The Ghana Civil Society-Cocoa Platform (GCCP) has reviewed the European Union’s (EU) drafted legislation on certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation. The review is to ensure that, the smallholder cocoa farmers in the country are not affected by the legislation. Deforestation and forest degradation are occurring at an alarming rate, worsening climate change and the loss of biodiversity. The main driver of these has been attributed to the expansion of agricultural land to produce commodities such as cocoa in Ghana’s case. This has compelled the EU to come out with a draft legislation on certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation on the Union’s market to be blacklisted. The fate of the smallholder cocoa farmer therefore hangs in a balance and it is against this backdrop that, the Ghana Civil Society-Cocoa Platform with other key stakeholders have discussed the issue at a meeting on how the farmers won’t be affected. Speaking to Ghenvironment.com, the Project Manager of Tropenbos Ghana, Kwame Appiah Owusu disclosed that, if nothing is done about the legislation in terms of definition, the poor cocoa farmer will be at the losing end. He disclosed that, in order for Ghana to meet the criteria on the new proposal drafted by the European Union, the Ghana COCOBOD has rolled out cocoa management system which takes reference data of farmers, to ensure that the farms are not in forest reserves. Even though Mr Owusu admitted that it is a good intervention from the COCOBOD, he challenged them to employ additional steps to trace and work with farmers whose farms are eventually in forest reserves. Referring to the basic “forest reservation policy” in the 1920’s and the 1940’s, he revealed that, the basic concern was to follow the right steps in order not to destroy “our climate through forest degradation because, it will in turn affect our cocoa production”. The Project Manager of Tropenbos Ghana noted that, Cocoa production is very key in Ghana and it is imperative that, government takes the right steps to ensure that “we do not send Cocoa beans that have been produced in forest reserves to licensed operating firms, else they will not be able to send their cocoa to the European Union markets to sell”.