Made from the world's first bird-friendly chocolate, certified by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center! BOHO Chocolate has created this 70% dark chocolate bar for us, using cacao from Zorzal in the Dominican Republic. By supporting this farm, you are helping to protect wintering habitat for the Bicknell's Thrush, and others. Net weight 3oz. 
 
Cacao (cocoa) beans, the basis of chocolate, are grown on farms in the tropics of Latin America, Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. When cocoa is produced on a large scale, it is often in monoculture form, depriving the landscape of any biodiversity and necessitating the application of pesticides and other chemicals. 
 
Certified bird-friendly chocolate by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center is grown on small plantations that preserve the native forest, thus providing habitat for birds and other wildlife. Not only do these farms allow resident birds to thrive, but they also provide excellent habitat for the warblers, thrushes, and tanagers that visit us in North America in the summer.
 
The Bicknell’s Thrush is the most range- limited bird in North America. It only breeds on the highest mountaintops in the northeastern US and southeastern Canada, including right here in Maine. As the climate warms, this bird is losing its habitat as the treeline pushes further up in elevation. Its wintering grounds are solely in a few isolated areas of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic where it faces challenges with loss of habitat to human encroachment. 
 
This bird-friendly cacao (the first certified) is grown on Zorzal Cacao in the Dominican Republic. Zorzal means “thrush”. The mission of this farm is to preserve 70% of its land in perpetuity, and support a collective of organic cacao producers that are certified bird-friendly.