How fallow land is being transformed back into vibrant rainforest – and why an indigenous tribe in the Peruvian Amazon has found its sovereignty in cacao.
📖 Read this yet? We’ve already introduced Awajún cacao here:
👉 Awajún Cacao – A New Arrival with a Story
👉 Guardians of the Forest
Today, I’m taking you on the journey that preceded this cacao – personal, honest, from the buffet to the dance.
A journey with a special purpose
In March 2025, I traveled with the entire Kakao Mischa team on our big cacao trip through Peru. We visited old friends – the Chuncho farmers, the Piura Blanco in the north – but also a project that wouldn’t exist in this form without Kakao Mischa: the Awajún community in Alto Mayo, in the heart of the mountain jungle.
The Awajún are one of the largest indigenous tribes in Peru. Over 55,000 people, spread across the regions of Amazonas, Loreto, Cajamarca, and San Martín, speak their own language and belong to the Jivaroan language family. They are known for their deep connection to nature, their fierce independence, and their resistance against extractive industries that threaten their land.
From leased land to mixed forest
The story that Dante, and later the board of the cacao cooperative, told us moved me deeply. Years ago, many Awajún families had leased their land to rice, pineapple, and papaya farmers. They planted monocultures, sprayed pesticides, and depleted the soil. Jan from Original Beans aptly calls these landscapes "pineapple deserts."
The older generation had partly resigned themselves to this. But the younger ones – many between 20 and 30 – didn't want to accept it. They sensed that the damage to their land was also a damage to their culture. They canceled lease agreements, reclaimed their fields – and were then faced with the question: What now?
They tried out different harvests. But either demand was too weak or the quality wasn't high enough. Only the collaboration with Original Beans and us at Kakao Mischa made it possible to implement what is reality today: a cacao-rich agroforestry system, where cacao trees live alongside vanilla, medicinal plants, fruit trees, and, yes, native wildlife again.