Mapping Cocoa and Assessing Deforestation Risk for the Cocoa Sector in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana

The World Resources Institute, in partnership with the World Cocoa Foundation and Climate Focus, developed two tools to support deforestation-free cocoa commitments in West Africa. The West Africa Cocoa Dataset aggregates data from 19 companies, identifying 840,000 unique plots covering approximately 1.5 million hectares. To protect farmer privacy, this dataset is shared as a heat map rather than raw plot data. The Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment provides a harmonized method to prioritize deforestation prevention; it found that recent forest loss significantly influences risk levels, while legal protections in areas like Taï National Park and Bia National Park correlate with lower priority rankings due to a lack of recent loss.

• The West Africa Cocoa Dataset was developed from 1.2 million contributed polygons, resulting in 840,000 unique plots. These plots typically range from 1 to 2 hectares, covering a total land area of roughly 1.5 million hectares.
• Due to legal and ethics reviews regarding farmer privacy, the West Africa Cocoa dataset is not public; it is instead distributed as a heat map to show cocoa presence without revealing exact plot boundaries.
• The Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment indicates that recent forest loss is a significant variable, sometimes marking regions as high risk even without mapped cocoa production. Conversely, the lack of recent loss in protected areas like Ghana's Bia National Park and Côte d’Ivoire's Taï National Park resulted in low priority rankings, highlighting the effectiveness of legal forest protections.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Mapping Cocoa and Assessing Deforestation Risk for the Cocoa Sector in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. https://www.wri.org/research/mapping-cocoa-assessing-deforestation-risk-cocoa-cote-divoire-ghana

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Mapping Cocoa and Assessing Deforestation Risk for the Cocoa Sector in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/mapping-cocoa-assessing-deforestation-risk-cocoa-cote-divoire-ghana.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Mapping Cocoa and Assessing Deforestation Risk for the Cocoa Sector in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana |url=https://www.wri.org/research/mapping-cocoa-assessing-deforestation-risk-cocoa-cote-divoire-ghana |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendmapping, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Mapping Cocoa and Assessing Deforestation Risk for the Cocoa Sector in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/mapping-cocoa-assessing-deforestation-risk-cocoa-cote-divoire-ghana}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }