6 The Status and Future of Charcoal in the Energy …
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(Fig. 6.2f ) to ease handling and prepare it for sale. Because most trees
can be turned into charcoal, tree felling is indiscriminate, and various
species can be put through a single pyrolysis cycle. However, in the
downstream marketplaces, traders highly associate the quality of charcoal
with original tree species, and therefore, some charcoal is perceived as
more valuable depending on where the charcoal was sourced (Nabukalu
& Gieré, 2019).
6.4.1 Forest and Land Degradation from Charcoal
Production
To eliminate the financial costs and the burden of transporting logs
to a single production point, these highly manual processes of charcoal production take place in open forests (Fig. 6.2c) and at random
locations, such as the Miombo woodlands of Tanzania (Chidumayo &
Gumbo, 2013) and the Laikipia plateau in Kenya (Okello, O’Connor,
& Young, 2001). Charcoal production tends to occur sporadically, and
is still rampant, even in scant-forest areas (World Bank, 2017), such as
the Gonja and Sere districts of Western Ghana (SERVIR, 2018) and the
Central Rift Valley district of Arsi Negele in Ethiopia (Mikias, 2015). To
a greater extent, tree cutting and charcoal production are done on private
land (Alfaro & Jones, 2018; Nabukalu & Gieré, 2019; Ministry of
Energy and Mineral Development [MEMD], 2015), where landowners
have the autonomy to determine land use and bear the sole responsibility to reconditioning of their land. When production occurs primarily
from cutting new trees, the risks of losing vegetation are high, especially
where replanting is minimal or non-existent (Namaalwa, Hofstad, &
Sankhayan, 2009). In the Nwoya district of Northern Uganda (Fig. 6.1),
we observed that charcoal producers were not owners of the private land
where they worked, which minimizes both their rights and their obligations to re-plant trees at the production sites. Their nomadic engagement
in production leads to forest loss where landlords have limited interest
in or resources for afforestation. Indeed, some producers explained
that they had moved northwards to work in the Nwoya and Gulu
districts (Fig. 6.1) because trees were becoming scarce in the Central and
197
(Fig. 6.2f ) to ease handling and prepare it for sale. Because most trees
can be turned into charcoal, tree felling is indiscriminate, and various
species can be put through a single pyrolysis cycle. However, in the
downstream marketplaces, traders highly associate the quality of charcoal
with original tree species, and therefore, some charcoal is perceived as
more valuable depending on where the charcoal was sourced (Nabukalu
& Gieré, 2019).
6.4.1 Forest and Land Degradation from Charcoal
Production
To eliminate the financial costs and the burden of transporting logs
to a single production point, these highly manual processes of charcoal production take place in open forests (Fig. 6.2c) and at random
locations, such as the Miombo woodlands of Tanzania (Chidumayo &
Gumbo, 2013) and the Laikipia plateau in Kenya (Okello, O’Connor,
& Young, 2001). Charcoal production tends to occur sporadically, and
is still rampant, even in scant-forest areas (World Bank, 2017), such as
the Gonja and Sere districts of Western Ghana (SERVIR, 2018) and the
Central Rift Valley district of Arsi Negele in Ethiopia (Mikias, 2015). To
a greater extent, tree cutting and charcoal production are done on private
land (Alfaro & Jones, 2018; Nabukalu & Gieré, 2019; Ministry of
Energy and Mineral Development [MEMD], 2015), where landowners
have the autonomy to determine land use and bear the sole responsibility to reconditioning of their land. When production occurs primarily
from cutting new trees, the risks of losing vegetation are high, especially
where replanting is minimal or non-existent (Namaalwa, Hofstad, &
Sankhayan, 2009). In the Nwoya district of Northern Uganda (Fig. 6.1),
we observed that charcoal producers were not owners of the private land
where they worked, which minimizes both their rights and their obligations to re-plant trees at the production sites. Their nomadic engagement
in production leads to forest loss where landlords have limited interest
in or resources for afforestation. Indeed, some producers explained
that they had moved northwards to work in the Nwoya and Gulu
districts (Fig. 6.1) because trees were becoming scarce in the Central and