Towards Forest Positive Cocoa
Authors: Fiona Hager | Jil-Nora Herrmann | Luiza Nieuwenhuizen | Maéva Yersin
Installation photos courtesy Fiona Hager
From the authors: “In our research, we focused on the impact of surveillance of cocoa production. Nestlé, like many multinational food corporations, deploys these methods in the Ivory Coast in such a way that a connection can be drawn between forest protection and militarization. Through the Ivory Coast government’s implementation of the forest protection program ‘Code forestier ivoirien,’ the urgent need to protect nature legitimizes human rights violations, such as the extortion and eviction of farmers who have lived all their lives in areas which were later declared protected. This kind of environmental preservation criminalizes these farmers and deprives them of rights.”
“How can the activist archive raise awareness amongs consumers in the Global North about the impacts of cacao production in the Ivory Coast? How can such activism be democratized in an effort to protect the forest and to include cacao farmers in the discussions about the future of cacao production?” - JN. H.
“Reports act as authoritative documents while – through their format - produce certain discourse ecologies. The information is presented as finished complete. Our project questioned the extent to which the complexity of actors and issues involved in forest degradation can be represented.” - M.Y.