Can Agroforestry Chocolate Help Save the World's Most Endangered Rainforest?

[Judi Lynn]

Ecuador’s Jama-Coaque Reserve, home to a vibrant cloud forest ecosystem, is part of what may be world’s most endangered tropical forest, of which only 2.23% remains.

October 9, 2023 by Mongabay



By Liz Kimbrough

Ecuador’s Jama-Coaque Reserve, home to a vibrant cloud forest ecosystem, is part of what may be world’s most endangered tropical forest, of which only 2.23% remains.

Third Millennium Alliance (TMA) manages the Jama-Coaque Reserve, protecting one of the few remaining forest areas by monitoring and rebuilding the surrounding forest and with sustainable cacao farming that supports the local economy.

Through their regenerative cacao program, TMA pays local farmers to transition from unsustainable practices to shade-grown cacao cultivation while providing access to premium markets to sell their cacao.

TMA is also working to build “the Capuchin Corridor,” a 43-kilometer (27-mile) wilderness corridor connecting some of the remaining forest fragments through land purchases, agroforestry and reforestation.


JCR protects around 2% of what may be the world’s most endangered tropical forest, Ecuador’s Pacific Forest, and is managed by the US- and Ecuadorian-based nonprofit Third Millennium Alliance (TMA).

Jerry Toth, TMA’s co-founder and program director, describes the first time he visited the forest that would become the reserve. “We found … a wealth of exotic palm trees with spiny trunks … stands of giant bamboo and countless little streams tumbling down steep slopes, alternating between waterfalls and itty-bitty swimming holes naturally stocked with freshwater prawns.”

Yet surrounding this patch of paradise in all directions was “a sea of deforestation.”

Inspired and alarmed, Toth and two others formed TMA and raised $16,000, mostly from family and friends, to buy their first 100 acres and create the reserve in 2007. Their mission: “Keep this forest alive.”

JCR now protects 1,024 hectares (2,530 acres), and with it, dozens of endangered species. According to Ryan Lynch, TMA’s director and wildlife biologist, they have seen or photographed many of these, including the white-fronted capuchin monkey (Cebus aequatorialis), Ecuadorian blue glass frog (Cochranella mache), gray-backed hawk (Leucopternis occidentalis) and the Hotel Zaracay salamander (Bolitoglossa chica).

More:
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/can-agroforestry-chocolate-help-save-the-worlds-most-endangered-rainforest/

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. Deforestation is heartbreaking and deadly.

We desperately need to correct this self-destructive behavior.