Cacao not gold: ‘chocolate trees’ offer future to Amazon tribes

In Brazil's largest indigenous reserve thousands of saplings have been planted as an alternative to profits from illegal gold mining

The villagers walk down the grassy landing strip, past the wooden hut housing the health post and into the thick forest, pointing out the seedlings they planted along the way. For these Ye'kwana indigenous men, the skinny saplings, less than a metre high, aren't just baby cacao trees but green shoots of hope in a land scarred by the violence, pollution and destruction wrought by illegal gold prospecting. That hope is chocolate.