Peru: How chocolate saved a community and a protected area from the drug trade

[Judi Lynn]

BY VANESSA ROMO ON 6 JULY 2018

In the forests surrounding Río Abiseo National Park, in the Peruvian Amazon region of San Martín, a burgeoning chocolate industry is gaining traction.

After dedicating more than twenty years to the cultivation of coca to supply cocaine trafficking, today the community of Mariscal Cáceres is committed to legal production of cacao that allows them to protect more than 300,000 hectares of forest.

Cacao growers in the community are partnering with Swiss dairy farmer to produce high-quality chocolate for markets in Europe and the U.S.

Augusto Sangama confesses that, twenty years ago, his life was worth nothing. He believes others in the community of Huicungo in the San Martín region in northern Peru felt the same way, saying that if any of them had been killed, no one would have asked for explanations of their death. These were times when cocaine paste was sold as if it were a kilo of sugar or rice, showing how high the demand was and leading to an increase in trafficking. Planes with drugs left daily from the Alto Huallaga Valley, where the community is located. Augusto recalls that the majority of local farmers were engaged in the illicit cultivation of coca crops, from which cocaine is produced. Now at 64, he observes the hundreds of cacao tree seedlings destined for the chocolate industry he has planted on land once used to grow coca, as well as the intact biodiversity of nearby Río Abiseo National Park, he can’t understand why he could not live like this before.

More:
https://news.mongabay.com/2018/07/peru-how-chocolate-saved-a-community-and-a-protected-area-from-the-drug-trade/

[SunSeeker]

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