How Bolivia’s cacao farmers took on the gold-mining industry – and won

Workers check over cacao seedlings to be distributed to the 1,300 members of the El Ceibo organic cacao cooperative. Photograph: Emmanuel Escobar

Mahogany trees tower above Herminio Mamani as he tends his cacao farm in Bolivia’s biodiverse north-west. A former president of El Ceibo, the country’s largest organic cacao co-operative, he says the agroforestry model used by its 1,300 members is vital not only to maintain the quality of the cacao they grow, which is used for chocolate and other products, but also for keeping gold mining at bay.

“We cacao producers would never kill an animal here,” he says, parrots squawking nearby. “The parcels [of land] can never be monocultures – all the crops grow together.”