A recent paper calls for immediate policy intervention around the Congo’s woodfuel demand.
Published in Cifor’s brief, it says, “The Congolese government needs to immediately improve management of the sector, in collaboration with stakeholders. The national Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) programme creates momentum for this.”
Four months ago we asked you to help us kickstart our renewable fuels and energy efficiency project in Uganda. And you did! We collected almost $6,500 for our project!
This message is our progress report to you, our donors, our investors.
A partnership among African nations and communities, the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) and China are working to substitute bamboo charcoal and firewood for forest wood on which 80 percent of the rural population in sub-Saharan Africa depends for its fuel needs.
A number of new scientific studies have been released examining whether and how forests, forest management practices, forest products, and bioenergy from forests either contribute to or help mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration and emissions.
One report states that “growing more forests and keeping forests as forests are only part of the solution, because focusing solely on the sequestration benefits of the forests misses the important (and substantial) carbon storage and substitution GHG benefits of harvested forest products, as well as other benefits of active forest management.”
In researching the fuel briquette solutions, we discovered there were multiple options available and no decision tree on how to choose between them. The Charcoal Project team spent the first six months researching and talking to developers, implementers, manufacturers and others with experience in the field.
Our research eventually led us to Isaac Owor, founder of EnviroCoal, a fuel-briquette manufacturer based in the capital, Kampala.