Preserved

24.392 soccer fields

of forest

The village communities in almost all of our origins own or manage old-growth forests. We register in our database only areas which belong directly to the community or farmer families and are mapped and officially registered in our database. Our work in and with the communities, our payments, but also our farming plans, training, and awareness raising decrease the likelihood of these forests being chopped down.

If we have a formal protection system in place, we count them as protected. (see below). Otherwise, we count them as “preserved”.

In 2019, we funded conservation projects for 2 threatened animal species

In addition to preserving rare forests, we take up opportunities to support local conservation projects that convince and inspire us. In the past year, this has been the beehive project with the Southern Tanzania Elephant Project (STEP) and the Andean condor release programme with the Santuario Animal de Cochahuasi in Peru. Because we want to do more in this regard, we have established the Preserve the Rare Foundation and we welcome your support.

In 2019, we have continued to protect 8 of the world’s main biodiversity hotspots.

The leading criterium for our selection of an origin is positive impact on the protection of threatened biological diversity. All of our cacao origins belong to a biodiversity hotspot and are most often developed in and around a designated nature park or so-called protected area. A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened with destruction (as defined by conservation biologists).