Design

What are the major design features of your fire (or charcoal cooker (i.e., draft system, smoke control, baffles, flues, chimneys, construction material, etc.)?

Starting the Fire

- What problems did you encounter in starting the fire?

- How long did it take for your fire to heat up?

- Was there much smoke?

Preparing the Meal

- How often did you need to add fuel?

- Did the fire stay lit?

- Was there much heat loss?

- Did the pots fit well over the fire?

- Once heated, did the dishes hold their heat?

- Was there much smoke?

After the Meal

- Was your fuel source easy to handle?

- Was there much work involved in preparing the fuel for use?

- How long did your fire hold its heat after the meal was prepared?

- How much fuel did you use?

 

Conduction

Radiation

Convection

It is possible that all three may occur at once.

 

 

Raymond Noronha

Raymond Noronha is a sociologist on the staff of the World Bank.

For a large part of the world's population, wood is the main source of energy for cooking, heating and all kinds of local manufacturing. But the forests that produce this wood are under increasingly heavy pressure. This gives impetus to the necessity of looking to village woodlots as one of the most important means of dealing with the wood-energy crisis.

Two basic assumptions should be made: first, that the techniques of establishing woodlots are well known; second, that trees serve a variety of human needs and are one of the cheapest sources of energy. If there is no dispute about these assumptions, why is it that village woodlots are not springing up all over the countryside in the developing countries where they are so badly needed? The reasons are not technological, but social and political.

Examples of both successful and unsuccessful woodlot programs are few, and relatively recent: China, the Republic of Korea, India (Gujaret), Tanzania and Niger. However, all of these have been subjected to intensive scrutiny.

China

Over a period of 30 years, from 1949 to 1978, the forest area of China increased by 72 million hectares, representing 12.7 percent of the land area. The main cause of this increase was the mass mobilization of rural communities. National targets were set and then translated into specific goals for districts, brigades and communities. The revolutionary spirit pervading the program, as in all other Chinese programs, called for rebuilding and renewal. The organization for this purpose already existed; the division of tasks was prescribed uniformly throughout the nation and implemented by a hierarchy of officials and cadres.

Republic of Korea

The Korean example, which has been more highly touted than the Chinese as a model for other developing countries, seems more dramatic. Until 1973, all efforts at controlling forest degradation had failed, and seedlings planted by foresters were cut within six months of planting. Since the villagers traditionally regarded forest land as a free source of fuelwood, the result was a loss of forests around communities and the increasing use of leaves, grass, rice straw, maize stover and other agricultural residues for fuel.

The Republic of Korea embarked on a four-fold program in 1973 which involved the strengthening of the Forest Department, the passing of the new Forest Law, and the launching of an extension and public information campaign. This gave encouragement to the planting of trees, to conservation measures and to enforcement of the new law. The prohibition of leaf-raking and removal of grass litter within forest areas was enforced and a national reforestation scheme was started to create fuelwood plantations in every village.

India (Gujarat)

The story in Gujarat is slightly different. By 1969, it was realized that the reserved State forest areas were dwindling through constant incursions by the rural population for their fuel, fodder, and building-pole needs. Further, the rural population was increasingly compelled to use agricultural residues and dung for fuel, thereby affecting agricultural returns. The two principles used by the Forest Department in trying to reverse this trend were, first, to provide a demonstration effect--to show people that trees could be grown with profit and for comparatively quick returns; and second, to conduct an extensive public information campaign. In implementing the former, the Government was induced to hand over responsibility for road and canal sides to the Forest Department, which planted trees there.

While the program of planting on government lands and encouraging individual tree-planting could be described as a runaway success, the village woodlot program is lagging. Starting in 1974, the Forest Department decided to get village panchayats, or locally elected bodies, involved in reforestation on village commons. The approach differs significantly from that of the Republic of Korea. The Department requests the village to set aside a portion of its lands for reforestation and undertakes all the work of establishment, maintenance and protection. These are now called "supervised" village plantations. At harvest, the village receives half of the net sale proceeds.

In addition, there are self-help village plantations where the Forest Department provides only free seedlings and technical assistance. To date, there are only 2,500 supervised, and about 70 self-help village plantations, representing about 14 percent of the villages in the State. Although Forest Department officials plan to increase their efforts to convince more panchayats to undertake community woodlot plantations, it would appear that their efforts will not be as successful as in the promotion of individual forestry.

Tanzania

Village woodlots in Tanzania have also not been entirely a success. The program, however, is relatively recent, having begun only in 1975. The organization and process of decision-making closely parallel those of the Republic of Korea. The basic unit, in an ujamaa village, is the village assembly which elects a council and a leader who is also the party secretary. In addition to working their own plots, villagers have to provide communal labor. Program formulation originates at the village level and then proceeds to the ward, division, district and region. At the village level, the village adviser, who is also the manager, is a government-appointed official. This framework allows for planning and decision-making directly at the village level. Although there is an inter-linking of government and elected personnel at every level up to the regional, together with provision for participation by the people, the village woodlot program has yet to achieve anything like the success of the Korean and Chinese programs.

