On 5 October 2026, the Sustainability Research Group welcomes Victoria Maguire-Rajpaul for a guest talk on her current research on cocoa expansion across the Côte d’Ivoire–Liberia border.

Her presentation, “Liberia or bust”: The displacement of cocoa’s agrarian and ecological crises from Côte d’Ivoire’s depleted forests to Liberia’s biodiverse forests, examines how pressures linked to cocoa production may increasingly shift across the border into Liberia. abstract for 'Liberia or bust'

The research looks at the governance, livelihood and conservation implications of this emerging frontier. Based on focus groups with smallholders and stakeholder interviews, it explores issues including land scarcity, conservation restrictions, cross-border mobility, verbal land-access agreements, inter-ethnic relations and gendered patterns of migration. abstract for 'Liberia or bust'

Victoria Maguire-Rajpaul is affiliated with the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University and the Conservation & Development Lab at the University of Cambridge.