In Ghana, cultivation of cacao beans is an important industry that supports the national economy. People used to make community near the forest, live together in group and cut the forest trees to cultivate cacao trees for living. But by continuing to plant cacao trees in the same land, the nutrition of soil is lost, notorious insect becomes easier to settle and cacao is dead after a few years. Then they leave the land where they used to live, move in search of other land (forest) and settle there. Like this, nation-wide moving cultivation has been conducted.

The position figure of Ghana　in Africa

Cacao Plantation	But due to recent population explosion and the resultant poverty, as so many people have been cultivating by cutting the forest, the forests have continued to be decreased and the animals in the forest (round-eared elephant or Diana-monkey, etc.) are threatened with extinction.

Since 2002, Ricoh is tackling with this problem through promoting the forest conservation project in collaboration with Conservation International, an international NGO. In Ghana project, we ask the local people to understand the agriculture to grow crops in the forest without destroying it (forest agriculture) and solicit their cooperation. Local people are now cultivating cacao in the forest. In the community that participates in the forest agriculture, they have more cacaos harvested than before, have more income, have children go to school, reform the house and have richer lives. Above all, people's feeling for the forest has changed. Though they used to think the forest the place to get resources, they now think it important place togive them benefit. If local people respect the forest and if coexistence forest is spread, where they can live together with many creatures, Ghana will return to a rich green country.

Kakum National Park