Europe uses more than 800,000 tons of charcoal every year. Production of one ton of wood-based charcoal requires between 5 and 12 tons of wood. Approximately 70% of the charcoal utilized in Europe annually, (that is, 570,000 tons), is imported. Incidentally, Nigeria is the biggest charcoal supplier to Europe. Namibia, Egypt, South Africa, and Ivory Coast also export to Europe. On the whole, Africa supplies 40% of all European charcoal imports (TFT research, 2015). Nigeria supplied 24% of wood charcoal imported in Europe in 2013 (FAO, 2013).
Nigeria, a major supplier of charcoal to the EU has some of the highest levels of deforestation in the world (Olden, 2015).
It becomes expedient to ask: what is the true cost of charcoal production in Africa?
Dear Makuachukwu, CIFOR is doing some research in Zambia that fits to your question. See for instance http://blog.cifor.org/26226/zambia-charcoal-deforestation-carbon-emissions-redd?fnl=en and contact person Davison Gumbo http://www.cifor.org/scientific-staff-detail/1591/. Good luck and best regards Nils
Thanks, Nils Borchard. I have visited the links you shared. I found them very helpful. Many thanks really. Cheers.
I completely agree that deforestation occur in Africa due to charcoal production.
If I bye charcoal for my grill in Denmark it is usually labeled with the country of origin. I don't think it is possible to sell charcoal labeled Nigeria considering it is well known the forests are not sustainable. This it puzzled me that we don't seem to use that much charcoal in Europe compared to that I have seen in central Africa. If I google charcoal use it seems that Africa consumes a lot more charcoal than Europe. If I take the number in the link below it says 23 Million Ton of charcoal is used in Africa. Thus it seems that Europe just consume 2.5% of the African charcoal.
I don't know this field well or if the 23 million ton is incorrect, but if it was it would indicate that you have more need for alternative methods to cook food in the African towns. Biogas from food waste and sewage and solar ovens.
http://www.globalbioenergy.org/fileadmin/user_upload/gbep/docs/2012_events/WGCB_Activity_1_Bamako_19-22_March_2012/V.2_Making_charcoal_production_in_sub-Saharan_Africa_more_sustainable.pdf
Henrik, I don't know if this will actually answer the question, but it may help with some background. As the supporting rural resources shift and the teeming slums of Africa grow, the need for fuel will increase. In Somalia, with a family out with the animals on the range, one of the first duties of a youngster when in a camel trekking family, usually at about 3 years, is to gather sticks for the fire of the evening's meal. Somali males are very adult at a young age because of this early and constantly growing list of family and necessary survival responsibilities. But as the range degrades or the herds are driven off the range by proxy wars, these families are resettled into villages. To shift fuel needs to an available source for the growing urbanized population sees either the use of fossil fuel or charcoal, the former highly susceptible to fluctuating prices in relatively unstable markets. The ease of gathering sticks for firewood is now a distant option. If one looks at Botswana, the charcoal gathers are moving farther and farther out into the veld and the destruction of the range goes with that. The same thing is happening for medicinal plants. You don't just stop and pluck what you might need because you are not out in nature but in the slum of some big city. The guy that is selling you this herb in the city, takes the whole plant, not a twig. In part, the problems facing Africa are that it is being thrust into economic systems based on IMF and World Bank dictates based on bad economic decisions and often toward cash crops. Thus people live in a world based more on inflation rather than barter. A good source of review to understand that is: Change at Shebika: Report from a North African Village, by Jean Duvignaud. When I first arrived in Mogadischu in the mid 1970s to help open the new USAID mission, the Somali shilling was trading at 5 to the dollar, the ancient city was spotless, donkeys wore diapers, tin cans were valuable, one could walk at midnight alone in the twisting streets in complete safety. Now, it is different. This situation is reflected across much of Africa. Much of this is a result traceable to the political fall-out of the Cold War. Hopefully, it will correct.
Cheers------------Edo
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