Niger

Even less of a success was the effort to establish 500 hectares of village woodlots in Niger under a World Bank project. "As fast as the trees were planted," said one observer, "the village people either pulled them out or allowed uncontrolled grazing to take place." Of another village woodlot program in Niger, this one funded by CIDA, it was said that "effective local participation in reforestation has been throttled by an exclusive reliance...on a community woodlot system ill-suited in the socio-political context to serve as a vehicle for reforestation efforts..."

 

Social Factors

What are the reasons for the successes and failures of the programs described above? Are there any principles to be extracted from them that can be usefully applied to future village woodlot projects, or is each case, as is sometimes suggested, unique, with no possibility of relating the experiences of one project to another?

First, the Korean village is homogenous; it is not segmented by caste or tribal affiliations. Though disparities in wealth exist, they are not great. There is, therefore, a relative equality among all villagers. Second, as in the Chinese program, there is government commitment to the establishment of village plantations. This commitment takes the form of budgetary assistance, technical expertise, public education and law enforcement. It is not difficult, in these circumstances, to "convince" the landowner to part with his forest land for a return of 10 percent of the proceeds from growing trees. It is also not difficult to persuade the villager to perform his share of community duties when failure to do so would incur penalties enforceable by his village peers. Third, the "Samaeul Udong" movement, which worked in other spheres of village activity, was successfully integrated into the reforestation movement. Fourth, the organizational format reaches down to the village and provides a forum for expression, even though needs and projects are finally determined at the country level.

Gujarat presents an interesting contrast in that while individual planting has expanded, village woodlots lag. Why is this so? Based on my recent visits there and to Uttar Pradesh, I can try to offer some reasons. First, the Indian village, unlike the Korean, is heterogeneous. There is a mosaic of casts which associate only on well-recognized traditional occasions such as temple festivals. On a few other occasions, such as weddings, some castes do act in common, but only within a traditionally defined role. There is no tradition of communal action for such projects as growing trees.

In one village where community woodlots did take hold, dynamic leadership was responsible. A trusted panchayat chairman started by planting trees on his own land and then convinced the villagers that they, too, should have their own woodlot. Why did he decide on a self-help scheme rather than one in which the Forest Department would do everything for him? "Because," he said, "I refuse to pay the Department 50 percent of the profits for work on our land which is, in any event an overpayment." Where did he get funds, since his panchayat was poor? "People trust me. When I need money I approach rich villagers who give me anything I ask for."

A second key factor for village woodlots is the availability of land. There must be enough agricultural land for the local community. The village commons should be large enough so that villagers do not feel that reserving land for forestry will affect their other needs, particularly grazing. Also, the area set aside should be large enough for the harvest to meet the needs of all villagers. The percentage of villages capable of satisfying all of these conditions is small.

Third, governmental support for the program is essential. In Gujarat, while there is complete support for the forestry program, support does not appear to be as wholehearted for the village community woodlot program.

A fourth point is that Gujarat, like the Republic of Korea, has made the transition from individual initiators to a flexible organization that retains the spirit of the initiator with the addition of an extension network which reaches down to the village. Sociologically, it might be said to have made the transition from charismatic leadership to bureaucracy.

Fifth, labor for plantations and maintenance continues to be a problem, since there is little available locally and most has to be supplied by migrant tribes. Local workers are usually tied to contractors or bound by social and economic ties to landowners who are reluctant to free them during agricultural seasons (when many of the forestry operations are carried out).

Sixth, there is a problem of distribution which will soon have to be faced. It is unlikely that special preference will be given to the poorest sections of the village population. More likely, all villagers will share equally in the harvest if the village panchayat decides to distribute the fuelwood. Even more likely, however, is that the harvest will be sold and the proceeds applied to other priority needs determined by the panchayat. In this sense, village woodlots may fail to achieve their goal of alleviating the villagers' fuelwood needs and reducing their present dependence upon agricultural residues and dung as fuel.

In Tanzania, although the organizational pattern bears a close resemblance to the Korean one, the problems in establishing village woodlots are similar to those of Gujarat. Tanzania is a nation with tribal affiliations that hinder common action for 3 nontraditional activity like forestry.

The complex land-tenure system in Tanzania prevents allocation of land for forestry. The abolition of freehold land in 1963 and the vesting of land in the State mean that the farmer sees his holding as temporary: he is not convinced that he will reap the benefits of tree crops eight to ten years after planting. At the same time, villagers are unwilling to set aside lands which, despite nationalization, are still believed to belong to certain groups and which are therefore utilized and inherited according to traditional systems of tenure.

Another problem is that the villagers are willing to use only hardwoods for fuel. They will not take wood from industrial plantations because they believe it burns too quickly. Nor will they accept charcoal from softwood, despite the fact that its effective caloric value per unit weight is the same as that of hardwood, the cost of production identical, and the price only half that of hardwood charcoal.

