Saving Rainforests with Chocolate: Cacao Farmers Create a Green Economy | Dynamic Planet

How can chocolate help humans increase Earth’s carbon drawdown? Indigenous farmers are reforesting wastelands within the Amazon rainforest with native cacao trees, selling cacao as their livelihood, and in turn are restoring the rainforest’s biodiversity and its role in the global carbon cycle. By investing in themselves AND the forest, these farmers demonstrate how economic and environmental goals can be mutually beneficial.

This case study presents a local regenerative economy that is driven by the Indigenous farmers’ drive to create positive and sustainable impacts on both their native land and the global carbon cycle, while also supporting themselves financially.

Through viewing questions, students discuss the challenges and benefits of establishing a regenerative economy. They also explore the connections between local biodiversity initiatives and global carbon drawdown. Further engagement activities give students the opportunity to extend their knowledge by proposing economically viable carbon drawdown programs in other biomes.

About the Author
Jody Cook is a passionate science educator with 22 years of secondary teaching experience. Holding an M.Ed. from Indiana Wesleyan University and a BS in Biology from Eastern Illinois University, her journey is fueled by creativity, innovation, and collaborative learning. Formerly from the Midwest, she is now currently enjoying all that nature has to offer on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Her genuine love for science inspires her belief that transformative education can spark lifelong curiosity and meaningful change.