By Nicolas Roux
Today, you may have eaten your favourite chocolate bar. A lovely mix of milk, cocoa and fat. Turn the packaging and have a look at everything that is in the chocolate bar. Take a minute to guess which products may have been needed to produce what is written on it, and where these products may come from. Any idea? For example, the cows who produced the milk may have been fed with soy from South America, the cocoa probably comes from western Africa, while the fat may directly come from some palm oil plantation in South-East Asia. In all of these places, the production of these agricultural commodities may be linked to deforestation, and the degradation of savannahs, wetlands or other ecosystems. Now, project yourself back 40 years ago. Where did the products of your chocolate bar come from at that time? Did it generate more or less pressure on ecosystems than nowadays?
Find some answers and read the full article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106915
Or have a look at Nicolas having six minutes to discuss whether or not international trade in agricultural products did reduce pressure in land ecosystems. Does he pass the challenge?
Nicolas Roux
Contact
Institute of Social Ecology
nicolas.roux@boku.ac.at
Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070 Wien, Austria