Brussels aims to ban the importation of products from deforested areas. To raise awareness among Ivorian authorities on this issue, the European Union's Commissioner for Environment visited Ivory Coast. His message was not easy to digest.
"The aim of this visit is to ensure a smooth transition so that products entering the EU do not contribute to deforestation here in Ivory Coast," said Virginijus Sinkevicius during a visit to Agboville in the south.
In April 2023, the European Parliament adopted a text prohibiting the importation of products from lands deforested after December 31, 2020. According to the EU embassy in Ivory Coast, it should be effective by the end of the year.
"The EU and Ivory Coast engage in significant trade, and we are, of course, aware that the new regulations will have an impact on this country, the world's leading cocoa producer, which exports 59% of this commodity to the EU," said Sinkevicius. But regarding the fight against deforestation, "Ivory Coast has made great progress, so I sincerely believe it will increase exports of sustainably sourced products," he added during a visit to cocoa and rubber plantations.
The text requires exporting countries to trace the products they sell, a process Ivory Coast has begun with cocoa.
Since 2019, the government has identified nearly a million planters, of which over 110,000 have received a card containing digital data on their productions, according to the Coffee-Cocoa Council, the Ivorian public body responsible for regulating the sector.
Alida N'Takpé, president of a cooperative in Agboville, however, has "some concerns," including "geolocation" of producers, which requires "labor" and resources to purchase equipment.
Ivory Coast, which had 16 million hectares of forest in the 1960s, has seen its area shrink by 90%, according to official figures, mainly due to the development of cocoa plantations.
The country has committed to restoring 20% of its forested lands by 2030.
Globally, 90% of deforestation is due to the expansion of agricultural lands, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
