To replenish its forests, Ivory Coast is preparing to privatize some of them. To financially enhance its natural heritage, the State is counting on the growing appetite of the private sector for carbon credits, units of value issued by certification bodies for each tonne of CO2 offset by virtuous activities, and which can be sold on a dedicated market. By the end of 2024, the Haut-Sassandra classified forest, located in the west of the country, should be the first to be put under concession for a period of fifty years.
The technical and financial operators of the project, the Ivorian company Agro-Map and the French company aDryada, two structures specializing in the marketing of carbon credits generated from biodiversity restoration projects, are committed to reforesting 100,000 hectares of land decimated by decades of cocoa cultivation and logging.
Karidja, the name of the project, should within eight years "remove around one million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere each year", promises Fabio Ferrari, founder and CEO of aDryada, or as much carbon credits resold to companies wishing to offset the environmental impact of their activities. The sale of these financial assets will be partly re-injected into Karidja, in addition to the 130 million euros necessary for its launch.
The Ivorian authorities “rely a lot on the sale of carbon credits,” recognizes Aboa Dogui, technical advisor to the Ministry of Water and Forests. These in fact represent an opportunity, both economic and ecological: the State preserves its coffers while financing its reforestation policy, formalized in 2019 in the Forest Preservation, Rehabilitation and Extension Strategy (Spref), with the first objective of regaining 20% of the forest cover in 2030.
Consensus within the political class
The Ivorian forest, which extended over 16 million hectares in 1960, is said to have lost nearly 80% of its surface area, with an annual deforestation rate of between 3% and 4%, according to official figures. Uncontrolled extensive agriculture is the main cause of this ecological disaster, led by cocoa farming, both the main driver of Ivorian growth (15% of GDP) and the main factor in the disappearance of the canopy.
In 2019, the Ivorian government enacted a new Forest Code, designed to regulate cocoa production, which was until then officially prohibited but widely practiced in the country's 231 classified forests. According to official estimates, around 40% of brown gold is produced illegally there.
With the new law, the 76 classified forests whose degradation rate is greater than 75% can be converted into “agroforests”, areas where agricultural production is authorized based on an agroforestry model, supposed to reconcile yields and preservation of ecosystems.
Agroforestry now has consensus within the Ivorian political class. It contributes to the restoration of forest areas while developing agriculture compatible with new international requirements, such as the European Union (EU) regulations aimed at banning products resulting from deforestation from 2025. In this perspective, the Haut-Sassandra forest should become the fourth “agroforest” in the country and the first financed from carbon credits on the model of a public-private partnership (PPP).
A very loosely regulated voluntary market
Nearly a third of Karidja, or 30,000 hectares, is dedicated to agroforestry. The cocoa trees already planted will be protected there among other crops. In the rest of the area, the objective is to “replant native species and recreate an ecosystem close to the one that existed before,” explains the CEO of aDryada. Existing cocoa plantations will not be destroyed, but “a transition scheduled over ten to fifteen years towards other agricultural activities” is planned.
The development plan has already been validated and the Ivorian State is completing regulatory preparations to regulate carbon credits, on which it is banking to finance reforestation “to the tune of at least 20%, or 200 million euros,” explains Aboa Dogui.
It then remains to be seen how the sums collected from the sale of carbon credits will be distributed between investors, operators and the State. According to Agro-Map, the technical operator of the project, the Ivorian government could recover “more than 25% of the value” of sales. A tonne of CO2 is now sold between 3 dollars and 6 dollars (2.81 euros and 5.62 euros) on the voluntary market, but could be between 25 and 75 dollars at the end of the decade, according to forecasts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Unlike the regulated market, like that of the EU, which imposes itself on the most polluting firms, the voluntary market remains very poorly regulated and opens the way to certain abuses, such as the illegal purchase of land. “Without concession, it’s a bit of the Wild West,” admits Fabio Ferrarri, CEO of aDryada, citing the example of Zimbabwe, where “carbon credits were sold for years without the State being involved. fluent ".
Place and role of populations
Across Africa, compensation projects are multiplying. In 2023, Zambia entered into an agreement with two Chinese companies to reforest 5% of its territory. In Liberia, the same year, 10% of the territory passed under the Emirati flag for thirty years through the company Blue Carbon LLC.
In Côte d'Ivoire, "the reconstitution of the forest goes hand in hand with the socio-economic development of rural populations", maintains the Ministry of Water and Forests. “Hundreds of direct jobs” will be created thanks to Karidja, adds aDryada, assuring that “authorizations to exploit and sell agricultural production” will be issued to the populations.
Is this enough to reassure the 18,000 families dependent on this forest? “There is some reluctance,” Agro-Map implicitly acknowledges. The boss of aDryada assures for his part that there is "no rehousing issue, because the farmers live outside the classified forest", but, according to the economist François Ruf, researcher at the Cooperation Center international in agricultural research for development, “the authorities will be obliged to relocate some of the people, or at least to restrict them in their activities or their movements. There will be land disputes.”
If Karidja operates according to a logic of profitability, with "the risk of favoring fast-growing trees (...) to quickly obtain results", warns Marie-Solange Tiebre, director of the National Floristic Center of Côte d'Ivoire, the Improving the living conditions of the populations concerned appears to be the first guarantee of success of the project.
