Data to: No effect of Rainforest Alliance cocoa certification on shade cover and bird species richness in Sulawesi, Indonesia

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Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) and certification are promoted to enhance sustainable agricultural practices, but environmental outcomes of cocoa certification remain understudied. We selected 31 Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified and 31 non certified cocoa plantations in Luwu Timur, Sulawesi, Indonesia, from a previous socioeconomic survey and assessed vegetation structure, soil fertility, as well as bird species richness. Using Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests, GLMMs and NMDS, we did not find certified plantations to have a higher shade tree diversity, shade tree basal area, and soil fertility. Bird species richness was significantly higher in certified plantations (p = 0.03), but the observed effect on bird species richness became statistically insignificant after controlling for elevation and plantation age in the GLMM. Current RA shade criteria are low, and potentially not sufficiently enforced, limiting RA potential to enhance biodiversity habitat. Certified farmers more frequently used improved farming techniques and received training; hence, certification might provide socioeconomic benefits to farmers while we found environmental outcomes of certification to be limited. Further research is needed to draw robust conclusions on VSS potential to enhance sustainable agriculture.

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