Sao Tomé and Principé: UN Experts help protect cocoa plantations

It's a country that relies strongly on cocoa production to support local livelihoods. Sao Tomé and Principé is rich with cocoa plantations and rainforests, but is grappling with mounting land degradation due to agricultural expansion and the effects of climate change. Experts are doing what they can to shield biodiversity.

Faustino Oliveira, the FAO national project coordinator, says “the cocoa production depends on forest cover, mainly from big trees. So, there was a need to help these cooperatives rehabilitate, through planting and restocking techniques.”

UN experts and the government have launched an initiative to restore ecosystems and boost sustainable cocoa production. 

Dodamin Semedo Correia, a cocoa farmer, says, “the cooperative gave us management training, to learn how to manage our money and our production.”

More than 37 producer groups and some 2, 000 families have benefitted from the initiative and its work.