According to John Spears, who is responsible for forestry at the World Bank, the reason why the World Bank project in Niger failed to achieve its target of establishing 500 hectares of village woodlots was because villagers "had not been involved in formulating the project and because they perceived the village woodlot area as a traditional ground." But numerous other factors were involved. Collective action was lacking. Self-help projects were generally imposed by government officials without local participation. Community schemes required interdependence and not everyone could be counted on to do his share of the work. The returns from community woodlots were too small to encourage, participation. There was a great deal of emigration during the agricultural off-season, placing a burden on a few to maintain and protect village plantations. Few villagers believed that wood would be distributed free at harvest; they felt that the Government or some rich villagers would get all the benefits. Since all the inputs were provided free of cost by the Government, the villagers did not identify with the project; moreover, the free provision of inputs reinforced their belief that it was a government project of which they would not share the benefits.

 

Effective Village Forestry

Government Commitment

If afforestation programs are to succeed, there must first be a commitment on the part of the government. This commitment must be expressed in three ways: giving priority to afforestation, budgetary support, and the provision of staff. Where any of these three is lacking, afforestation programs falter.

There are major historical and socio-political constraints to making this commitment. Historically, the major emphasis of governments has been on feeding their populations and, where possible, developing a surplus for export. In pursuit of this goal, they have consistently supported the settlement of people in forested areas. There has been little attempt at conservation of timber resources, largely because these were considered more than adequate until the last two decades.

Planning bodies that influence economic development in developing countries are not staffed with foresters; they are flooded with economists, administrators, the occasional sociologist or anthropologist, and agriculturists. In these disciplines, forestry plays a minor role because fuelwood, for instance, and its use by the majority of the rural population do not enter into national accounting systems since so little of it is bought. The urban population, with which planners come into contact on a more regular basis, uses charcoal, wood (which "mysteriously" appears from the countryside), kerosene, gas and electricity.

Related to this is the official view of the role of a forestry department in countries where this does, in fact, exist. The forestry department has had to preserve the country's forest resources and to extract commercial species of timber. The forester's main qualification was his knowledge of tree species. His contacts with people were meant to be limited to a few poachers and some more affluent hunters. With increasing population and the hunger for land, he has fought a losing battle to maintain his domain. If there is to be change, therefore, forestry departments must have enhanced status. Training should include courses in practical sociology and extension techniques in an effort to eliminate the idea that forestry is concerned only with the preservation and reforestation of reserved forest areas.

To many governments of developing countries, the cry for investment in fuelwood resources is a step backward in the pursuit of progress. For generations now, developing countries have been told that bigger is better, that electric central heating is more progressive than fuelwood stoves, that diesels are better than coal-fired railway engines, and that cars are better than horse-drawn carriages.

Transition

The spread of new ideas and methods is usually the result of an individual, or a few individuals, trying out new ways of dealing with familiar problems. It is understandable that the richer farmer with more land should be among the first to join such programs. Who else can afford the risks? Furthermore, he is often an opinion leader in his milieu. But for a program to spread and attain national dimensions, a growing organization is needed, one which retains the spirit of the initiators and yet reaches down to the lowest village levels.

This process of transition is one of the most difficult--for rules can kill. It is a transition that has been felicitously described as a learning process in three stages: learning to be effective; learning to be efficient; and maturity through learning to expand.

Involving People

Villagers have to understand a government's program before they can be expected to involve themselves in it. What, then, does involving the people mean? There are four basic principles: an acceptance of the validity of local views; the incorporation into organizational design of local participation in program formulation and decision-making; explanation of the program as a method of solving, or alleviating, the problems of the community; and obtaining community consent to the program.

Understanding

To involve the people means that they must be understood: their perceptions, their priorities, their socio-cultural framework, their economic needs. To the environmentalist outsider, forest depredation may mean the loss of valuable forest resources; to the villager concerned with his daily necessities and with little ability to control his future, it may mean new agricultural land, a residence and fuelwood to cook his meals. He may regard lower returns from the land, increased erosion and floods as the result not of his own doings, but as a consequence of natural forces beyond his control. To reach the villager, then, it is necessary to understand his "worldview."

There is also the time horizon in forestry projects to be considered. Trees, unlike wheat, rice or maize, take years to mature. Even a fast-growing species needs about five years before the first cutting. Returns, therefore, are delayed. To ask a farmer, or a village, to set aside land which will yield fruit only in years to come is a difficult task.

Women

The role of women in forestry is just beginning to be appreciated and analyzed. There are too few women involved in the design of forestry programs who could contact local women. But local socio-cultural attitudes often do not permit open involvement of women in development programs. Time will resolve both these problems, but right now, there should be an acceptance of the principle that as a matter of course, women should be involved in forestry programs, both as designers and as implementers. They should not be thought of simply as gatherers of fuelwood.

Design

For village woodlots to succeed, the choice of an organization and in-depth knowledge of the village by itself will not suffice. To involve the villager, one must offer him a program that he understands and which caters to his needs. There must be a method in the incentives offered to encourage participation. Does the proffered species-mix provide him with trees that he knows and uses? If he decides that the trees intended to be grown as fuelwood are not suitable, they will be rejected.

