Who likes chocolate that has been destroyed by forests where gorillas live?
This is exactly what is happening in Nigeria: cocoa farms invade the last retreat of the endangered primates.

The overexploitation is fueled by the lust of chocolate lovers in Europe. But the forest of the gorillas must not die for sweets.
Cross River gorillas are the most endangered great ape in Africa with only 200-300 individuals remaining in the wild.

Nigeria gives rise to despair and hope at the same time: the country’s forests are almost completely destroyed, 96 percent have disappeared. The state of Cross River in the southeast is a ray of hope. The forests are among the most biodiverse in the world and even offer gorillas a habitat.

But Cross River also loses forest: In 2017, more than 16,000 hectares were destroyed. That is four times more than last year. The main causes are illegal logging, palm oil plantations and the production of charcoal. Cocoa plantations that are planted in protected forests are increasingly to blame. It is often small farmers who see it as a safe source of income and are not familiar with environmentally friendly farming methods.

Overexploitation is fueled by demand in Europe. Nigeria is the third largest cocoa exporter in the world and meets ten percent of the EU’s needs. Deliveries have grown 65 percent to 248,000 tons in 2018 over the past three years, with Holland, Germany and Belgium being the main importers.

In Ivory Coast and Ghana, countries 1 and 2 of origin, forest destruction for cocoa has reached extreme proportions. Almost all protected areas were looted in the Ivory Coast, Ghana holds a sad world record in terms of forest destruction in 2018. The close connection between cocoa cultivation and forest destruction leads to worst worries for Nigeria.

The chocolate companies buy everything they can get, regardless of the environment and animals. It is almost impossible for customers in Europe to find out where their favorite chocolate comes from.

Environmentalists in Brussels are fighting for the EU to regulate the market. But the gorillas can’t wait for that.

The governor of Cross Rivers State is in charge of protecting the gorillas’ habitat.

There are already attempts in the Cross River State to prevent further destruction of cocoa forests. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is in the process of expanding an ongoing project to villages in Afi, Mbe and Okwangwo. The aim is to produce cocoa in an environmentally friendly way. The EU is involved financially.

The state government also plans to build a processing plant in the city of Ikom. It is difficult to estimate what impact this will have on the expansion of the plantations.

The petition goes to: Governor Ben Ayade, Forestry Commission Ogbang Akwaji

“Cocoa plantations threaten the last rainforests in the Cross River State. Please strengthen nature conservation and fight the illegal clearing of forest for cocoa “!

Be sure to sign!

https://www.regenwald.org/petitionen/1188/von-wegen-suess-schokolade-zerstoert-den-wald-der-gorillas

 

My comment: The animal species are getting fewer every day and the criminal species more and more.
You have to search for half an hour to find a soap without palm oil in the supermarket .
Then you buy a vegan chocolate and go home with a clear conscience that this humble pleasure does not cause an animal life.
But then you read that your chocolate’s cocoa may come from a country where there are only 300 gorillas left because your chocolate costs them their life.

We have to fit everywhere and on everything, nowadays.

Animal welfare has become a detective work.

My best regards to all, Venus

 

After all the big claims, a hypocritical COP25 summit runs two days over schedule and decides absolutely nothing, leaving climate change issues up in the air and any plans to ‘save the planet’ on hold until next year in Glasgow.

 

 

The disgraceful collapse of the COP25 gabfest in Madrid, while it was running two days over schedule, is an indictment of everything that those in attendance purported to stand for.

© Reuters / SERGIO PEREZ

 

The extra allowances for these holier-than-thou do-gooders, (that includes you, Mary Robinson) , the rescheduled flights (oh, the fuel), the extra meals (the methane emissions), the energy bills from those chilly Madrid hotel rooms (oil, gas, wind, even). If the check is ever totalled I’m sure we will discover this is a summit that actually took the world climate change lobby backwards in its bid to save the planet.

Glacial cliffs are shearing off into the sea in Antarctica, polar bears eat their newborn in the Arctic Circle, but those churros and hot chocolate were bangin’.

