Tanzania figures prominently when you google the terms “Africa, charcoal, poverty, and environment.” The facts and figures I came across gave me pause. Tanzania burns one million tons of charcoal each year, which amounts to clearing more than 300 hectares (about 750 acres) of forest every day to produce charcoal. For context, that’s about 1,000 sq miles each year or the equivalent of about two New York Cities, including its five boroughs. Unfortunately, the rate of deforestation outstrips the replacement rate by about 3 to 1. That means that, for every acre planted, three are lost. What’s more, the number Continue reading
Fuels
Various types of fuels
Is it time to certify charcoal exports?
Some 1.35 million tonnes of charcoal worth about $400 million USD were sold and shipped around the world in 2007.
This means that somewhere, 5.4 million tons of wood where chopped down to make charcoal for export. With the exception of one seller in our research who described his product as coming from a “wild native” forest, none of the other traders indicated the source of their raw material.
The timber industry, retailers, and consumers have embraced certification schemes (FSC, SFI) for timber and finished wood products.
Isn’t it time we considered something similar for the international trade in wood charcoal? Continue reading
Relief agency "gets it" by putting the right stove in the right hands
A few weeks ago a story in the Financial Times led with the stove project of Mercy Corps, a relief agency working in camp for Internally Displaced People in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. We wanted to know more so we sent a list of questions to Elisha Moore-Delate. She is the Environment Program Manager for Mercy Corps in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the person responsible for the stoves program. We’re sharing her inspiring and insightful responses below. 1. When, and how, did you realize that introducing energy efficient stoves would help improve conditions for the IDPs? Continue reading
Can – or should – the charcoal trade be regulated?
A dispatch from Kenya this morning made me wonder if efforts to ban the charcoal trade in various African countries is at all effective. Can it be enforced? Who suffers? Has this strategy yielded results somewhere? I don’t know. What is clear is that the pace of decimation of African forests for charcoal and woodfuel is rapidly reaching crisis point in various countries — Uganda, Malawi, parts of Kenya and Tanzania. Excerpts from news dispatches help paint a picture. From the article mentioned earlier, reported by Wildlife Direct: “According to Elias Kimaru of the Kwale landscape project of the WWF Continue reading
Video: Africa’s forest have a lot to offer in Copenhagen
There is an excellent film by South Africa-based photojournalist Jeffrey Barbee that will hopefully get quite a bit of play in Copenhagen. It explores how African forests and woodfuel efficiency can play a big role in reducing CO2 emissions while improving people’s livelihood. We were especially interested to learn through this film about a stoves project in Malawi which is not only improving the lives the local inhabitants but also providing valuable carbon credits to an eco securities firm for sale on the voluntary carbon market. (The segment about Malawi and the stoves begins at 5:40 on part 2 but Continue reading