Implementation

Few existing programs address the problems of implementation of a village woodlot program such as maintenance or the question of distribution of the harvest. These are contractual obligations which must be settled at the outset.

Most analysts remark that maintenance of woodlots is one of the intractable problems. It is here that the difference between the self-help villages of the Republic of Korea and the supervised villages of Gujarat, is most evident. In the former, it is the villagers who maintain their woodlot, but in the latter, labor is generally hired by the Forest Department. Except in a few cases, this labor comes from outside the village. Only when the villagers are responsible for its maintenance will they believe that it really is their woodlot.

A similarly difficult problem is that of distribution of the harvest, a problem again solved only in the Republic of Korea. In Gujarat, the few plantations that reached maturity created a debate over whether the harvest should be shared locally or sold for a profit.

In short, village priorities are not necessarily the same as those of outsiders, who might want to give preference to the poor or vice versa.

Conservation

Many reforestation programs only deal with the supply side of the fuelwood equation. Few attempt to alter the demand aspects. Probably this is because current fuelwood programs only meet a fraction of existing minimum requirements. Nevertheless, unless there is a changed philosophy toward fuelwood use, supply will never catch up with demand. Some programs have attempted to introduce conservation methods through, for example, the construction of improved stoves. The only program that appears to have been successful is the introduction of the "Lorena" stove in Guatemala. In Africa, the same stove had limited success.

Agencies dealing with international development in many parts of the world are planning to increase their support of renewable energy resources, and village woodlots are fundamental. However, the problems that affect the acceptance or rejection of woodlots transcend the technological and are essentially socio-cultural, economic and locally political. What it all boils down to is the willingness to understand people and to put that understanding into the design and the running of programs, wherever they may be.

 

The following list represents a basic summary of some important aspects of managing various wood resource systems:

- The management of natural forests involves sustaining their output without damaging the growing stock through either even or uneven aged management.

- Plantations are usually even aged, but can provide yields of different sizes and types of material over a long period of time (i.e., through thinnings for bean poles, firewood, fence posts, etc.)

- Collective and/or individual wood lots can be managed as plantations or natural forests. They are often mismanaged as a result of communal politics.

- Mill scraps, logging waste and land conversion are all sources resulting from other ongoing forestry operations.

- Agricultural fallow provides a supply of wood when trees and brush which have been planted in a planned, rotational cropping system or which have naturally seeded at the end of a cropping cycle are cut to prepare for the next crop cycle. It is not generally thought of as a potential source for charcoal and is usually burned in the fields for its value as fertilizer. It should be noted, however, that the burning process and resultant soil damage usually negate any real benefit to the soil.

- Agro-Forestry involves the integrated management of a land area for both food and fuelwood crops. Charcoal can be one of the resulting products. Management may be individual or collective.

 

 

by Erick Eckholm

World Watch Paper 1

September, 1975

Dwindling reserves of petroleum and artful tampering with its distribution are the stuff of which headlines are made. Yet for more than a third of the world's people, the real energy crisis is a daily scramble to find the wood they need to cook dinner. Their search for wood, once a simple chore and now, as forests recede, a day's labor in some places, has been strangely neglected by diplomats, economists, and the media. But the Firewood crisis will be making news--one way or another--for the rest of the century.

While chemists devise ever more sophisticated uses for wood, including cellophane and rayon, at least half of all the timber cut in the world still fulfills its original role for humans--as fuel for cooking and, in colder mountain regions, a source of warmth. Nine-tenths of the people in most poor countries today depend on firewood as their chief source of fuel. And all too often, the growth in human population is outpacing the growth of new trees - not surprising when the average user burns as much as a ton of firewood a year. The results are soaring wood prices, a growing drain on incomes and physical energies in order to satisfy basic fuel needs, a costly diversion of animal manures to cooking food rather than producing it, and an ecologically disastrous spread of treeless landscapes.

The firewood crisis is probably most acute today in the countries of the densely populated Indian subcontinent, and in the semi-arid stretches of central Africa fringing the Sahara Desert, though it plagues many other regions as well. In Latin America, for example, the scarcity of wood and charcoal is a problem throughout most of the Andean region, Central America, and the Caribbean.

An Economic Burden

As firewood prices rise, so does the economic burden on the urban poor. One typical morning on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal's capital city, I watched a steady flow of people--men and women, children and the very old--trudge into the city with heavy, neatly chopped and stacked loads of wood on their hacks. I asked my taxi driver how much their loads, for which they had walked severe' hours into the surrounding hills, would sell for. "Oh, wood a very expensive item!" he exclaimed without hesitation. Wood prices are a primary topic of conversation in Kathmandu these days. "That load costs 20 rupees now. Two years ago, it sold for six or seven rupees." This 300 percent rise in the price of fuel wood has in part been prompted by the escalating cost of imported kerosene, the principle alternative energy source for the poor. But firewood prices have risen mush faster than kerosene prices, also reflecting the growing difficulty with which wood is procured. It now costs as much to run a Kathmandu household on wood as on kerosene.

