charcoal Archives - Page 5 of 6 - Resilient Landscapes (RL)

Planification d’une action communautaire pour une production durable de bois-énergie dans les comtés de Baringo et de Kitui au Kenya

Principaux enseignements

Les plans d’action communautaire (CAP, pour Community action plans en anglais) offrent une solution peu onéreuse pour promouvoir la production durable de charbon de bois. Pour un montant d’environ 13 USD par personne et par jour, pouvant varier selon le lieu, les administrations des comtés pourraient intégrer des réunions CAP à leurs activités.
Les formations de formateurs (ToT, pour Training of Trainers en anglais) sont une autre démarche efficace et peu coûteuse de diffusion des connaissances sur la production durable du charbon de bois. Le renforcement des capacités des formateurs au sein des communautés sur le mécanisme CAP permettrait aux associations de producteurs de charbon d’organiser ces réunions en puisant dans leurs revenus.
La diversification des produits du bois-énergie permettrait de réduire la pression sur les forêts et les arbres, par exemple en récupérant la poussière de charbon sur les sites de production, avec des branches et des brindilles pour fabriquer des briquettes.
Pour respecter les mesures prises en faveur d’une production durable de bois-énergie, le Kenya Forest Service et les administrations des comtés peuvent coopérer avec les associations de producteurs de charbon pour renforcer les capacités institutionnelles et organisationnelles.

Women – the recurring anomaly in the charcoal sector: Gender-responsive approaches for more inclusive, equitable and sustainable outcomes

This publication is part of a series of briefs describing findings from the EU-funded Governing Multifunctional Landscapes Sustainable Woodfuel project, which aims to contribute to knowledge, options, and networks for more sustainable woodfuel value chains across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Key lessons

Despite evidence of female participation throughout the charcoal value chain, there is limited systematic sex-disaggregated data and gender analysis for this sector. Information on women’s participation is often embedded in scattered, small case studies and in many cases, observations on such participation lack further analysis. Given this lack of information, it is hardly surprising that gender considerations are relatively absent in national policies and interventions in the charcoal sector.
Our experiences show that women are often present throughout the woodfuel value chain – as managers of trees and forests, as producers, transporters and traders, and as end consumers. However, due to socially constructed gender roles and relations, women and men often have different motivations, needs and vulnerabilities in relation to their engagement in the charcoal value chain.
By adopting and consistently implementing a gender-responsive approach, considerable synergies can be identified and leveraged between more efficient and sustainable value chains on one hand, and women’s empowerment and well-being on the other.

Sustainable woodfuel systems: a theory of change for sub-Saharan Africa

Charcoal and firewood, together comprising woodfuel, are key in the cooking energy mix in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Charcoal is made by burning wood under controlled oxygen to arrive at a product high in carbon. Firewood is wood burned directly to provide energy. Wood energy, which is gaining in popularity as a sustainable fuel in developed countries, is characterized as a driver of land degradation on the African continent. Instead of wishing for the demise of woodfuel due to its associated negative health and environmental impacts, a systems thinking approach argues that improving technologies and efficiency in wood production, charcoal and firewood processing, transport and trade, and utilization in a circular bioenergy economy meets a range of needs while conserving the environment. This article outlines a sustainable woodfuel theory of change (ToC) that describes how woodfuel can be made sustainable rather than being dismissed as a transitional fuel on its way out. The ToC is based on the knowledge that no energy system is without flaws and that technologies exist for real quantifiable improvements in woodfuel systems while filling the energy-poverty gap. A bold rational decision must be made in rethinking woodfuel in SSA, as failure to advance woodfuel technologies undermines global efforts directed towards land restoration and climate change mitigation. We recommend that an improved and sustainable woodfuel system should be considered as an acceptable modern energy source under SDG 7.

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Democratic Republic of Congo’s charcoal value chains: the case of Kisangani

The socio-economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been far reaching, impacting regional and local supply of forest products and affecting the livelihoods of millions of people. A recent study by CIFOR-ICRAF conducted in Kisangani – the DRC’s third largest city – and one of its supply basins, the Yangambi landscape, shows both the resilience of the charcoal trade in continuing to supply the urban population with cooking fuel, and the vulnerability of the operators involved in production and trade. Uncertainty and shifting actors in light of COVID-19 restrictions threaten many livelihoods and do not offer an enabling environment for more sustainable practices. Vulnerabilities that have become visible during the pandemic need to be subject of reforms addressing informal trade and “building back better” for a sustainable charcoal sector.

Community action planning for sustainable woodfuel production in Baringo and Kitui counties, Kenya

Key lessons

Community action plans (CAPs) offer a low-cost option to promote sustainable charcoal production. At a cost of around 13 USD per person per day, depending on the location, county governments could integrate CAP meetings into their activities.
Training of Trainers (ToT) is another cost-effective approach to scaling knowledge on sustainable charcoal production. Building capacity among community trainers on the CAP process would enable charcoal producer associations (CPAs) to manage CAP meetings using their revenues from charcoal trade.
Diversification of woodfuel products could reduce pressure on forests and trees, such as through the recovery of charcoal dust at processing sites and the use of tree branches and twigs for briquette production.
To ensure that policy requirements for sustainable woodfuel production are met, the Kenya Forest Service and county governments can collaborate with CPAs to strengthen organizational and institutional capacities.

