Charcoal production and the deforestation of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

[JohnWxy]

http://www.american.edu/TED/charcoal.htm

Charcoal plays an important role in most African countries. However, the inefficiencies inherent to the production and use of charcoal, rapid urbanization, and the preference of urban dwellers for charcoal place a heavy strain on local wood resources. This has severe environmental consequences. Referred to as "makala" in the former Zaire, charcoal is available in Kinshasa's markets or can be purchased by roadside vendors along roads linking the city and the forest. Makala's importance to Kinshasa can be deduced by the fact that a large district of the capital bears the same name. Traditional fuelwood gathering, while being a social institution, is a serious source of tree removal around Kinshasa. The forest has already receded by hundreds of kilometers from Kinshasa, hence the problem of deforestation in the DRC.
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Fuelwood and charcoal are by far the most heavily consumed energy sources in the former Zaire, used primarily for household cooking. There is no organized supply of fuelwood in urban areas, and population growth in urban areas, such as Kinshasa, has contributed to deforestation. The price of charcoal has risen because it has to be trucked in to urban centers from ever-greater distances.
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Congo is the third largest country in Africa extending 2,344,885 square km. Arable land only represents three percent of the nation's area, and permanent pasture seven percent. No less than 74.5 percent of the DRC's total land is forested. Then annual rate of deforestation, estimated by the World Bank, was 0.6 percent in 1980. Congo's forests are quickly shrinking; only 4.4 percent of its national territory is officially protected. Sustained deforestation could eventually threaten Congo's biodiversity.

[izquierdista]

1. Fighting deforestation

All right, I'll repost the link I put up 20 minutes ago: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11763&page=247

Perhaps Africa needs help in this regard, but the local governments should be promoting sustainable agriculture using indigenous plants. To solve food availability problems, for fiber, and for fuel. Charcoal is a reasonably green technology, but only if fast growing plants are replanted in cleared areas so that the cycle keeps going. One thing that could help even more here is pelletization of biomass, so that sacks of fuel pellets can be sold alongside the charcoal.

[JohnWxy]

3. what about a crop that produces a fuel that burns much cleaner than charcoal and doesn't require

burning of trees (CO2 emissions) or deforestation.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x152317

The crop (sorghum) occupies 25% or more of arable land in Mauritania, Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Somalia and Yemen, and >10% of this area in Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Tanzania and Mozambique.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is a nonprofit, non-political organization that does innovative agricultural research and capacity building for sustainable development with a wide array of partners across the globe. ICRISAT's mission is to help empower 600 million poor people to overcome hunger, poverty and a degraded environment in the dry tropics through better agriculture. ICRISAT belongs to the Alliance of Future Harvest Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

[izquierdista]

5. That why I suggested biomass pellets

Charcoal making is fairly low-tech, and you do waste quite a bit of fuel heating up the charcoal oven to turn pieces of wood into charcoal. The one downside to compressing plants residues to make pellets is that you have to make sure you don't have any plants that give off toxic fumes, like oleander, in the feed. But if you have a lot of sorghum residue, that should make for lots of burnable biomass.

[JohnWxy]

6. here's something they're trying in Malawi - burns much cleaner than charcoal and no deforestation.

it's pretty low-tech too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x152793

[AndyTiedye]

2. Solar Cookers?

Solar cookers don't need any fuel at all. Just sun, and I think they get plenty of that.

[JohnWxy]

4. sounds interesting, but a link might be helpful.

[jwirr]

7. I have wondered about this also. Saw a project plan for them years

ago but have no idea where.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. I seem to recall Haitians were using charcoal made from US corn waste ...

cobs, etc. from processing.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=haiti+charcoal+mit+corn&btnG=Google+Search

Oh, yeah and sugar cane waste too!