The costs of firewood and charcoal are climbing throughout most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Those who can, pay the price, and thus, must forego consumption of other essential goods. Wood is simply accepted as one of the major expenses of living. In Niamey, Niger, deep in the drought-plagued Sahel in West Africa, the average manual laborer's family now spends nearly one-fourth of its income on firewood. In Ouagadougou, Upper Volta, the portion is 20 to 30 percent. Those who can't pay so much may send their children, or hike themselves, out into the surrounding countryside to forage-if enough trees are within a reasonable walking distance. Otherwise, they may scrounge about the town for twigs, garbage, or anything burnable.

It is not in the cities but in rural villages that most people in the affected countries live, and where most firewood is burned. The rural landless poor in parts of India and Pakistan are now facing a new squeeze on their meager incomes. Until now, they have generally been able to gather wood for free among the trees scattered through farmlands, but as wood prices in the towns rise, landlords naturally see an advantage in carting available timber into the nearest town to sell rather than giving it to the nearby laborers. While this commercialization of firewood raises the hope that entrepreneurs will see advantage in planting trees to develop a sustainable, labor-intensive business, so far a depletion of woodlands has been the more common result. And the rural poor, with little or no cash to spare, are in deep trouble in either case.

With the farmland trees and the scrubby woodlands of unfarmed areas being depleted by these pressures, both the needy and the entrepreneurs are forced to poach for fuel wood in the legally protected ecologically and economically essential national forest reserves. The gravity of the poaching problem in India has been reflected in the formation of special mobile guard-squads and mobile courts to try captured offenders, but law enforcement measures have little effect in such an untenable situation. Acute firewood scarcity has undermined administrative control even in China, where trees on commune plantations are sometimes surreptitiously uprooted for fuel almost as soon as they are planted.

Trees are becoming scarce in the most unlikely places. In some of the most remote villages in the world, deep in the once heavily forested Himalayan foothills of Nepal, journeying cut to gather firewood and fodder is now an entire day's task. Just one generation ago, the same expedition required no more than an hour or two.

Ecological Consequences

Because those directly suffering its consequences are mostly illiterate and wood shortages lack the photogenic visibility of famine, the wood crisis has not provoked much world attention. In a way, there is little point in calling this a world problem, for fuel wood scarcity, unlike oil scarcity, is always localized in its apparent dimensions. Economics seldom permit fuel wood to be carried or trucked more than a few hundred miles from where it grows, let alone the many thousands of miles traversed by the modern barrel of oil.

Unfortunately, however, the consequences of firewood scarcity are seldom limited to the economic burden placed on the poor of a particular locality. The accelerating degradation of woodlands throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, caused in part by fuel gathering, lies at the heart of what will likely be the most profound ecological challenge of the late twentieth century. On a global basis, an ecological threat to human well-being far more insidious and intractable than the industrial pollution of cur air and water-which has preempted thinking on environmental quality--is the undermining of the productivity of the land itself through soil erosion, increasingly severe flooding, creeping deserts, and declining soil fertility. All these problems are accentuated by deforestation, which is spreading as lands are cleared for agriculture and as rising populations continue their search for firewood. Rainwater falling on tree-covered land tends to soak into the ground rather than rush off; erosion and flooding are thus reduced, and more water seeps into valuable underground pools and spring sources.

Dangerous Substitutes

In the Indian subcontinent, the most pernicious result of firewood scarcity is probably not the destruction of tree cover itself, but the alternative to which a good share of the people in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been forced. A visitor to almost any village in the subcontinent is greeted by omnipresent pyramids of hand-molded dung patties drying in the sun. In many areas, these dung cakes have been the only source of fuel for generations, but now, by necessity, their use is spreading further. Between 300 and 400 million tons of wet dung--which shrinks to 60 to 80 million tons when dried --are annually burned for fuel in India alone, robbing farmland of badly needed nutrients and organic matter. The plant nutrients wasted annually in this fashion in India equal more than a third of the country's chemical fertilizer use. Looking only at this direct economic cost, it is easy to see why the country's National Commission on Agriculture recently declared that "the use of cow dung as a source of non-commercial fuel is virtually a crime."

Even more important than the loss of agricultural nutrients is the damage done to soil structure and quality through the failure to return manure to the fields. Organic materials--humus and soil organisms which live in it--play an essential role in preserving the soil structure and fertility needed for productive farming. Organic matter holds the soil in place when rain falls and wind blows, and reduces the wasteful, polluting runoff of chemical nutrients where they are applied, thus increasing the efficiency of their use.

Peasants in the uplands of South Korea have found another, equally destructive, way to cope with the timber shortage. A United Nations forestry team visiting the country in the late '960's found not only live tree branches, shrubs, seedlings, and grasses being cut for fuel; many hillsides were raked clean of all leaves, litter and burnable materials. Raking in this fashion, to meet needs for home fuel and farm compost, robs the soil of both a protective cover and organic matter, and the practice as cited by the UN experts as "one of the principal causes of soil erosion in Korea." Firewood scarcity similarly impairs productivity in Eastern Nigeria, where the Tiv people have been forced to uproot crop residues after the harvest for use as fuel. traditionally, the dead stalks and 'eaves have been left to enrich the soil and hold down erosion.