This whole débâcle was world-class hypocrisy at a global level.

Sure, the head of the UN, António Gutteres can chunter on about this being a missed opportunity but the game was rigged from the start and it’s those international bodies claiming to represent everyone that are the worst.

The UN has every nation in the world to answer to. The EU has 27 (for now) nations to claim it represents. Within those institutions there is absolutely no consensus whatsoever.

Poland scuppered the EU’s most recent attempt to head the climate-change crusade, not out of obstinacy but after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: “Poland will be reaching climate neutrality at its own pace.”

This is not a wealthy Western nation. People still rely on the old school. And that is fair cop but the EU, obsessed with itself as representative of one single voice, simply ignored that, insisting that everyone had endorsed 2050 as a target for achieving net zero target emissions, despite carbon-hungry Poland opting for 2070.

This Madrid assembly of the world’s most worthy, all burnishing their green credentials by making over-inflated claims about how quickly and how much they will each save the planet, finally broke up after achieving nothing. Zero. Zilch.

Because –and let’s be perfectly clear– the whole carbon credit scam is based on a huge hypocritical lie put in place so that those nations largely responsible for polluting the planet can cheat the system and keep on doing so. They simply buy carbon credits from those countries operating below their emissions allowance to soothe their consciences, balance the books and make it look like they are actually doing something to stick to internationally pre-agreed limits.

Look, I’ve negotiated with my 10-year-old daughter. Here’s how it works. A few more minutes past the previously agreed bedtime on her online game and she’ll tidy her bedroom… tomorrow.

So tomorrow comes, there’s school, netball, homework, dinner and bed, so the debt is not recovered at the agreed time. Then there’s the day after. Same story. And after that, and after that.

Now expand that to an international climate change summit level and you get what I mean. Debts promised but never repaid. Credit given but soon devalued. National interests. Political interests. Business interests. Local interests.

Next thing you know, you have teenage girls sailing around the world, lecturing us all and being, frankly, used by parasitic public relations interests far greater than they will ever understand to push an agenda that suits their paid employers.

It devalues the strength of people like Greta Thunberg. Like the native Amazonian indians that Sting so embarrassingly sucked-up-to during his ‘Save the World’ phase.

So what has happened? The climate change chiefs of the world have taken a huge pivot and given the carbon emissions can a mighty-ol’ kick down the road, to Glasgow next year, when they are pinning their hopes on a newly-energized British government coming up with some sort of solution.

This, I gotta see.

That would involve China rendered happy (with their bunch of worthless carbon offset certificates they bought in Kyoto), the US somehow engaged in the whole process (immediately after their November 2020 presidential election), Australia appeased that their good efforts will actually be rewarded (rather than scrapped) and anyone in the UK actually giving a hoot.

Because Boris Johnson has enough on his plate and with an EU trade deal widely expected by the end of next year, he could really do without the climate change roadshow and the associated circus acts its attracts in just 12 months’ time.

2050 suddenly seems a whole lot closer.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/476039-cop25-worlds-climate-results/

 

 

My comment: It’s scary how willing people let themselves be shit in the brain! And feel good when others are still touching it!

In discussions on this annoying issue of climate during the climate conference, I notice very clearly that most, like the parrots, repeat everything that is distributed in the media without questioning a single thing. For them, what is said is like religion and belief. Their ignorance becomes clear when asked about the function and origin of the climate.
Absolute ignorance !!

That’s why the climate spark sends us a Greta.
A welcome occasion for politics and the media to present daily salvation programs and punitive measures for non-man-made climate change.
Constant brain massages, appeals to the guilty conscience, around the clock, make the majority of the people accept their “climate change”.
Politics and climate profiteers now smell their chance.

Filling the cash register has never been easier.
The more people pay, the more effectively and quickly Germany and the rest of the world can be “saved”. The guilty conscience has to be washed away.

Meanwhile, others (including climate missionaries) clutter up the accounts and multi-billion dollars in opaque channels disappear.
That is the result of the climate conference! No more.

My best regards to all, Venus