Preprint, direct and indirect deforestation in Ghana driven by cocoa, mining, plantations, settlements, and food crops and logging

New study preprint led by Cécile Renier, investigating the complex land use dynamics in the tropical moist forests of Ghana, looking at direct and indirect deforestation over 2000-2019.

Across the tropics, cocoa is one of the main drivers of deforestation. In Ghana, the world’s second largest cocoa producer, the role of each of the main economic sectors in driving deforestation remains, however, contested - with cocoa, mining, logging, and plantations each blaming the others. Previous work has also suggested that food crops are displaced into forests by cocoa expansion, raising concerns about indirect land use change and impacts on food availability.

Using Earth observation data and a land balance model, we find that cocoa is the major direct driver (~57%), followed by food crops and logging (~39% in total). Roughly 30% of the deforestation and degradation linked to food crops could be attributed to their displacement by other land uses - with 15% (9%-17%) due to cocoa expansion into food crops. In cocoa-saturated regions, indirect cocoa deforestation is likely to increase as forests only remain in gazetted areas, where growing food crops is either legal or more tolerated by officials than cocoa. Accounting for its direct and indirect role, cocoa is associated with ~20% of the deforestation in gazetted areas. This research highlights the need to move away from sustainability efforts targeting one single commodity at a time to more transformative approaches that develop a coordinated vision across the food and land system.

Looking forward to see this in final publication!, but hoping that the preprint can already be useful to some.