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How Chocolate Can Help Save the Planet

How Chocolate Can Help Save the Planet

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Trees are crucial weapons in the fight against climate change, but they’re also vital to the livelihoods of 1.5 billion people, including those of cocoa farmers. We can’t put a fence around forests to keep poor people from exploiting them. Doing so may reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s not realistic. We need to fashion a future where forests can be used to benefit those who count on trees for their living without inflicting damage on the rest of the planet. And in the cacao groves of West Africa where these conditions are being met, plants and people are thriving.