Reducing deforestation through value chain interventions in countries emerging from conflict: The case of the Colombian cocoa sector

Highlights

• We explore the role of value chain interventions (VCI) in reducing deforestation.

• We use quantitative analyses and interviews with key stakeholders in the cocoa sector.

• Results suggest that cocoa production has not led to deforestation in Colombia.

• VCI provide an opportunity to put private sector's zero-deforestation commitments into action.

• There is no conceptual frameworks to integrate deforestation concerns into VCI.

Abstract

Sustainability commitments by private sector actors are emerging as interventions to help reduce global deforestation. Much attention is placed on the forest conservation impact of these interventions in areas where commodity production constitutes a main driver of deforestation. It is, however, less clearly understood what role they could play in areas where the production of commodities is not evidently leading to the loss of forest and how they could contribute to other objectives including sustainable rural development and peacebuilding. In this paper, we examine the potential of the cocoa sector in Colombia in achieving deforestation reduction and peacebuilding simultaneously, as aimed by the country's Cocoa, Forests and Peace Initiative. Results from correlations and spatially explicit analyses show that regardless of its widespread production across Colombia, in the past fifteen years cocoa has not been an important driver of deforestation. This suggests that efforts to end deforestation in the Colombian cocoa sector emerged following global trends, and not because of an evident link between cocoa production and deforestation. Furthermore, results from spatial clustering analyses highlight areas where different types of value chain interventions may be appropriate to parallel forest conservation and peacebuilding, while interviews with key actors in the cocoa sector provide clues as to how these interventions should be developed and implemented. Specifically, our results show that narratives around approaches to achieve zero deforestation from agricultural commodities should (1) be adjusted to local contexts, (2) incorporate location-specific development needs, (3) complement existing rural development efforts, (4) enhance collaboration among actors that operate both within and beyond the value chain, and (5) apply high-resolution data to assess deforestation-commodity relations and verify zero-deforestation commitments. These considerations are particularly relevant in contexts where commodity production is not evidently leading to deforestation, as in the case of cocoa production in Colombia.

Introduction

Global clamor over the need to reduce deforestation linked to agricultural production in order to lower carbon emissions and curb the loss of biodiversity is increasing. Sustainability commitments by private sector actors are emerging as interventions to help reduce global deforestation (Lambin et al., 2018). Hundreds of corporations have pledged to enhance transparency and accountability in their supply chains as a means to achieve zero deforestation (Rothrock, Weatherer, & Zwick, 2019). However, the impact of such commitments on reducing deforestation has been limited (Garrett et al., 2019). Greater impacts may be accomplished through the implementation of value chain interventions (VCI), here defined as actions directed at segments of a value chain, or along its entire length, to achieve certain environmental, social or economic development goals (Sola et al., 2017; Zuberi, Mehmood, & Gazdar, 2016).

Zero-deforestation VCI provide an opportunity to put zero-deforestation commitments into action. However, such interventions are facing various challenges in reaching desired outcomes (Garrett et al., 2019). In fact, before gaining prominence as a tool to achieve zero deforestation, VCI were promoted as a means to deliver sustainable development, including conflict resolution, poverty reduction, rural development, gender inclusion, improved nutrition, food security and forest conservation (Bolwig, Ponte, du Toit, Riisgaard, & Halberg, 2008; Devaux, Torero, Donovan, & Horton, 2018; Maestre, Poole, & Henson, 2017; Seville, Buxton, & Vorley, 2011; Tallontire & Vorley, 2005; Zuberi et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the impact of such interventions on sustainable development remains a topic of debate (Kidoido & Child, 2014). This is partly because value chains are complex, multi-layered in nature, highly diverse, dynamic, and time and context-specific (Devaux et al., 2018; Kidoido and Child, 2014; Reardon et al., 2019; Ton, Vellema, & de Ruyter de Wildt, 2011). Furthermore, some authors argue that to achieve sustainable outcomes, VCI alone are insufficient, and they need to be implemented concertedly with other sustainability approaches, engage stakeholders along the entire value chain and address multiple factors and interactions (Devaux et al., 2018; Seville et al., 2011).

Emerging literature on the topic mainly focuses on assessing corporate supply-chain commitments in contexts where there is a clear link between an agricultural commodity and deforestation (Gardner et al., 2019; Garrett et al., 2019; Lambin et al., 2018). However, contexts where this link is weak or unapparent are often disregarded. Zero-deforestation initiatives were initially developed to reduce forest loss in countries where globally traded commodities are the main drivers of deforestation, such as in Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia (Boucher & Elias, 2013; Gibbs et al., 2015; Henders, Persson, & Kastner, 2015). These initiatives were built upon “name and shame” campaigns that have led to recent trends of incorporating social and environmental concerns into corporations’ supply chains (Lambin et al., 2018) and implementing governance models that encompass extensive collaboration with all stakeholders involved in the value chain (Jiang, 2009).

On the other hand, there is no clear understanding of the role of such interventions in reducing or preventing deforestation where forest cover changes are tied to interlinkages that are more complex. For instance, the expansion of commodities on previously cleared land may have limited impacts on forest cover and could even contribute to reforestation in the case of tree crops, such as cocoa (Schroth, Garcia, Griscom, Teixeira, & Barros, 2016). Similarly, it is not clear how these interventions should be developed and implemented in such contexts, particularly because on-the-ground implementation would naturally vary between countries where deforestation is driven by agricultural commodities and those where it is not (McCarthy & Tacconi, 2011). Implementation should also vary between cases that involve global brands that dominate the market and small producers located in isolated regions, such as regions emerging from armed conflict (Perez-Aleman & Sandilands, 2008; Reed & Reed, 2009; Rein & Stott, 2009). For instance, the loss of tropical forests due to cocoa farming in some parts of the world has brought sharp criticism to the cocoa sector. This is the case for countries where cocoa has been promoted as an economic alternative in post-conflict settings, such as Ghana (Deans, Ros-Tonen, & Derkyi, 2018). It is not clear, however, to what extent cocoa is causing deforestation in other countries, such as Colombia, where i) complex interlinkages between coca leaf production, cattle pastures and land grabbing drive deforestation (Castro-Nunez, Mertz, Buritica, Sosa, & Lee, 2017), ii) the cultivation of cocoa has been promoted as an alternative to illegal crop production (Charry, Castro-Llanos, & Castro-Nunez, 2019), and iii) most of the cocoa production is traded nationally (Abbott et al., 2018).

In this paper, we contribute to the understanding of the role of VCI in achieving zero deforestation in areas where the link between deforestation and commodity production is not evident. It does so via quantitative analyses and interviews with key stakeholders in the cocoa sector in Colombia. We use Colombia, a country emerging from armed conflict, as a case study; because, despite a lack of evidence in the literature that cocoa is causing significant deforestation in this country, Colombia's government has joined global efforts to achieve deforestation-free cocoa production through its Cocoa, Forests and Peace Initiative (Minambiente, 2018). We first perform correlations and spatially explicit analyses to explore to what degree deforestation is associated with cocoa production in Colombia and examine how locations with similar cocoa, forest and conflict characteristics are spatially distributed. We then use semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders to better understand their viewpoint on the potential role of the cocoa value chain as a tool for forest conservation and peacebuilding and identify opportunities and barriers in delivering both forest conservation and long-lasting peace, which is the goal of the country's Cocoa, Forests and Peace Initiative. After this introductory section, the methods are described. Subsequently, results from Spearman correlation analysis, Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) analysis, Hierarchical Cluster Analysis and interviews are presented. We then discuss the implications of our results for on-the-ground implementation of zero-deforestation VCI.