Cocoa, conservation, and capturing causality

Summary

Commodity crops such as coffee, cocoa and oil palm are important drivers of tropical biodiversity loss. My thesis comprises four research chapters including a review of the combined impacts and reliance on biodiversity that commodity crop systems face, work modelling the impacts of cocoa on biodiversity at a global scale, and two pieces based on fieldwork, focusing on using statistical models to understand how cocoa impacts biodiversity, while biodiversity supplies benefits to cocoa systems across West and Central Africa. I found that the loss of shade and tree diversity is incompatible with biodiversity goals, with sustainable production of cocoa, and with the provision of ecosystem services to farming communities in West and Central Africa. Diverse, complex cocoa systems could be a promising route through which some elements of biodiversity can be preserved. However, this requires multi-generational planning and support from the public and private sectors to provide context-specific solutions.