🌎 International Day for the Protection of the Amazon, cradle of Cacao
- Sakara
- Sep 5
- 4 min read
Every year, on September 5, the world is invited to turn its conscious gaze toward the Amazon — the largest and most biodiverse primary forest on our Earth. Majestic and mysterious, it is one of the most powerful green treasures of our planet, and also one of the most vulnerable. To recognize it fully for what it is, is already to take the first step toward its protection.
The river and the forest
The Amazon is both river and forest.With more than 6,400 km, the Amazon River carries more water than any other river in the world, linking the glaciers of the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. Its forest stretches over more than 6.7 million km², spanning nine countries (Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana) and primarily covering five of them (the first five listed). It produces nearly 20% of the planet’s freshwater and plays a vital role in regulating the global climate.
This living system shelters extraordinary biodiversity: one in ten known species lives here. From pink dolphins to giant otters, from majestic ceiba trees to millions of plants — including very many master and medicinal plants — the Amazon is a sanctuary of life.
👉 Embark on an extraordinary journey following the Amazon River through the stories of the forest with National Geographic: Into the Amazon
Memory and culture
The Amazon is not only nature — it is also memory and culture.
Rock paintings more than 12,000 years old bear witness to ancestral human presence, while today more than 400 Indigenous nations live in deep relationship with this land. Their songs, rituals, and knowledge are threads of wisdom that connect us to the sacredness of life.
Cacao: a sacred gift born of the Amazon
It is here, in the upper Amazon basin, that the story of cacao begins.
Scientific research published in Nature (Montenegro et al., 2024) confirms that Theobroma cacao was domesticated more than 5,000 years ago in the regions of present-day Ecuador and Peru. Traces of cacao DNA have been found on 30% of more than 350 ancient ceramics, proving its early cultivation and exchange, long before the Maya and Aztec placed it at the center of their cosmologies.
But the Amazon is not only the cradle of cultivated cacao — it is still today home to an incredible diversity of wild cacaos, living witnesses of its ancient lineage. Many remain unknown, some have already disappeared, but all carry a precious memory (see also the book Wild Chocolate by Rowan Jacobsen).
Threats and responsibilities
And yet today, the Amazon is gravely threatened, and we all know it.
Each year, thousands of hectares disappear due to deforestation, often linked to cattle ranching or soy cultivation.
Mines and exploitations — illegal or authorized — wound the forest and poison the rivers.
Fires, often deliberately set, ravage entire regions.
Climate change amplifies these pressures, pushing the forest toward a dangerous tipping point.
The consequences are global. Scientists warn that if deforestation continues, the Amazon could shift into savanna, releasing enormous amounts of carbon and disrupting the world’s climate.
🔥 A red alert for forests
In 2024, tropical forests experienced record destruction: more than 6.7 million hectares lost, the equivalent of 18 football fields per minute, or the size of Panama.
For the first time, fires, fueled by climate change, surpassed agriculture as the main cause.
Historically, pressure on forests has come from the exploitation of four products, nicknamed the “big four”: palm oil, soy, beef, and timber. But new pressures are emerging, notably linked to avocados in Mexico, coffee… and cacao.
These figures concern the tropical forests of the entire world — Amazon, Congo Basin, Southeast Asia — reminding us that deforestation is a global phenomenon.A “global red alert,” scientists remind us, calling us to protect these primary forests — lungs of the Earth and sanctuaries of life (Le Courrier, May 22, 2025).
Hope and action
Let us remain concerned but positive, because where there is hope, there is life.
All over the world, movements are rising to defend the Amazon:
In Brazil, Amazon Day (also September 5) is an opportunity to renew public commitments, such as the Manaus Action Plan, which aims to reduce deforestation by 80% through a sustainable economy and Indigenous governance. This commitment is also being prepared in the framework of COP30, the next international climate conference, which will take place in November 2025 in Belém, in the heart of the Amazon.
Cacao, when cultivated in agroforestry systems, like those we promote with our One Love Cacao project, can become a true ally of the forest. This practice — still alive in Latin America — allows cacao to be produced without cutting down the forest, by integrating it into diverse ecosystems. In contrast, in some regions of West Africa, which today concentrate most of the world’s cacao production, the dominant trend remains deforestation to install monocultures.
Finally, global campaigns remind us that our choices — what we eat, what we consume — are directly linked to the future of the Amazon.
Why we celebrate
At One Love Cacao, our love for cacao is inseparable from our love for the Earth.
We thus celebrate the International Day for the Protection of the Amazon and remind that it is also the cradle of the plant we walk with — Cacao.
To honor the Amazon is to honor Mother Earth, Nature, and all its living ecosystems, as well as all beings of all realms of life on this Planet — and much more, visible and invisible. And it is to honor the earthly origins of cacao, older than the mountains (see our upcoming blog article on this), older than civilizations, carrying in its seeds the memory of primordial forests.
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ONE Love.
ONE Love Cacao.
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✨ Final curiosity: The greatest lung of our planet is not the Amazon… but the Ocean! 🌊💨🐠
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With gratitude and commitment.
Sakara
Association One Love Creation, One Love Cacao Project
Main Sources
Nature : Montenegro et al., 2024 – The domestication of Theobroma cacao
National Geographic – Into the Amazon
Le Courrier, 22 mai 2025 – article sur la destruction des forêts tropicales
Rowan Jacobsen, Wild Chocolate
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