based monitoring program which incorporates the efforts of many conservation organizations. The program “converts former poachers and farmers into wildlife guardians.” The converts help to reclaim and protect the landscape, cutting out cocoa saplings when they find them and chasing poachers off the land.

The program is not installed in every place that needs it but there has been progress for the areas it currently protects. Over the course of four years, primate numbers have increased 37 percent due to their efforts. That’s great news but it’s dampened a bit by the great need for the organization to expand. They need money to continue as well as the attention of consumers on the matter. Choosingshade grown cocoa, for example, ensures that consumers aren’t supporting cocoa farms that are culprits of deforestation. Consumers should also look for products that come out of sustainable practices.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com