(BBC) More than 300 people are feared dead after heavy rain caused a series of landslides in the mountainous eastern region of Bududa in Uganda. A trading centre in a village was flattened, leaving shops and houses buried under the mud, officials said. Rescuers are digging in the mud with hand-held tools as mechanical diggers cannot reach the affected villages. President Yoweri Museveni visited the affected area, and criticised residents for settling on a floodplain. The president also said the disaster could be partially blamed on local farmers for stripping the land of thick plant life. Some 86 deaths have been confirmed, with local officials saying at least 250 people remain missing.
Regions
CHAD: Panic, outcry at government charcoal ban
A government ban on charcoal in the Chadian capital N’djamena has created what one observer called “explosive” conditions as families desperately seek the means to cook.
“As we speak women and children are on the outskirts of N’djamena scavenging for dead branches, cow dung or the occasional scrap of charcoal,” Merlin Totinon Nguébétan of the UN Human Settlements Programme (HABITAT) in Chad, told IRIN from the capital. “People cannot cook.”
“Women giving birth cannot even find a bit of charcoal to heat water for washing,” Céline Narmadji, with the Association of Women for Development in Chad, told IRIN. (More) Continue reading
The East African Briquettes Company points the way to sustainable biomass alternative
Nicholas Harrison is the driving force behind one new idea in Tanzania: the East Africa Briquettes Company. Harrison purchased the factory in Tanga in March 2009 where he now produces the “mkaa bora,” a briquette that burns “longer, hotter, and cheaper” than conventional vegetable charcoal.
The country consumes about one million tons of wood charcoal each year, so the market is huge. And with a deforestation-to-replacement rate of 3-to-1, there is little chance Tanzania will be able to keep pace with the country’s demand for charcoal, especially in the growing capital.
Alternative Fuel Promises to Aid Mountain Gorilla Conservations
A new alternative fuel project recently launched in Rwanda promises to combat the deforestation of national parks where mountain gorillas live. The Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) and Art of Conservation, have partnered together to introduce the new alternative fuel technology–fuel briquettes composed of recycled materials that can be made easily with simple wooden presses–to the communities living near mountain gorilla habitat. Continue reading
Images of African charcoal and deforestation
Photographer and development expert Len Abrams has put together a visually arresting slideshow and some insightful commentary on the state of African charcoal and deforestation.