NDJAMENA—Authorities in Chad are cracking down on the use of charcoal to save forests and keep the desert from advancing in the Saharan nation, but discontent is mounting over the tough measures.
Sanctions that began coming into effect in December include torching vehicles carrying charcoal and arresting people transporting the product, law-and-order officials say.
The measures have sparked an outcry among the poorest residents of this desolate west African country, who claim they cannot afford to buy gas to cook their daily meals. Some experts suggest Ndjamena should have eased more slowly into its environmental battle.
“One cannot change old habits overnight,” Brigitte Topinanty Dionadji, a government consultant, told AFP. “One must fight against desertification but there should have been awareness-raising campaigns and a transition.”
“Those affected are the most destitute,” she said.
But Chadian authorities argue they have no time to spare.
“Ndjamena and its surroundings are turning into desert. The forests must be saved,” said Communications Minister Mahamat Hissene.
Hissene said he planted eucalyptus trees during the 1970s in a region that is now bare of them.
“From Ndjamena to Massaguet (80 kilometres, 50 miles away), there is nothing left. We’ve had three seasons with no harvest,” he said.
Experts cite a growth in fuelwood consumption and particularly a shift to charcoal use in Africa, a trend carrying serious environmental consequences without proper management. In Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park, home to the world famous mountain gorillas, for example, illegal charcoal traders have reportedly stripped forests to fuel a multi-million-dollar (euro) industry. Efforts in Senegal and elsewhere to shift from charcoal to other fuels have not always proved successful.
The fate of Chad’s new campaign remains equally uncertain. The charred carcasses of four minibuses still sit outside the capital Ndjamena, testament to a December order by Chadian authorities to burn vehicles carrying charcoal. Green, or unseasoned wood, is also banned, but seasoned wood is allowed.
But determining what wood is green and what wood is seasoned is problematic. Authorities manning a control post in the village of Chagwa found a simple solution—banning the sale of all fuelwood, an edict that has hard hit charcoal venders.
“We have lost about 60 million CFA francs (10,000 euros, 11.7 million dollars)” in stocks, despaired one merchant, Abderraman Gassra. “We have no more work. No means to live.”
But minister Hissene insists Chadians, particularly those in the capital, must curb their appetite for charcoal.
“1.5 million people live in Ndjamena. All these people are used to eating by consuming a lot of charcoal,” he said.
To soften the crackdown, the government is subsidising bottles of natural gas, which is now up to 50 percent cheaper than charcoal. Still, the poorest residents still cannot afford to switch, government consultant Topinanty Dionadji said.
“They buy smaller amounts ... of charcoal for each meal. They live from day to day. How can they pay the security deposit for a bottle and gas for several days?” she asked.
Nonetheless, the shortage of charcoal and fuelwood has triggered a gas shortage as demand soars for the alternative. Buyers wait in long lines at vending points.
“I sell 400 bottles a day but I could sell 1,000 if I had them,” merchant Mahamat Malik said.
Minister Hissene is confident such problems will be resolved, pointing to a recently signed contract with a Nigerian gas importer.
“We will deal with these problems little by little,” he said. “But the carbon ban is unavoidable. If not, there will be desert.”
source: Agence France-Presse
Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama
Comments
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:20 am
23 Feb 2009
We can call it "BioChar".
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CattailSteve Posted 11:42 pm
23 Feb 2009
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amazingdrx Posted 1:15 am
24 Feb 2009
This situation cries out for waste stream biogas for cooking fuel that backs up solar cooking. When the sun shines cook with the solar, when it's cloudy use biogas from a local or individual biogas system.
People use biogas to substitute for wood and oil based cooking fuel in Coasta Rica, as documented here in Grist a few years back, why not spread that carbon preventing method to Africa and the world?
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:39 am
24 Feb 2009
Let's degrade Lake Chad even further!
http://climateprogress.org/2008/06/20/lake-chad-now-more- ...
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Pangolin Posted 2:36 am
24 Feb 2009
In most of the world the majority of biomass stoves don't do a very good job of efficiently burning fuel. This picture on the BBC website shows a charcoal burner in Chad that is simply a wire basket to place charcoal in. Most of the heat bypasses the cooking pot (tea kettle actually) entirely and provides no benefit. A small rocket stove or kelly kettle would allow these women to heat their water and minimize the risk of burning to themselves and the 10 children they have to care for. There are solar cooker programs in Chad but obviously they aren't universally available.
