The project area encompasses a set of ecosystems located between Virunga National Park and the Ruwenzori mountain range, on the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. The area features a wide gradient of tropical vegetation within a very small space, nestled between national parks, making it a particularly important conservation site.
Virunga National Park is notable for its chain of active volcanoes and the great diversity of its habitats (steppes, savannas, lava plains, swamps, unique Afro-alpine vegetation, and the ice fields of the Rwenzori Mountains, whose peaks rise above 5,000 m).
This wide diversity of habitats has given rise to exceptional biodiversity, including endemic species and rare, globally threatened species such as the mountain gorilla.
In this area, in cooperation with the association “Le Jardin Bio Equitable”, which brings together more than a thousand producers, the company Domaine Monts de la Lune (DML) has been producing, processing and exporting organically certified cocoa and vanilla since 2005, and Fair Trade certified since 2008. The value of certification is well established, with certified vanilla prices almost twice as high as conventional vanilla, and certified cocoa prices 30% higher.
Currently, producers grow their cocoa without shade, which harms both the quality of their production and their long-term economic and ecological viability.
The project involves helping producers introduce shade trees into their cocoa plantations. When grown under shade, cocoa is produced with positive ecological and economic externalities. Prices increase, particularly through obtaining organic certification. Combined with the introduction of rare, locally native tree species, this cultivation method contributes both to biodiversity conservation and carbon storage.
In the long term, these activities should also help meet demand for firewood and timber, thereby reducing deforestation of the remaining natural forests.
Certification should also help optimise the value chains in the following ways:
– Economic (guarantee of product origin and quality, controlled payment terms, product traceability);
– Technical (training in productive and environmentally friendly farming practices);
– Environmental (record of field farming practices, ban on the use of harmful chemical products);
– Social (introduction, through training, of issues related to health, hygiene, workers’ rights and civil rights).
