The farmer growing a future under Ghana’s trees.

Susana Afrifa Ankrah, a mother, grandmother and cocoa farmer, lives in the Atewa Range in south-eastern Ghana. The hills hold a surviving fragment of tropical forest that is home to colobus monkeys, eagle owls, rare cuckoos and frogs, and many butterflies, including the giant swallowtail. According to Positive News, the forest still stands in part because of community leaders like her, who take part in a scheme that rewards local people for protecting it.

The scheme is the Ghana Cocoa Forest REDD+ Programme, which began in 2019 and is run jointly by the country's Forestry Commission and Cocoa Board. REDD+ is part of UN-backed climate efforts. It channels money through the World Bank from wealthy countries and corporations to forest nations in return for measurable progress on reducing forest loss. The programme identified Hotspot Intervention Areas, where threatened forest was common and local communities could make a difference.

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Farmers in the programme are trained to conserve trees and soil while improving cocoa yields. “We used to clear and burn large areas,” Ankrah said. She now uses organic fertilizer and composting, and grows hybrid seeds bred to thrive under a tree canopy. She has also planted native trees, such as African mahogany, between her crops. The programme helps farmers branch into beekeeping, raising pigs and snails, and growing vegetables, and it supplies tools such as sprayers and boots, plus business advice.

Ankrah estimated that her profit margins have risen by about 80%. With the programme's advice, she set up a daycare nursery and a bakery that together employ 17 workers.

Dua Zehra, who leads the Thriving Forests programme at the charity Ashden, said REDD+ schemes have learned from earlier failures, such as the Kariba scheme in Zimbabwe, which overlooked community rights. She said rules on consultation and free, prior and informed consent are being tightened, and that evidence is growing that putting local communities at the center of forest protection works best.

The article notes remaining risks. A World Bank study found deforestation continuing in other parts of Ghana, largely through illegal logging and mining. In Atewa itself, recent incursions by miners and a potentially large bauxite mining project could still threaten the programme's success. Ankrah, who has 16 grandchildren, said she expects some of them to farm rather than move to cities.