Chocolate Islands Reborn

Ecotourism Revives São Tomé and Príncipe's Legacy

The place where bitter and sweet meet is an obsession. For these are “The Chocolate Islands,” where the power of the soft, creamy melt fuels São Tomé and Príncipe—a two-island nation straddling the equator that was at one time the largest cocoa producer in the world. This century-old industry has since come back to life, and the arrival of bold new ventures in ecotourism means they’re finally reclaiming that title.

Landing on the island of Príncipe gives you the sense of just how far to the edge of Africa you’ve come. The mountains here are steep, the jungles are deep, and the winds have blown you into another world. At first glance, this is Africa at its most ideal; a mysterious fairytale of tropical perfection that grown-ups told you didn’t exist. The forest teems with life: 1,000 ancient specimens coexist in a showcase of diversity in its most purposeful sense, as if to look at us humans and say, let us show you how it’s done.

This isn’t the Africa you know from safari brochures or developing nations fundraisers. This protected jewel of an island, in its remoteness, lies 120 miles from the jungles of Gabon to the east, the chaos of Nigeria to the north, and a world away from every safari tent and beach resort you have ever known. If you mention Príncipe to your friends, it’s a guarantee they will have no idea what you are talking about.

The Portuguese discovered São Tomé and Príncipe in the late 1400s, establishing the islands as a trading post between Portugal and the rest of Africa. Some of the earliest settlers were Portuguese prisoners and Jewish children, who were forcibly separated from their parents at the hands of the king. As the nation became Africa’s top sugar exporter, the sheer number of workers needed for production turned the island into a slave trading post between the African mainland and Brazil.

By the 1800s, the sugar industry fell into decline, as the climate became too humid for the sugar to properly dry. Yet rich volcanic soil and year-round hot conditions were well suited to cacao and coffee farming. By the early 1900s, São Tomé had become the world’s largest producer of cacao.

The plantations were large, like villages unto themselves, with hospitals, housing, and cocoa production facilities. Cacao farming, historically, was very tough not just on laborers, but on the land itself, due to aggressive agricultural practices that didn’t keep the future in mind. When the islands gained independence from Portugal in 1975, plantation managers went back home and the cacao industry burned out. Of late, the farms and colonial architecture have been given a new lease on life, thanks to the man who rediscovered Príncipe. Enter Mark Shuttleworth, the South African tech entrepreneur and astronaut who fell in love with the place just over a decade ago. At that time, there was as much poverty as potential and Shuttleworth had a vision. In 2010 he founded HBD Príncipe, an ecotourism and agroforestry group named after the abbreviation for “Here Be Dragons,” a phrase used by early explorers marking uncharted territory.

For island residents versed in farming, fishing, and forestry, tourism was an uncharted challenge, but one that gave new purpose to their knowledge. Shuttleworth’s $100 million investment has succeeded, creating four eco-resorts that employ more than 600 locals and operate to protect the island’s incomparable nature—saving it from being deforested for a proposed 2,500-acre palm oil plantation. Working in collaboration with the local government, HBD achieved another major victory in 2012, earning UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status for the entire island and designating its southern half as protected wilderness.

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