(Ecofin Agency) - United Nations recently revealed in a report that about 20,000 hectares of the national Péko Mount Park in Cote d’Ivoire - about 59% of the park’s total area - were illegally converted into cocoa plantation. The report denounces the illegal occupation of the lands by 28,000 people, mainly Burkinabe. The plantations, according to the report, produce annually 10,000 tons of cocoa, generating FCFA17.3 billion.

Mount Péko’s actual residents started arriving at the mount in 2002, as Ivorian crisis began. Since, a parallel organization was established with a system of tax received by the Representative Council of Mount Péko’s Residents which takes FCFA10000 per hectare occupied. Also, the person in charge of the park ordered the establishment of 8 compulsory checkpoints for cocoa sales, for an average tax of FCFA100/Kg.

In 2014, Burkinabe and Ivorian officials agreed to evacuate the park but due the troubles in Burkina Faso, last year, the project was delayed. For Cote d’Ivoire, this situation hides one which is of greater concern. Between the independence and 2014, Cote d’Ivoire’s forest mass decreased from 16 million hectares to 2 million due to mining and cash cropping.

Aaron Akinocho