canopy of cocoa agroforests. Reference to these agroforests in the Côte d’Ivoire,
which resembled those of the neighboring Ghana (formerly Gold Coast), can
be found in reports from colonial times, along with first hints at their intensi-
fication under the influence of the colonists: “Farms in the western cocoa-
growing areas are ordinarily well provided with primeval bush shade, as in the
Gold Coast; but in the central and eastern districts, where the influence of the
European planter is strongest, the shade for cocoa is often provided by bananas
and plantains, as is done on plantations” (Schwarz 1931, 6).
Because no chainsaws or even good axes were available, an important moti-
vation of this agroforest strategy of growing cocoa was to save labor by spar-
ing especially trees with very hard wood or large buttresses, as described
decades later for indigenous cocoa farmers in the western Côte d’Ivoire (de
Rouw 1987). Of course, these forest people also knew about the different uses
of their trees and retained certain useful species (again for the western Côte
d’Ivoire, de Rouw mentions the edible seed–producing Irvingia gabonensis,
Ricinodendron heudelotii, and Coula edulis, among others). Such heavily
shaded cocoa agroforests can still be found in the eastern Côte d’Ivoire, and
pockets of this agroforest tradition have also survived in the center-west, in the
region of Gagnoa, where a rebellion of local residents against the government’s
policy of encouraging immigrants in the 1970s deterred further immigration
(Figure 6.1).
- Chocolate Forests and Monocultures 115
Figure 6.1. Forest? No: one of the few surviving cocoa agroforests in the center-west
of the Côte d’Ivoire.