Forestry and Household Energy - an introduction to the key issues

Introduction

This paper is intended to inform main stakeholders (policy makers, NGO’s, Government Organisations and other institutions) and to create awareness among them about the importance and relationship of forestry and household energy. The availability of sufficient fuel (biomass fuel-wood charcoal etc.) is indispensable for the quality of live of rural and urban population by enabling them to meet their energy needs in a socially and environmentally sustainable manner.

The paper highlights the general importance of forest biomass for household energy worldwide and with special focus on Southern Africa. Subsequently, the paper zooms in to a more comprehensive analysis of demand and supply of forest biomass fuels. The next part describes the ever increasing gap between supply and demand in South African countries.

Importance of forest biomass as household energy

Worldwide almost three billion people depend on biomass for household energy. In most of the developing countries 80% of households are concerned. Firewood and charcoal, the so called forest biomass fuels, are by far the most important energy suppliers (Amous 1999). In Southern Africa, as in many other countries, forest biomass fuels are often the only available energy especially for rural and poor urban populations. Fuelwood and charcoal are used to provide energy for basic human needs like the preparation of meals, illumination, boiling water for body hygiene and in some regions also for heating in cool seasons. It is used by individual households but also by restaurants, hospitals, some small industries, schools and other public institutions.

Also from the forest management perspective the importance of forest biomass fuels can be proved by the fact that worldwide, they represent 80-90 % of the quantity of all forest products (about 2 billion cubic meters).

Figure 1:Forest products of developing countries according to amount and percentage of world wide production 1995 (Gardner-Outlaw et al. 1999).

However, the importance of fuelwood is very often not reflected in political priorities and consequently also not in forest management:

• It seems that on the micro economic level where women and young girls collect firewood usually free of charge, the tremendous amount of effort and time is not adequately recognized. But also where firewood and charcoal are purchased – mainly through the informal sector – prices do not reflect production costs but merely the costs for harvesting and transport. However, in urban households costs for buying fuelwood represent a significant share of their low income. Recent studies in Africa assessed that for many households the required energy supply is almost as expensive as the basic food supply (Habermehl 1994).

• Also the macro economic costs of fuelwood scarcity are not fully recognised: e.g. the fact that women´s work force is not available for productive activities (agriculture, small scale business) and reproductive activities (education, child care, family nutrition) if they spend so much time on fuelwood collection. Also data of environmental costs for over utilisation of forest resources are mostly not well known and documented and hardly considered.

• The production of fuelwood is rarely the main objective of forest management. Mostly fuelwood is collected free of charge in unmanaged areas or it is a by product of timber production.

A closer look at supply and demand

Supply

Over 50 % of biomass energy in Southern Africa is derived from natural forests and woodlands. This region was never rich in dense natural forests, which are limited by the amount and distribution of rainfall. The natural vegetation of the prevailing semi-arid and semi-humid zones are open forests which are often referred to as woodlands (with a canopy cover of about 20-80 %).

Determining factors for the potential of natural forests and woodlands to serve as fuelwood and charcoal sources are:

• their legal status: part of the forests cannot be used because they are protected areas

• ownership: management objectives of state owned or large private forest are mainly timber production

• physical accessibility: a considerable amount is not accessible due to long distances, lack of path ways etc

• their compatablity with other forest products (forests will be utilised for financially more attractive products like timber)

• well adapted techniques of harvest transport and transformation (e.g. to charcoal)

• natural production capacity.

The latter depends very much on the degree of degradation. The dramatic destruction of wood resources prevents in many regions a sustainable energy supply. The annual deforestation rate in Southern Africa ranges between 0.75 and 2.2% (FAO 1995). This is mainly caused by:

• the increasing need for agricultural production with extension of pasture and area under cultivation,

• the process of degradation enforced by an increasing number of forest and bushfires, which are mainly man made (can occur at once or in a lengthy degradation process of overuse of forest resources)

• the industrial use of timber with politically mismanaged concession systems,

• big infrastructure projects (roads, dams, etc.),

• exploitation of mineral resources and

• collection of firewood and production of charcoal (for commercial and industrial purpose)(Barnard et al. 1986; Oesterdiekhoff 1991).

It has to be noted that due to the above mentioned factors, only a small percentage of natural growing wood is actually used as fuelwood and charcoal.

In commercial forest plantations, fuelwood is mainly produced as a by-product of other utilisations due to its reduced commercial value. There have been also some plantations planned for energy production as main management objective. Often they have not been successful due to technical problems and economic failures e.g. competition with the informal sector and long distances from firewood markets.

Demand and consumption

The demand for fuelwood varies considerably in different regions and sometimes even from place to place. However, studies in different regions estimated an average yearly consumption rate of about 1m³ per capita (Amous 1999), though there are substantial differences, especially between urban and rural areas.

