Theobroma cacao is an understory tree native to the #Amazon #rainforest where it grows and fruits in the dappled shade cast by ice-cream beans and other canopy trees. The cacao's showy pink flowers feed bees and other native pollinators, and the #cacao fruit is sweet and sour with a very pleasant and refreshing flavour. Any #FoodForest in #Amazonia could get a boost of biodiversity benefits by including some cacao.

However, in #ecuador and many places throughout the tropics, commercial farms slash and burn the #jungle and plant huge monocultures of cacao in order to maximise profits. These monocultures open up the landscape to invasion by grass and other noxious weeds and leave the cacao trees highly susceptible to infections — problems that the growers control with toxic chemical fumigants that poison the soil and water, so the plantations are almost completely devoid of animal life.

Immediately after destroying the rainforest, people often grow maize first and sell it locally, then "convert existing agricultural land" to cacao plantation or cattle pasture and market their product as "deforestation-free" or other labels that command a premium in foreign markets. Do not fall for it. If you do not #GrowYourOwn then the #chocolate bar or hot #cocoa that you consume is most likely a product of #deforestation in the #AmazonRainforest or elsewhere.

Badass Fruiterrarist Land is a #reforestation effort reclaiming the lands cleared for cacao plantations and cattle pasture and transforming them into diverse and abundant #FruitForest in order to restore a functional ecosystem while also securing #FoodFreedom for the badass fruiterrarists who live here and protecting the habitat of the native animals from further destruction.

(In the meantime, we have a lot of cacao available to eat.)

amazonrestore.codeberg.page/ba…

#veganarchist #veganarchism
#fruiterrarist #fruiterrarism
#vegantravel #volunteer #LandForSale
#SolarpunkSunday #TreesNotGrass