A Closing Circle

The increasing time required to gather firewood in many mountain villages of Nepal is leading to what the kingdom's agricultural officials fear most of all. For, once procuring wood takes too long to be worth the trouble, some farmers start to use cow dung, which was formerly applied with great care to the fields, as cooking fuel. As this departure from tradition spreads, the fertility of the hills, already declining due to soil erosion, will fall sharply. In the more inaccessible spots, there is no economic possibility whatsoever of replacing the manure with chemical fertilizers.

And so the circle starts to close in Nepal, a circle long completed in parts of India. As wood scarcity forces farmers to burn more dung for fuel, and to apply less to their fields, falling food output will necessitate the clearing of ever larger, ever steeper tracts of forest - intensifying the erosion and landslide hazards. Even Nepal's key economic planning body, the National Planning Commission, now says that if present trends continue, a "semi-desert type of ecology in the hilly regions" will be created.

Though most dramatically apparent in Nepal, this same cluster of phenomena threatens the future habitability of the entire stretch of Himalayan foothills, from Afghanistan through northern Pakistan, India, and Nepal to Burma. And the negative consequences by no means stop at the base of the hills. When soil washes away, it must relocate somewhere, and the rising load of silt carried by Asia's rivers is choking up expensive reservoirs and irrigation works. Most threatening of all to food production prospects on the Indian subcontinent, where nearly one in every five human beings lives, is a rise in the frequency and severity of flooding in Pakistan, India, and possibly Bangladesh, the result of denuded watersheds off which rainfall rushes quickly, and of the excessive load of sediment from upstream that builds up river beds, reducing their capacity to channel water.

Firewood scarcity, then, is intimately linked to the food problem facing many countries in two ways. Deforestation and the diversion of manures to use as fuel are sabotaging the land's ability to produce food. Meanwhile, as an Indian official put it, "Even if we somehow grow enough food for our people in the year 2000, how in the world will they cook it?"

A Renewable Resource

The firewood crisis is in some ways more, and in others less, intractable than the energy crisis of the industrialized world. Resource scarcity can usually be attacked from either and, through the conservation of demand or the expansion of supply. The world contraction in demand for oil in, 1974 and early 1975, for example, helped to ease temporarily the conditions of shortage.

But the firewood needs of the developing countries cannot be massively reduced in this fashion. The energy system of the truly poor contains no easily trimmable fat such as four to five thousand pound private automobiles represent. Furthermore, a global recession does little to dampen the demand for firewood as it temporarily has in the case of oil. The unfortunate truth is that the amount of wood burned in a particular country is almost completely determined by the number of people who need to use it. In the absence of suitable alternative energy sources, future firewood needs in these countries will be determined largely by population growth.

Even if demographers are surprised by quick progress in slowing population growth over the next few decades, the demand for basic resources like firewood will still push many countries to their limits.

Fortunately trees, unlike oil, are a renewable resource when properly managed. The logical immediate response to the firewood shortage, one that will have many incidental ecological benefits, is to plant more trees in plantations, on farms, along roads, in shelter belts, and on unused land throughout the rural areas of the poor countries. For many regions, fast-growing tree varieties are available that can be culled for firewood inside of a decade.

The concept is simple, but its implementation is not. Governments in nearly all the wood-short countries have had tree planting programs for some time--for several decades in some cases. National forestry departments in particular have often been aware of the need to boost the supply of wood products and the need to preserve forests for a habitable environment. But several problems have plagued these programs from the beginning.

One is the sheer magnitude of the need for wood, and the scale of the growth in demand. Population growth, which surprised many with its acceleration in the post-war era, has swallowed the moderate tree planting efforts of many countries, rendering their impact almost negligible. Wood-producing programs will have to be undertaken on a far greater scale than most governments presently conceive if a real dent is to be made in the problem.

The problem of scale is closely linked to a second major obstacle to meeting this crisis: the perennial question of political priorities and decision-making time-frames. What with elections to win, wars to fight, dams to build, and hungry mouths to feed, it is hard for any politician to concentrate funds and attention on a problem so diffuse and seemingly long-term in nature.

Political, Cultural, and Administrative Tangles

Even when the political will is there and the funds are allocated, implementing a large-scale reforestation campaign is an unexpectedly complex and difficult process. Planting millions of trees and successfully nurturing them to maturity is not a technical, clearly boundaried task like building a dam or a chemical fertilizer plant. Tree planting projects almost always become deeply enmeshed in the political, cultural, and administrative tangles of a rural locality; they touch upon and are influenced by, the daily living habits of many people, and they frequently end in failure.