The main determining factors for the level of demand of wood for energy purposes are:

• Population growth (in the countries of Southern Africa about 2-3 % per year) and distribution of the population. Migration trends due to poverty, socio-economic crises and wars lead to new distribution patterns. Especially hasty or uncontrolled concentrations of people e.g. refugee camps or slums, lead to a sudden raise of demand for energy supply and are determined to put pressure on local and regional natural resources.

• The share of charcoal in the household energy utilisation pattern. The transformation from firewood to charcoal is always connected with important energy losses. This results in a higher net wood consumption compared to the use of fuelwood.

• Cooking related parameters such as cooking pattern (number and kind of meals), cooking technology (stoves and pots), kitchen organisation and number of people per household.

Cooking with fuelwood has advantages and disadvantages for the user. Main advantage is that very often it can be collected free of direct monetary input or purchased in small quantities. The latter is important considering the very limited financial liquidity of most families. Another advantage is that it can be burnt without any expensive stove. On the other hand firewood (and biomass in general) has a low energy content so that a quite high amount is needed which is difficult to transport and store. Burning qualities are influenced by different wood densities and the water content of the wood. Moreover, production of smoke during the burning process is unavoidable, blackening the pots and causing severe health problems. Moreover, for safety reasons tending a fire needs much attention and is therefore quite time intensive.

Charcoal has a considerably higher energy content, is more comfortable to use and to transport, which justifies economically longer distances from charcoal production sides to the market. However, as already stated more wood is needed compared to direct fuelwood utilisation.

It is important to notice that most of the families possess and use different fuels and different stoves for different purposes and occasions.

Balance, Impact and Prognosis - The increasing gap between supply and demand

At present, two billion people are suffering from fuelwood shortage (GTZ 1999). FAO 1993 calculates an increase of 63% of the use of firewood and charcoal in Africa until the year 2010. On one hand the demand for firewood and charcoal is growing with the increasing population, on the other hand the fuelwood supply is getting more and more problematic due to the ongoing destruction of natural forests and the limited potential of afforestations. The increasing demand has to be covered more and more by smaller and qualitatively lower wood production areas. Therefore, the difference between supply and demand is increasing dramatically.

Presently, in southern Africa there are

• regions with acute firewood scarcity mainly in arid and semi-arid areas and densely populated mountains,

• regions with a firewood deficit in fertile agricultural production areas with high population growth or densely populated low lands,

• regions with an expected deficit in the near future in areas with fast growing population and expanding agricultural activities,

• and regions with firewood surplus in areas with a high coverage of natural forests and low population density (Bargel 1991).

The factors determining surplus or deficit areas are complex and involved in a dynamic process. Therefore, balanced areas where fuelwood supply is equal to demand, exist only for a certain period as a transition zone, mainly from surplus to deficit areas.

Problems, causes and effects of the escalating fuelwood deficit are presented in figure 2 (Sepp 1994):

The impact of the fuelwood crises has to be seen on different levels. On national level a fuelwood crises results very often in the increase of foreign exchange for fossil fuels and very often the government tries to smoothen the social conflicts caused by increasing fuel prices by providing subsidies. However, this burden cannot be beared long term. It has to be noted that a country wide statistical balance between sustainable supply and demand of wood does not necessarily mean that there are no problems on regional or local level. If there are – for example - remote areas with high production potential but not accessible or just too far away from the centres of demand, they will hardly be able to mitigate a local fuel crises.

The negative impacts of firewood and charcoal shortages on individual households are manifold:

• Women spend a substantial amount of time for firewood collection and have less time for other productive (agriculture) or reproductive (child care, education) duties.

• Increased workload causes direct and indirect health problems.

• When firewood or charcoal is not available inferior forest biomass products like dung or fresh wood are used to heat the cooking pot, which implies a higher health risk (more smoke).

• If dung or agricultural residues are burned as fuel, they lack as fertilizers.

• More money is spent on firewood than before because the prices for firewood and charcoal rise and other needs of the family cannot be satisfied.

These impacts result in a reduced well-being of the families. Families try to adapt their demand if fuelwood shortage occurs. Up to a certain degree it is possible to decrease fuelwood consumption by traditional methods, e.g. fire is strictly limited to cooking times; the number of meals are reduced and meals chosen, which need less cooking time; renunciation of warm water for washing and the dishes, etc. However, these measures are not able to prevent the growing of the gap between supply and demand. The experience shows that piecemeal interventions, such as isolated dissemination of technically improved cookstoves or isolated afforestations while valuable in themselves, are not adequate to address these problems.

Biomass energy management is related to a whole range of other social, economic and environmental development, and consequently can only be addressed by a combination of demand management and supply enhancement using an integrated, intersectoral approach.

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