Shared stakes

A landmark assessment quantifies how businesses destroy the very natural systems they depend on, and must therefore play a central role in halting and reversing biodiversity decline

- SHIMALI CHAUHAN

THE JOURNEY of a chocolate bar found in any supermarket begins in the world's biodiverse forests. Take its basic ingredient, cocoa. Ivory Coast in Africa is the leading producer of the world's cocoa, but with rising global demand, cultivation is turning unsustainable. Some 70 per cent of illegal deforestation in Ivory Coast is linked to cocoa farming, as per the UN Development Programme. The country has lost 45 per cent of tropical forests in 20 years.

Ironically, cocoa production depends on forest pollinators, healthy soil and steady rainfall for survival. So when forests are cleared, yields fall, and farmers often respond by clearing more forest land. Chocolate companies, traders, retailers, banks and investors are also part of the supply chain. In sum, when forests decline, production drops, prices and financial risks increase, creating a feedback loop.

It is this cycle of “systemic risks” in which businesses destroy the very natural systems they depend on that the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlights in its latest report. The Summary for Policymakers of the “Methodological Assessment on the Impact and Dependence of Business on Biodiversity and Nature's Contributions to People” was adopted on February 9, during the agency's 12th plenary session in Manchester, UK. The report, also called the Business and Biodiversity Assessment, is the first global scientific review to fully examine how businesses depend on biodiversity and affect it.