Edible tree oil from restored forests unites multinational enterprise and communities in Ghana
In western Ghana, a multinational business is helping to restore degraded land by guaranteeing, at a fixed price, a market for edible tree oil that can be used in its products. Unilever is purchasing the extracted oil of the Allanblackia tree for use in the manufacture of soaps and margarines eventually to be sold around the world. By doing so, it provides a dependable source of income for local farmers and communities.
Previously, those livelihoods came from cocoa farming and timber. Now, instead of deforesting, the communities are working with Unilever and its partners – the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) and others – to replant Allanblackia floribunda as shade trees on their cocoa farms. The partnership, known as the Novella Africa Initiative, supervises the harvest and processing of the oil from the tree’s seeds, ensuring that it takes place in a sustainable and equitable manner.
So successful has the partnership been that the project was extended a few years ago to neighbouring Tanzania and Nigeria (with some activities also in Cameroon), offering sustainable economic growth and biodiversity benefits to the people and of central and western Africa, and revenue opportunities for Unilever.
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Photo: Harrie Hendrickx
Contact
Dr. Dominic Blay, Forestry Research Institute of Ghana.
Chris Buss
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