If the rural people understood the value of biochar in transforming savannah soils they might be able to convert some of that scrub at the edges of the forest to orchard crops. This could help them establish regenerative cropping cycles to replace exploitive use of the landscape. Ultimately, without reducing the fertility rate of women in Chad from 6.25 (wiki) children born to each woman the country is doomed. Exponential population growth will overwhelm the most thrifty use of resources.
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Pangolin Posted 3:11 am
24 Feb 2009
I think that forests are more about rainfall, soils and nutrient retention. Where rainfall is sufficient and water and nutrients are retained in the soils trees flourish. A tree can't grow on wet rock but it can survive dry seasons if it can tap into a freshwater lens in the soil. Biochar dramatically and permanently (in human terms) improves water percolation in soils, particularly clay soils.
I agree with your support of biogas manufacture and utilization where possible. In most of the world we can't get people $20 rocket stoves to replace primitive three-rock fireplaces. How we are supposed to make the jump from fire pits to piped gas is beyond me. Whether that's done with pyrolysis of waste or digestion tanks who pays for it?
Finally, biochar, tilled into the soil is likely a longer lasting solution to poor soils than biogas waste. A soil carbon improvement that lasts millenia trumps one that lasts a dozen years at best. The benefit received for feedstock input is simply higher.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:29 am
24 Feb 2009
Prairie soil proves the sequestration effect of biomass fertilization. It had built year after year, inch by inch to 20 to 30 foot levels before it was plowed.
You need to add biomass and fertlizer to the soil ecosystem to increase it's sequestration levels. Biochar halts them. It burns biomass and fertilizer in it's bacterial colonies feeding on filtered nutrients. It not only does not add biomass to the ecosystem, it helps convert it to GHG. Subtracting biomass sequestration as the study found.
How to police black market charcoal diversion from biochar kilns? How are you going to police biochar offset markets once they start bubbling? I smell more derivative trading.
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Pangolin Posted 5:39 am
24 Feb 2009
Then there's this:
Use of biochar (charcoal) to replenish soil carbon pools, restore soil fertility and sequester CO2
Submission by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
4th Session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the
Convention (AWG-LCA 4), Poznan, 1-10 December 2008
Submission containing ideas and proposals on Paragraph 1 of the Bali Action Plan:
Use of biochar (charcoal) to replenish soil carbon pools, restore soil fertility and sequester CO2
Abstract
The world's soils hold more organic carbon than that held by the atmosphere as CO2 and vegetation, yet the role of the soil in capturing and storing carbon dioxide is often one missing information layer in taking into consideration the importance of the land in mitigating climate change. Extraordinary demands are being placed on agricultural systems to produce food, fiber and energy and yet the inevitable changes in the flow of carbon into or out of soils have significant effect on a global scale. Biomass burning and the removal of crop residues reduce carbon in soil and vegetation, which has implications for soil fertility and the global carbon cycle.
The land has an unparalleled capacity to hold carbon and to act as a sink for green house gases making it imperative to focus on activities that enhances rehabilitation, protection and sustainable management of degraded lands. Conventional means to increase soil carbon stocks depend on climate, soil type and site specific management. Over the years, most efforts to manage greenhouse gases have involved planting trees, since the amount of carbon that can be sequestered in this way is substantial. However, the drawback of conventional carbon enrichment is that this carbon-sink option is of limited duration. The associated humus enrichment follows a saturation curve, approaching a new equilibrium level after some 50 to 100 years. The new carbon level drops rapidly again as soon as the required careful management is no longer sustained. (continues here)
That looks an awful lot like a presentation of a review paper by official scientists. What evidence do you have again?
As far as on-the-ground application; don't pay farmers to apply biochar. Pay people to plant demonstration plots run pyrolisis kilns on the county level and if they can demonstrate that biochar works in local conditions farmers will adapt it. One time applications of biochar beat the heck out of yearly applications of tons of compost and minerals. The people in the Amazon didn't bury millions of tons of charcoal for giggles. It worked well enough to make the effort of creating biochar with stone tools worthwhile and supported large populations in what is now jungle. If the crop improvements shown in earlier tests are consistent over time farmers will use biochar because it works. There should be no need to pay them.
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Kiara Posted 10:34 am
24 Feb 2009
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amazingdrx Posted 2:11 pm
24 Feb 2009
Imagine if a stove were located on the inside of a mud brick wall with a relective funnel going through to the outside. Then several metal reflectors were arranged outside, adjusted manually from time to time, to reflect solar heat through the funnel onto a black pot on the stove surrounded by a reflective enclosure.
Cooking would commence as the solar energy was available, if the sun clouded over, the gas burner underneath the pot could be engaged.
I think this author should go back and help install one of these sort of hybrid stove systems and report on it. Oh Ana where are you? Hehey.
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