From crisis to context: Reviewing the future of sustainable charcoal in Africa

Is charcoal a sustainable energy source in Africa This is a crucial question, given charcoal’s key importance to urban energy. In today’s dominant policy narrative – the charcoal-crisis narrative – charcoal is deemed incompatible with sustainable and modern energy, blamed for looming ecological catastrophe, and demanding replacement. However, an emerging sustainability-through-formalization narrative posits that charcoal can be made sustainable – specifically, through formalization of production, trade, markets, and consumption technologies. This represents an important opportunity to go beyond the crisis narrative and to engage productively with charcoal. However, this ascendent narrative also risks misrepresenting the reality of charcoal on the continent and leading to inappropriate policies. The narrative’s designation of the African charcoal sector as unsustainable at present obscures charcoal production’s diverse and uncertain impacts across the continent; moreover, the association of informality with unsustainability obscures a similarly complex and diverse social reality as well as the ways that social processes and relations of power and inequality determine charcoal’s sustainability. We argue that charcoal needs to be considered within its historical, social, and environmental contexts to better understand its present and the emergent pathways to sustainable energy futures. We draw upon research that is raising questions about both the charcoal-crisis and the sustainability-through-formalization narratives to argue for a new narrative of charcoal in context. This approaches charcoal as a politically, ecologically, and historically embedded resource, entailing significant socio-ecological complexity across diverse historical and geographical conjunctures, and calling for new agendas of interdisciplinary research with an orientation towards sustainability and justice.

Cross-border charcoal trade in selected east, central and southern African countries: A call for regional dialogue

Key lessons

Cross-border trade in woodfuel in certain African countries is increasing, undermining national and subnational efforts to sustainably manage woodfuel resources.
National bans and restrictions on exports, combined with legalized imports, are contributing to a shifting of supply basins to neighbouring countries further afield.
Significant amounts of woodfuel trade operate through informal or illegal, unknown and unregulated channels, leading to huge losses in government revenue.
To avoid further marginalizing women and other groups that are vulnerable to exploitation, efforts to improve transparency must include targeted solutions that differentiate between large- and small-scale traders.
Key state and non-state stakeholders from neighbouring countries should actively develop strategies for sustainable woodfuel production and trade that support national and regional natural resource management strategies. The success of such trade depends on the adoption of enduring and harmonized regulatory institutional mechanisms at regional and continental levels.

Charcoal production from invasive Prosopis juliflora in Baringo County, Kenya

Key lessons

Originally introduced to dryland areas in Kenya as a solution to deforestation and fuelwood shortages, the shrub Prosopis juliflora has become highly invasive, displacing native plants, and negatively impacting both biodiversity and livelihoods.
Efforts to control Prosopis include, among others, using it to produce sustainable charcoal, which can both fill a major bioenergy gap and clear land for agriculture.
However, limited knowledge and a lack of proper equipment for pruning have prevented communities from realizing the full economic potential of Prosopis.
In Baringo County, CIFOR-ICRAF and partners took an integrated approach to sustainable charcoal production using Prosopis, through participatory mapping and ‘training of trainers’ on sustainable harvesting and the use of improved kilns.
Results show that using Prosopis for charcoal production is sustainable in three ways: it is abundant, it can be regenerated through selective pruning, and it produces high-quality charcoal more efficiently than other woody species.
This brief describes these results and offers recommendations for the use of invasive species for charcoal production.

Carbonization 2.0: How to produce more charcoal with less wood and emissions

Key lessons

Technical and capacity needs

Context-specific kiln solutions, with suitable and available materials, acceptable to producers and considering transportation limits and wood sizes;
Training to enhance the capacity and technical skills of charcoal producers, combined with awareness raising on the benefits of sustainable charcoal;
Access to upfront finances (via partnership with private sector or micro-credits) for investments in improved kilns;
Facilitation and capacity development of producer groups or cooperatives, and recognition of their legal status;
Technical supervision and further research to optimize efficiency.

From laissez–faire to organized groups – A short history of sustainable charcoal producer associations in Kenya and Zambia

Key lessons

Charcoal production in Kenya and Zambia has traditionally been informal, particularly in poor rural communities with few or no other income-generating options.
In recent years, with support from the GML sustainable woodfuel project and partners, as well as government policies, charcoal producers have organized into associations.
Environmental benefits of this organization into charcoal producer associations can be seen through the increased adoption of improved kilns, initiation of tree planting and regeneration activities, and awareness-raising and peer-to-peer monitoring and/or knowledge exchange.
Socioeconomic benefits of associations include higher incomes for producers, greater participation of women including in leadership positions, and better compliance with government regulations, as reflected in increased revenues for county governments from licensing fees.
Adopting a unified approach is key to ensuring the development of a more sustainable charcoal value chain, including transparent, consistent and coordinated regulatory institutional mechanisms that incentivize compliance as well as penalizing unsustainable practices.

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