Bittersweet Forest
PUR PROJET
Ivory Coast leads the world in the production and export of the cocoa beans used in the manufacture of chocolate, as of 2012, supplying 38% of cocoa produced in the world. With 1.8 million tonnes in 2017, the crop is grown in Ivory Coast mostly by smallholder farmers planting on 1 to 3 hectares. According to the EU and Ivorian Forestry Ministry, over 80% of the Ivory Coast's forests have disappeared between 1960 and 2010. It is the result of cocoa farmers' activities. They were used to illegally encroach upon these forests, clear the underbrush, plant cocoa, and burn taller trees' roots to kill them to bring more sunlight to the cocoa plants.
The need for livelihoods improvement and ecosystem restoration is glaring, and a prerequisite for sustainable cocoa production and economic resilience of communities. PUR Projet with its partners has launched an ambitious program that, beyond tackling deforestation, aims at empowering smallholder farmer communities and building resilient livelihoods. Together, using a high-density agroforestry model, they have supplied 4,600 cocoa farmers with 488,000 trees in just three years, hand by hand with more than 14 cooperatives.
This documentary brings you to Bossoha, one of the main villages of this project in the west part of Ivory Coast that faces all these cocoa issues and starts to fight with education and seedlings to regenerate this local ecosystem. Let's discover these Bittersweet forest and immerse yourself in the daily life of its inhabitants.
Photography by Fabien Fourcaud & Hussein Makke
“Chocolate?
We live in the bush here. It’s rare to come to town and taste a piece of chocolate.”
“In Bossoha many farmers grow coffee and cocoa to ensure the family’s livelihoods. ”
“You know, we moved here because we had a low income, here, it’s easier to get food and a home.”
“To plant cocoa, you had to find a piece of forest, and all we had to do was grab a machete and cut down some trees. There are no remaining forests around the village. The last one we have left is on this hill, it is a sacred forest.”
“Really, if people keep cutting down trees it will be almost a desert”
“It is so sad to destroy the forest. We destroy it without thinking about the future. We have children, a new world is emerging, we must protect this world. So destroying the forest today means destroying our own future.”
“I know three cocoa species. The red color which has a pleasant taste. The white color, it is a little shy and then a little sweet. And now the pink color, it is a little bitter but still a little sweet.”
“I started to plant trees in the plantation because if the sun rays start to hit hard, it hurts the tree. The fields need a little bit of shade to enhance the moisture on the tree, to be able to germinate, and then produce the right fruit quality.”
“Things have changed, before we had to work all the time with our husbands in the plantations. Even when the men went to clean the forest with the machetes, we were always there to help them. Today, men no longer require women help, we are more independent, we can now take care of our own plantations. All women must be free.”
“There is no more forest, and then the animals can’t find anything to eat. The animals feed almost on our pods.”
“When I was a kid, things were different. In those days, it used to rain regularly. But today, even if it rains, the sun dries up the soil immediately, and you don’t even realize it has rained before.”
“Everyone would like to plant trees to gain happiness. The planting I am working on, that’s the future of children.”
“Trees are our common heritage, that’s why we must take care of them. We should respect trees and never forget that without them, we would not be here today.”
