Deforestation-Free Cocoa

In Peru, forests are threatened by illegal gold mining and the encroachment of subsistence agriculture from farmers who have no alternative means of income generation. In Madre de Dios, Peru, 570,00 hectares of primary forest land is protected and 4,000 hectares of degraded lands is being restored and returned to use through cocoa-based agroforestry systems.

The Althelia Climate Fund is participating in a USD 12 million investment program in the Tambopata REDD+ Project in Madre de Dios, which will empower 500 farmers to produce sustainable cocoa through agroforestry systems in previous pasturelands while protecting the biologically diverse Tambopata National Reserve and Bahuaha-Sonene National Park. It’s a ‘payment for performance’ model: farmers receive financing on the condition that they won’t deforest further, will restore degraded land in the buffer zone with cocoa-based agroforestry systems, and that a share of revenues from cocoa sales will go to investors.

The Emissions Reductions generated by the Project are commercialised by Althelia and the revenues are shared between the investors and the Peruvian State for fostering the protection of both protected areas and more agroforestry investments in the buffer zones so to stabilise land use in the long term.