Most of the regions with too few trees also have too many cattle, sheep, and goats. Where rangelands are badly overgrazed, the leaves of a young sapling present an appetizing temptation to a foraging animal. Marauding livestock are prime destroyers of tree planting projects throughout the less developed world. To be successful, then, reforestation efforts often require a formidable administrative effort to protect the plants for years--not to mention the monitoring of timber harvesting and replanting activities once the trees reach maturity.

Village politics can undermine a program as well. An incident from Ethiopia a few years back presents an extreme case, but its lessons are plain. A rural reforestation program was initiated as a public works scheme to help control erosion and supply local wood needs. The planting jobs were given to the local poor, mostly landless, laborers who badly needed the low wages they could earn in the planting program. Seedlings were distributed, planting commenced, and all seemed to be going well--until the overseers journeyed out to check the progress. They found that in many areas, the seedlings had been planted upside down! The laborers, of course, well knew the difference between roots and branches; they also knew that given the feudal land-tenure system in which they were living, most of the benefits of the planting would flow one way or another into the hands of their lords. They were not anxious to work efficiently for substandard wages on a project that brought them few personal returns.

In country after country, the same lesson has been learned: tree planting programs are most successful when a majority of the local community is deeply involved in planning and implementation, and clearly perceives its self-interest in success. With wider community participation, the control of grazing patterns can be built into the program from the beginning, and a motivated community will protect its own project and provide labor at little or no cost.

Alternative Fuels

Whatever the success of tree planting projects, the wider substitution of other energy sources where wood is now being used would, if feasible, contribute greatly to a solution of the firewood problem. A shift from wood-burning stoves to those running on natural gas, coal, or electricity has indeed been the dominant global trend in the last century and a half.

Events of the last two years, of course, have abruptly altered energy use trends and prospects everywhere. The most widely overlooked impact of the fivefold increase in oil prices, an impact drowned out by the economic distress caused for oil-importing countries, is the fact that what had beer, the most feasible substitute for firewood, kerosene, has now been pulled even farther out of reach of the world poor than it already was.

In a sensibly organized world, taking into account the total picture of energy, ecology, and food, the of distribution picture would look far different. The long-term interest in preserving the productive capacity of the earth and in maximizing welfare for the greatest number of people might argue for lower prices and a rapid increase, not a halt, in the adoption of kerosene and natural gas in the homes of the poor over the next two decades. This, in turn, would be viable for a reasonable time period only if the waste and comparatively frivolous uses of energy in the industrial countries, which are depleting petroleum reserves so quickly, were cut sharply.

Fossil fuels are rot the only alternate energy source being contemplated, and over the long term, many of these using firewood, like everyone else, will have to turn in other directions. Nothing, for example, would be better than a dirt-cheap device for cocking dinner in the evening with solar energy collected earlier in the day. But actually developing such a stove and introducing it to hundreds of millions of the world's most tradition-bound and penniless families is another story.

Indian scientists have pioneered for decades with an ideal sounding device that breaks down manures and other organic wastes into methane gas for cooking and a rich compost for the farm. Over eight thousand of these big-gas plants, as they are called, are now being used in India. Without a substantial reduction in cost, however, they will only slowly infiltrate the hundreds of thousands of rural villages where the fuel problem is growing. Additionally, as the plants are adopted, those too poor to own cattle could be left worse off than ever, denied traditional access to dung but unable to afford big-gas. Still, it is scientific progress with relatively simple, small-scale devices like solar cookers and big-gas plants that will likely provide the fuel source of the future in most poor countries.

In terms of energy, Nepal is luckier than many countries in one respect. The steep slopes and surging rivers that cause so many environmental problems also make Nepal one of the few remaining countries with a large untapped hydroelectric potential. Exploitation of this resource will be expensive and slow, but would relieve some of the pressures being placed on forests by the larger towns of Nepal and northern India. On the other hand, cheap electricity will only partly reduce firewood demands, since the electrification of isolated villages in the rugged Himalayas may never be economically feasible.

Back to the Basics

Firewood scarcity will undoubtedly influence governmental perceptions of the population problem in, the years ahead. It spotlights the urgency of slowing population growth through action on several fronts: making family planning services universally available, encouraging the liberation of women from traditional roles, meeting the basic social needs such as rudimentary health care, adequate nutrition and literacy that are usually associated with reduced fertility, and re-orienting social and economic incentives to promote smaller families.

The firewood crisis, like many other resource problems, is alto forcing governments and analysts back to the basics of man's relationship with the land--back to concerns lost sight of in an age of macro-economic models and technological optimism. Awareness is spreading that the simple energy needs of the world's poorest third are unlikely ever to be met by nuclear power plants, any more than their minimum food needs will be met by huge synthetic-protein factories.

Firewood scarcity and its attendant ecological hazards have brought the attitude of people toward trees into sharp focus. In his essay, "Buddhist Economics," E. F. Schumacher praises the practical as well as esoteric wisdom in the Buddha's teaching that his followers should plant and nurse a tree every few years. Unfortunately, this ethical heritage has been largely lost, even in the predominantly Buddhist societies of Southeast Asia. In fact, most societies today lack an ethic of environmental cooperation, an ethic not of conservation for its own sake, but of human survival amid ecological systems heading toward collapse.

