Chocolate boom triggers environmental crisis as 50,000 workers pour into liberian forests

A dramatic surge in global chocolate prices has sparked an environmental emergency in southeastern Liberia, where nearly 50,000 migrant workers from neighboring Côte d’Ivoire have flooded into Grand Gedeh county to establish cacao plantations, according to a new Mongabay investigation.

The rush began when cacao prices skyrocketed from $2.30 per kilogram in 2022 to a peak of $10.73 per kilogram in early 2025—a more than four-fold increase that has since settled to around $7 per kilogram. This price explosion has transformed Grand Gedeh’s demographics, with migrants now comprising over 20% of the county’s 217,000 residents. “Some of our friends who came to Liberia earlier called us,” one migrant worker explained. “They told us that the forest is open in Grand Gedeh, so that’s how we started coming to Liberia.”

Satellite data from Global Forest Watch reveals the devastating environmental toll: forest loss in the region has spiked dramatically since early 2025. Community leaders and local elites are reportedly offering workers massive land parcels—between 20 to 300 hectares—for cacao cultivation, with profits split 60% to landowners and 40% to workers. This arrangement has created powerful economic incentives for rapid deforestation.

“The situation is alarming. They are really destroying the forest on a massive scale,” warned local observer Yei Neagor. The crisis highlights how global commodity markets can trigger sudden environmental disasters in vulnerable ecosystems, as economic opportunity collides with forest conservation in one of West Africa’s remaining forest regions.