landowners from replanting and maintaining aged cocoa orchards; moreover,
the cost advantages of planting cocoa in virgin soils make cocoa cultivators an
ever-present threat to intact forests on the agricultural frontier (Ruf 1995).
The Atlantic Forest of Bahia, Brazil, is extraordinarily rich in biodiversity
and one of the most threatened forests in the world (Figure 7.2; see also Chap-
ter 17, this volume). A joint study conducted there by the New York Botani-
cal Garden and the Brazilian government commission CEPLAC (Comissão
Executiva do Plano da Lavoura Cacaueira) found the second-highest tree
diversity in the world (450 species in 1 ha, of which 25 percent are found only
in southern Bahia; Thomas et al. 1998). The region also features a wealth of
endemic fauna: 80 percent of 22 primate species, 45 percent of 77 rodent
species, and 37 percent of known marsupials exist only in the Atlantic Forest
(Mittermeier et al. 1997). Only 5–7 percent of the original forest cover
remains, and this is composed of numerous small fragments. Much of the
region’s forest comprises small patches on private lands, separated by areas
dedicated to agriculture, ranching, and other economic activities. Fragmenta-
tion poses a severe threat to biodiversity in the region because small, isolated
patches of forest cannot support genetically viable populations of endemic
species (Bierregaard et al. 1992).
Cabruca cocoa farms that maintain a portion of canopy vegetation connect
many of Bahia’s natural forest fragments. The Brazilian cocoa sector has been
suffering since 1989, when world cocoa prices dropped because of surplus
- Achieving Biodiversity Conservation Using Conservation Concessions 143
Figure 7.2. Cocoa-growing
regions and biodiversity
hotspots in Bahia, Brazil.