Liberia's remaining tropical rainforests, among the last intact stretches of the Upper Guinean forest ecosystem, are facing an accelerating threat driven not from within the country alone, but from Europe's insatiable appetite for chocolate. That is the stark warning from Charlie Hammans, a forests investigator with the international watchdog Global Witness, following an in-depth investigation into Liberia's cocoa sector.
Speaking on Forest Hour, the flagship radio program of Liberia Forest Media Watch (LFMW), Hammans laid out how weak global supply chains, poverty, and opaque cocoa trading practices are converging to drive deforestation at a scale many Liberians may not yet fully grasp.
Between 2021 and 2024, Liberia's cocoa-producing regions lost forest cover larger than the entire country of Luxembourg, according to Global Witness analysis -- a startling figure for a nation often described as West Africa's last rainforest refuge.
"Liberia is incredibly unique," Hammans said. "It is really the last area of intact tropical rainforest in the Upper Guinean rainforest system. It's a really, really special country."
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Once stretching from Ghana to Guinea, this rainforest belt has been steadily destroyed over the past five decades by cocoa farming, mining, palm oil expansion, and logging. Today, Liberia holds what remains -- forests that shelter endangered species such as chimpanzees, store vast amounts of carbon critical to slowing climate change, and sustain millions of people who depend on forest resources for food, fuel, and livelihoods.
Hammans warned that Liberia risks following the path of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, where aggressive cocoa expansion has left landscapes stripped of natural forest and communities exposed to climate extremes.
"In those countries, the rainforest used to regulate rainfall," he said. "Now they are suffering droughts and extreme floods. That's why Liberia's ecosystem is so special -- and so vulnerable."
At the center of the crisis is a disconnect between European consumers and the origins of the cocoa in their chocolate bars.
"In the EU, we are the biggest per-capita consumers of chocolate," Hammans noted. "But because we don't have guarantees of where that chocolate comes from, we could be fueling deforestation in Liberia without knowing it."
Global Witness traced cocoa from small Liberian farms through middlemen, exporters in Monrovia, international traders, and finally to multinational chocolate companies such as Mars, Mondelez, and Hershey's. Along the way, traceability is largely lost.
Cocoa from recently deforested land, Hammans explained, is routinely mixed with "clean" cocoa from other countries through a system known as mass balance -- allowing chocolate to be sold in Europe as "sustainable" even when some of its ingredients may be linked to forest destruction.
"So unwittingly, UK and EU consumers are buying chocolate that could be linked all the way back to a farm that cleared Liberia's forest," he said.
Crucially, Hammans rejected narratives that place blame on Liberian farmers.
"I did not want this report to blame Liberian farmers who are living in real poverty," he said. "Cocoa is an important cash crop. Farmers are making rational decisions to survive."
Many farmers clear land not only for cocoa, but to grow rice and cassava to feed their families. Yet Hammans stressed that cocoa does not require forest destruction to thrive.
"One of the biggest tragedies is that cocoa flourishes very well in agroforestry systems," he said -- systems where cocoa grows, understanding forest cover, preserving biodiversity while supporting livelihoods.
The real responsibility, he argued, lies higher up the supply chain.
"We are talking about companies that make billions," Hammans said, citing Mondelez, whose chocolate division alone reportedly earned around US$11 billion in one year -- more than twice Liberia's GDP. "It's an equity issue. These companies profit enormously, but don't invest enough in making Liberia's cocoa sector sustainable."
Risk of Liberia Being Shut Out
The impending EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which will ban deforestation-linked products from European markets, could either help Liberia or marginalize it further.
Some traders, Hammans revealed, are already considering dropping Liberia altogether due to weak traceability systems.
"That's the danger," he said. "Liberia could just be cut out, instead of being supported."
Yet Global Witness research shows that compliance costs could be as low as 0.1 percent of major companies' revenues -- a fraction that could fund nationwide traceability systems, reward sustainable farmers, and protect forests.
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Hammans warned that Liberia is approaching a crossroads.
"We don't want to wake up in 20 years, and Liberia's forest is gone because of mass cocoa planting," he said.
He pointed to promising alternatives, including community-based forest protection schemes supported by development partners, where communities are paid to conserve forests rather than clear them.
"This shows we can have development without destroying our natural resources," he said.
The lesson from neighboring countries, Hammans concluded, is clear: unregulated cocoa expansion brings short-term gains and long-term ecological collapse.
"Liberia has a huge opportunity," he said. "But it must proceed with caution. The government, the EU, and the chocolate industry must change the incentives -- now."
For a country whose forests regulate climate, sustain livelihoods, and represent a global environmental treasure, the cost of delay, Hammans warned, could be irreversible.