This will have to change, and fast. The inexorable growth in the demand for firewood calls for tree planting efforts on a scale more massive than most bureaucrats have ever even contemplated, much less planned for. The suicidal deforestation of Africa, Asia, and Latin America must somehow be slowed and reversed. Deteriorating ecological systems have a logic of their own; the damage often builds quietly and unseen for many years, until one day the system collapses with lethal vengeance. Ask anyone who lived in Oklahoma in 1934, or Chad in 1975.

ERIK P. ECKHOLM is a Senior Researcher with "Worldwatch Institute. Formerly an Associate Fellow at the Overseas Development Council, he is the co-author of By Bread Alone and author of the forthcoming bock, Losing Ground: Environmental Stress and World Food Prospects (W. W. Norton, 1975).

This paper is adapted from the author's book, Losing Ground... and may be partially reproduced with acknowledgement to "Worldwatch Institute. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of "Worldwatch Institute, its directors, officers, or staff.

 

 

Traditional Methods

99% of all the charcoal produced in developing countries is made using traditional methods.

Improved Methods

through more efficient kiln designs

Direct energy efficiency

 

- For Example: Yaoundé, September, 1981

Chart

 

- A reasonable hypothetical example (after D.E. Earl, 1975)

Assume that 1 Gcal (10⁹ calories) of wood energy sells for #1 (one unit currency) at the wood and charcoal production site.

Further, assume that charcoal sells there at #4 per Gcal.

Graph

Now, let us say that transportation rates are set at #15 per 100 km. for each metric tonne of the load.

Thus, for charcoal, a tonne of which contains 7.5 Gcal, this works out to #2/Gcal per 100 km.

But, for air-dry wood, which requires about two tonnes to contain the same energy, the transportation rate becomes #4/Gcal per 100 km.

Therefore, at distances greater than 150 km from the production site (in this case), the energy available from burning charcoal is cheaper than that from burning wood.

 

* CHARCOAL USE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES occurs primarily in urban areas where people's energy needs are great and available sources of wood are often great distances away.

* IN CASES WHERE FUEL MUST BE TRANSPORTED more than 50 - SO kilometers, it is more efficient to convert wood into charcoal. The reduced weight and bulk of charcoal make it possible to transport more potential energy at a cheaper price than transporting firewood.

* URBAN AREAS ARE DEMANDING CHARCOAL because it can be made available more cheaply than firewood and is easier to handle in congested urban areas. This demand strains available wood resources in rural areas and increases many of the fuelwood-related problems of rural people.

* THIS CONFLICT OF INTERESTS AND NEEDS between urban and rural peoples has resulted in a variety of governmental attempts to control charcoal production throughout the world. For example:

- the government of Gambia has passed laws which prohibit all types of charcoal production;

- Kenya has established permit requirements which make it almost impossible to legally produce charcoal; and at the same time,

- Senegal has placed price controls on charcoal and consequently encouraged its demand and use.

 

 

Traditional rectangular kiln

Pit kiln

Portable metal kiln

Mixed kiln

Casamance kiln

Continuous kiln

Oil drum kiln

 

 

IDEALIZED RECTANGULAR EARTH-COVERED KILNS

Comparison of sizes

Basis design features for a charcoal kiln

Basic design features for a charcoal retort

 

Illustrations of the front process during carbonization

 

TYPES OF DRAFT SYSTEMS IN A CHARCOAL KILN

a) Rectangular earth-covered kiln

b) Large portable metal kiln

Approximate fraction of kiln's bulk volume filled with charge during run

Average atmosphere temperature in a working charcoal kiln for a complete operational cycle

 

 

Situation 1

* Small sawmill on the outskirts of a medium-sized town.

* Mill-ends, slab and sawdust and stockpiled first and later burned. Some of the lumber is occasionally purchased by employees.

* Some capital is available for general improvements and repairs.

* Mill labor force includes skilled and unskilled workers.

* Variety of "junk" items on the premises.

* Mill tool shop has welding equipment.

 

Situation 2

* Fuel wood plantation in a sparsely-populated area.

* Cleared land is planted on a 10-year rotation. Some tracts are ready for harvest.

* Additional natural forest is being cleared with large equipment (Caterpillars, etc.). To facilitate immediate planting, large amounts of ungraded material from the clearing process are quickly wind-rowed and burned.

* Some capital is available for improvements and repairs.

* Heavy equipment available (e.g., Caterpillars, graders, front-end loaders, trucks, chainsaws, etc.).

 

Situation 3

* Independent charcoal-maker who works in the area around his village.

* Money earned from charcoal accounts for 95% of his family income.

* Markets his product in a large town 150 km. away.

* Transportation costs drastically reduce his profit.

* Tools are old and few.

 

Situation 4

* Traditional farmer in a populated, rural area.

* From clearing his bush fallow to plant, he has a sudden and large surplus of wood.

* Almost all his labor time is spent tending his farm.

* Owns a few, basic agricultural tools.