Although charcoal meets

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What is Driving the Charcoal

Industry into a Dead End?

A

lthough charcoal meets

an overwhelming

proportion of energy

needs in Eastern Africa, its

production, transportation and

distribution remain a risky and

highly inefﬁcient undertaking.

The industry is neglected by

policy makers.

Contradictory directives and

inadequate legislation are

to blame for this apparent

confusion that characterizes

the business in most Eastern

African countries.

With sound production,

marketing and utilization

policies, this sorry scenario can

be a thing of the past.

03 Eastern and Central African Policy Brief No. 3, 2005

LESSONS FROM EASTERN AFRICA’S

UNSUSTAINABLE CHARCOAL BUSINESS

at

a

g

la

nc

e

Charcoal meets 80 percent of urban

households’ energy needs in Eastern

Africa. But apart from Sudan, other

countries are yet to formulate policies

and enact laws that would engender its

sustainable production and use

A widespread preference of charcoal

for fuel is partly explained by its

affordability. It is the cheapest urban

household cooking fuel.

The production, transportation and

marketing of charcoal creates the

biggest number of jobs.

With adequate availability of wood, it

is possible for charcoal producers to

earn between US$3,000 and 9,000 per

year.

A widespread availability of

alternatives to wood-based charcoal in

the form of bagasse, coffee husks, saw

dust, coconut husks and shells.

With inefﬁcient production methods

such as earth-mound kilns, only 10

percent of the wood used in charcoal

production is actually converted into

charcoal. The rest goes to waste.

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2

In most countries, no single ministry or department can be held responsible;

Currently, a number of ministries – agriculture, environment & natural resources, energy or the police - handle, in an uncoordinated manner, different aspects of the production, distribution and marketing of charcoal. As a result, no ministry or department can be held responsible for the ofﬁcial neglect the industry continues to experience.

Inappropriate policies and legislation have created confusion;

Besides issuing and policing incidental bans on charcoal production and trade, authorities in a number of Eastern African countries have little to say, in a positive manner, on how production and marketing ought to be organized. On their part, inappropriate policies have driven the industry underground. And to go around such insensitive policies, charcoal producers and traders have resorted to illegal payments to relevant government ofﬁcials in order to produce charcoal and get their product to the market.

A SHORT GLIMPSE AT THE

REGIONAL SITUATION

WHY IS THIS?

Although charcoal is such a signiﬁcant fuel to millions of households in Eastern Africa, it hardly attracts the attention of policy makers. Probably discouraged by this near-policy vacuum, big businesses have taken cue. To them, the charcoal business has remained a ‘no-go zone’. As a result, thousands, if not millions, of small-scale producers, transporters and distributors, most of whom cling to it out of a sheer need for survival, currently dominate it. Consequently, the business has failed to attract solid investments that are so necessary for research and development. Thus, the main production technique remains the traditional, earth-mound kiln, which results in massive wastage of standing wood stocks and has a direct link to the worsening state of the region’s environment.

tern and Central African P

olicy Brief No. 3,

2005

why?

I N E F F I C I E N T P R O D U C T I O N P R O C E S S E S I N K E N Y A

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More than a half of Kenya’s 30 million people live

on less than a dollar each day. Since economic

options for these people are limited, they cling to

any undertaking that might help them survive. To

millions, and especially those living adjacent to the

country’s gazetted forests and others occupying

drier areas, the production, transportation and

distribution of charcoal come in handy.

But in a country with few other alternatives, the

law has continued to demonise charcoal. Over the

last two decades, successive ofﬁcial decrees have

issued bans on production and transportation of the

fuel. However, the thousands of producers have

always beaten these directives by either providing

illegal payments to government agents charged

with their policing or by using the night as cover for

production and transportation.

w

hy

is

th

is

?

KENYA’S CONTRADICTORY CHARCOAL POLICY

Availability of a ready and

expanding urban market for charcoal

assures millions living adjacent the

country’s gazetted forests a reliable

source of cash necessary for meeting

some of their basic needs

Lack of a planned, sustainable production system

While Sudan has a regulatory system of planting and harvesting trees for charcoal production, other Eastern African countries neither plant trees nor give land owners incentives to engage in wood production, and are merely pre-occupied in policing the exploitation of existing stocks of wood.

Inefﬁcient production leads to massive wastes

Weak policies have hampered R&D that is key to the improvement of traditional kilns and to engendering efﬁcient production. Producers are rarely able to manage the ﬁring process well, which exacerbates a situation that is responsible for massive and rising environmental damage.

With no standards, buyers and sellers continue to be swindled

Most Eastern African countries lack standards to regulate quality, weight and the sizes of the charcoal entering the market. As a result, sellers and buyers

along the distribution chain are swindled, as they are required to pay the same price for bags weighing between 30 and 45 kilograms. In addition, dust constitutes as much as 30 percent of the contents in many such bags.

Lack of ﬁnancial support for an ‘illegal’ industry

Like officialdom, financial institutions have also neglected the industry. This is linked to its semi-illegal status in many Eastern Africa countries, which makes potential supporters shy away from being identified with it.

Poor marketing hampers regulation of the industry

In addition to the absence of designated selling points, lack of guidelines on its marketing make the charcoal business difﬁculty to regulate. Although millions of dollars could be changing hands on a daily basis, the taxman is permanently locked out of these transactions as most are done on an ‘underground’ basis.

