<\/p>\n
In Liberia\u2019s Grand Gedeh county, deforestation for cocoa has soared since 2020, pushing the region\u2019s cocoa trade into an uncertain future. The EU is Liberia\u2019s biggest cocoa customer, but is set to implement the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR<\/a>), which bans the import of forest products, including cocoa, made on land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020, reports<\/a> Mongabay\u2019s Ashoka Mukpo.<\/p>\n \u201cIf cocoa from Liberia was produced on land cleared after that EUDR cutoff date, it would fail on deforestation grounds,\u201d Owen Gibbons, senior manager for global advocacy and UK public affairs, at the Rainforest Alliance, told Mongabay.<\/p>\n In 2024, the EU imported more\u00a0than 17,000 metric tons of cocoa<\/a> from Liberia, a 30% increase in two years.<\/p>\n Soon, Liberian cocoa producers will have to show their beans weren\u2019t produced on forest land cleared after December 2020. However, most cacao plantations in Grand Gedeh are deep inside forests. In fact, much of the forest loss in the region has occurred since 2020. Before that, 99% of the county was covered by forests<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some forests are communally owned and private individuals can lease them out. However, cacao plantations have also encroached into other forests, including the proposed Kwa National Park area, where commercial agriculture is currently banned.<\/p>\n To meet the EUDR requirements, cocoa producers will have to show their EU customers exactly where the cocoa plantations are and when they started production. Tracing every plantation and its production is a massive undertaking. C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire and Ghana, both major cocoa exporters, have spent years\u00a0establishing traceability systems<\/a>. Liberia\u00a0only started recently.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cLiberia is at a very early stage on all these fronts,\u201d Gibbons said. \u201cThere is no national traceability infrastructure comparable to what exists in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire or Ghana.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if Liberia puts a traceability system together, the EU could still reject its cocoa since most of the deforestation in Grand Gedeh happened post 2020.<\/p>\n As uncertainties loom, many people in the country involved in the cocoa trade are unaware of the implications of the EUDR, including Lincoln Daslah, secretary of a cocoa-buying collective and a middleman between producers in Grand Gedeh and exporters in Monrovia.<\/p>\n When told about the regulation, Daslah said that while he knows the forest is disappearing, he doesn\u2019t understand why the EU would want to hurt his business.<\/p>\n However, some EU policymakers said the rule is still necessary to protect forests in counties like Grand Gedeh.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand the frustration of farmers in Liberia that just started production in that sense and aren\u2019t ready,\u201d said Delara Burkhardt, a German member of the European Parliament. \u201cI think still in the long term we have to make sure that sustainable practices are supported, and clear-cutting forests is something that breaches the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Read the full story by Ashoka Mukpo <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Banner image:<\/em><\/strong> Traders sorting through cocoa beans in Grand Gedeh, Liberia. Image by Ashoka Mukpo for Mongabay.<\/em><\/p>\n![\""primary](\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/07\/15115209\/Photo-8-44_CD_designarticle_Final_02-scaled-e1787654873237.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/07799caa7cb21fcc7a5a3924abeb83cbd823d2475a9b7f7441f9db8cd14f391f?s=32&d=identicon&r=g\")
<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n