SUSTAINING OUR FORESTS AND RESOUCES: WHICH WAY

[AWAL AHMED]

Our forests and the Ecosystem are depleting at an alarming and worrying rate. How do we ensure that forest people reduce the exploitation of forest resources. Have fared well over the years.

In Ghana and most developing countries, most Officers (White Colour Job Holders) do not use gas entirely but reply on charcoal so some kind of double standard. Condeming deforestration yet using to much charcoal.

A

[Duncan Macqueen]

Hi Awal,
Thanks for starting this interesting discussion. I agree that forest resources are depleting at an alarming rate in many countries (I reviewed the work of RUDEYA in Ghana two years ago where they are domesticating grasscutters, snails, honey etc because the natural forest resource is now so badly degraded that the natural supply is dwindling). Climate change is also exacerbating the human effects by increasing risk of drought and fire.

BIOMASS ENERGY is a key issue - as you rightly note, many people in many countries rely on charcoal (and fuelwood) for their energy needs. In Malawi we calculated that charcoal was the countries third biggest industry - dwarfing the timber industry in terms of the volume and value of wood being removed. But for me the real problem is that charcoal is seen as an 'enemy' of the forest - and its production is often banned or made difficult by government authorities. Yet charcoal (like any other forest product) is potentially renewable as long as forest areas are specifically managed to produce it on a sustainable basis. And charcoal production could be a huge sustainable industry that helps raise incomes and fight poverty. Equally important charcoal as a fuel is almost carbon neutral and so should be central to government plans to help reduce climate change (i.e. for every bit of carbon dioxide emitted during burning, more carbon is taken out of the air by regrowing trees - as long as their is some management going on - this is much better than gas which is pumped out of the ground and never replaced). For the, the key challenge is to turn the thinking around so that charcoal is seen as a sustainable community enterprise. We want more charcoal, and more areas of sustainable forestry managed or planted to produce it. But to get that we must legalise it, and press government to give secure access to land that is to be used for charcoal production like any other crop.

Interested to see where this discussion goes! Thanks for starting it.

Duncan

[AWAL AHMED]

Thanks Duncan yes lets see how to support the process of Legal Charcoal Industry. Our bagaining chip could be fast growing species- which are of course environmentally sustainable. More on this latter.