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olicy Brief No. 3,

2005

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4 initiatives

initiatives

Sudan:

As a departure from the situation in the rest of the Eastern African countries, Sudan has a well-articulated charcoal policy and legislation. This has not only ensured professional and proﬁtable management of the country’s forests, but has also enabled sustainable production from plantations. Besides this, the country has ratiﬁed a programme that is now promoting the export of charcoal made from Prosopis chilensis, an invasive tree species.

Kenya:

The country has quite an impressive array of policy and legal instruments, which target the overall management of the environment and also attempt to tackle issues in the energy sector. For instance, both the Energy Policy Paper of 2004 and the Environmental Management and Coordination Act of 1999 promote not only the use of energy-saving devices but also the planting of trees. Speciﬁcally, the Energy Policy Paper seeks to promote the cultivation of fast-maturing tree species; gives 10-year tax holidays to producers, and asks the state to issue 20-year leases on its land for commercial production of wood. Kenya has also drafted a Forest Bill that, unfortunately, was taken back to parliament for debate after suffering some setbacks last year. However, though attractive on paper, these policies are rarely implemented owing to weak capacity in the relevant institutions and limited political will.

Uganda:

Approved by parliament in September 2002, Uganda’s energy policy focuses on sustainable supply of energy to the poor with the aim of reducing poverty at the household level. The country has also enacted the National Environment Statute of 1995 which encourages cultivation of trees for fuel and caters for efﬁcient utilization of biomass resources. However, the two policies are not clear enough to facilitate effective implementation.

Tanzania:

With its eyes on how to save its forests and address climate change which has signiﬁcantly diminished the glaciers on Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania enacted the Forest policy paper in 2004. The Paper aims at fostering technologies that enhance efﬁciency in biomass conversion and wood fuel use. The country also seeks to support R&D in renewable energy and includes environmental concerns in the planning and implementation of energy projects.

Ethiopia:

Besides a 1994 proclamation on the conservation, development and utilization of forests, Ethiopia is yet to ratify its policy on charcoal.

Eritrea:

Eritrea’s policy is still in its draft stages. Once complete, it will give the Ministry of Agriculture powers to regulate how private individuals utilise the country’s forests.

With the exception of Sudan, policies in other Eastern African countries have not been as speciﬁc in articulating what needs to be done to promote sustainable charcoal production. They have only made generalized statements on what governments would like done in the energy sector. These countries need to:

POLICY INITIATIVES

SUDAN ETHIOPIA KENYA TANZANIA RWANDA BURUNDI UGANDA

olicy Brief No. 3,

2005

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action

EXISTING

WHAT MUST BE DONE:

i) Create the right climate for proﬁtable and sustainable

charcoal production and use through enacting sound policies and legislation.

ii) Assign the roles of charcoal production, distribution and marketing to a single department or ministry and hold it accountable for all the issues affecting the industry. iii) Sensitize the public, through mass media and other fora

to the contents of the charcoal policy and legislation. iv) Provide adequate ﬁnances and enough personnel for

implementation of the policy and legislation and extend credit for those willing to engage in commercial tree farming.

v) Develop and implement short and long term plans for massive tree plantings.

vi) Facilitate research that would lead to the development of efﬁcient and affordable kilns for the millions of small-scale charcoal producers.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN

IF NOTHING IS DONE:

a) The continuation of unsustainable charcoal production might render vast tracts of forest land desolate in many Eastern African countries. This situation is already grim in Kenya where a mere 1.7 percent of the total land cover is currently under forests. A number of other countries in the region are in a similar situation, as many have not maintained the United Nations speciﬁcation of 10 percent forest cover.

b) The region will continue to lose environmental services offered by forests. Besides giving rise to severe soil erosion and land degradation, the impact of unsustainable charcoal burning and general forest destruction may be exacerbating climatic changes. These are already being felt on the roof top of Africa as Mt Kilimanjaro has lost much of its glaciers over the last 20 years.

c) This will result in the eventual collapse of thousands of charcoal-based informal enterprises, a thing that is likely to worsen poverty and destitution.

d) Charcoal consumers will be forced to depend more on

non-renewable imported fossil fuels. C H A R C O A L - B A S E D I N F O R M A L E N T E R P R I S E S

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6

1: Forest Action Network Nairobi, Kenya

2: Department of Renewable Energy Ministry of Energy

Kenya

3: Department of Energy Asmara, Eritrea

4: Sirinka Agricultural Research centre. Woldia, Addis Ababa

5: Ministry of Energy & Mineral Development Kampala, Uganda

6. Ofﬁce of the Vice President - Environmental Division, Tanzanian Government, Dar es Salaam 7: ICRAF/RELMA

East & Central Africa Region

Chin Ong

Principal Scientist/Hydrologist ICRAF’s Research Division Tel +254-20-7224205 e-Mail: [email protected] Dr. Fridah Mugo Thuiya Enterprises PO Box 5200, Nairobi 00100 Tel +254- 20 273 1273 e-Mail: [email protected]

PARTNERS

CONTACT NAMES

World Agroforestry Centre – East and Central Africa’s Regional Land Management Unit (RELMA in ICRAF) ICRAF Building, Gigiri, P.O. Box 30677 - 00100 Nairobi Tel: 254 20 722 4000 Fax: 254 20 722 4001

The Source

The Process

The Product

Fuel

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2005