Building productive, resilient farms: Rainforest Alliance releases report cataloguing supports to farmers.

The journalists from traditional radios, televisions and digital platforms exchanged with Rainforest Alliance’s Regional Communication Manager for West and Central Africa, Ndeye Sarr; the Senior Manager of Landscapes and Communities and Acting Country Director-Cameroon, William Mala, and Certification Partner Support Manager for Central Africa, Mboba Yannick. 

According to the Rainforest Alliance officials, the report documented a year in which sustained investment in farmer livelihoods, ecosystem restoration, and market transformation delivered results at scale from across 80 landscape and community programmes and certification works in 64 countries.

The Rainforest Alliance Acting Country Director for Cameroon, during the exchange, said the Rainforest Alliance's 2025 results span five interconnected impact areas including ecosystems, biodiversity, livelihoods, climate resilience, and human rights. 

The global outlook of the report showed that the organisation helped to sequester 5.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, supported the protection and restoration of 11.9 million hectares of ecosystems, and informed more than 10.8 million farmers and workers of their rights and responsibilities. 

Also through sustainability premiums and higher yields, the organisation contributed to about 1.27 trillion FCFA ($2.22 billion) in additional farm income, including 57.55 billion FCFA ($100 million) in direct sustainability premiums paid to farmers.

Another key development in the 2025 report was the publication of the Rainforest Alliance Regenerative Agriculture Standard, which is a science-based, field-tested framework built on 119 requirements spanning soil health, water, biodiversity, crop resilience, and social impacts. The framework charts a specialised path for farmers and companies to deepen their commitment to regenerative practices and actively restore the land they depend on. 

Zoom on impacts in Cameroon

The Senior Manager of Landscapes and Communities explained that communities are at the heart of regeneration activities. Mala said in the Western Highlands (West and North West regions), sacred forests which served for generations as places of memory, spirituality, and cultural heritage are now facing growing pressure from deforestation and land degradation. 

Between 2020 and 2025, he explained the Rainforest Alliance-led COBALAM project worked alongside local communities to restore and protect these landscapes, resulting in eight community nurseries established, nearly 80,000 trees planted, and over 3,000 hectares of degraded land restored. 

“The most lasting changes are the ones that communities make their own. In Cameroon, the results we see today are not measured only in hectares restored or trees planted. They are also reflected in restored water sources, more productive land, and communities taking ownership of the future of their landscapes,” he said. He added that; “across the Western Highlands, the Dja (between South and East regions), and Grand Mbam (Centre region), we see every day that regeneration is already taking root, driven by the women, men, and young people who live at the heart of these landscapes”. 

Noting that the country is approaching 2030, a critical juncture in its modern history, he said Rainforest Alliance is playing its own part to make Cameroon’s development targets and helping the world attain its dreams of a sustainable planet.

“We are approaching 2030. Cameroon is set to become an emerging economy and the Paris Agreement is also due in 2030… and so, the Rainforest Alliance, which is very much at the heart of the issue of communities and investment, does, indeed, want to play its part in this effort,” he added.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3834 of Wednesday July 01, 2026