YOUR BUSINESS IS OUR BUSINESS: Ever heard of ‘sustainable’ charcoal production?

The charcoal business in Tanzania is in shambles today. Charcoal production and use leave the Environment as ordained by Mother Nature and Father Time in a state of great disorder at best – and of great destruction at worst.

Natural forest trees are wantonly felled in pursuance of day-to-day human activities that include – but are NOT limited to – the production of charcoal and firewood as fuel; for construction works (logs, timber, etc) and crops production...

Lexicographers say charcoal is ‘the dark or black porous carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances... as from wood, by charring same in a kiln from which air is excluded’ – indeed including make-shift open-air ‘kilns’ that are crudely cobbled together by small-scale/artisanal charcoal burners in much of Africa!

From the foregoing, it becomes obvious that Man (and ‘Woman,’ to be politically-correct!) doesn’t have to wantonly fell trees to produce charcoal – especially for commercial purposes! What with the passage of time, sectoral players in different parts of Planet Earth make charcoal in briquettes and other forms from waste...

Call it ‘recycling,’ if you must: processing stuff in order to regain from it matter/material for human use! But, the resulting product is charcoal nonetheless; charcoal which meets with all – or most of all – basic quality standards and other requisites in churning out charcoal that’s ‘commercially-viable’ in the business! The 64,000-US$ question then arises: must the World cease and desist from continuing to produce charcoal from wood – and, especially: from wood in natural forests? This is a crucial question which must be answered if the fears and dire warnings of/by Activists-in-Nature are to be effectively allayed!

Data show that 80 per cent of people in Africa rely on wood-charcoal for domestic use – mostly in cooking and heating. What’s perhaps worse? 90 per cent of Tanzanians perforce turn to wood-charcoal as their first choice of cooking and heating fuel – thus depleting 372,816ha of mostly natiural forests annually! [See Joyce Kulangwa: ‘Je, tunaweza kuachana na matumizi ya mkaa?’ MWANANCHI: May 25, 2017]. Citing data from the Tanzania Govt. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and other equally-reliable sources, the Director of the Tanzania Forestry Conservation Group (TFCG), Charles Meshack, attributes the inordinate use of wood-charcoal in Tanzania – and most other Third World/Least Developed Countries – to abject poverty that’s permeated Society through and through!

Indeed, Tanzania does have on its ‘Energy Menu’ alternative fuel sources, including electricity, kerosene and ‘natural’ gas – NOT forgeting non-wood charcoal from recycling, etc. However, such alternative sources are either overly-expensive for ordinary Tanzanian households; aren’t readily accessible – or the households acutely suffer from both impediments in what seems to be an endless vicious circle! In the event, Meshack discounts blame on wood charcoal-related deforestation being heaped upon Tanzanians who’ve no viable alternative to domestic fuel beyond common-garden charcoal (and firewood!) However, all isn’t (quite) lost – as is being timely demonstrated via a novel/ingenious TFCG ‘Sustainable Charcoal Project’ initiated in the Ulaya-Mbuyuni Village in Kilosa District, Morogoro Region in Year-2012!

According to the Project Manager, Leonard Meshack, success of the Project lies in carving up the 3,540-hectare village forest into plots from which trees for human uses are strictly felled in turns.

Harvesting is done scientifically, leaving tree-stumps in place to bloom again from their already-proven roots! It takes 24 years for a harvested patch to (re)mature, ready for new harvesting, Meshack says – revealing that such ‘scientific, organised’ harvesting beats planting new trees hands-down! While only about 1,000-out-of-a-million newly-planted trees survive to maturity, almost all the Project’s scientifically-harvested trees prosper, ready for another harvest within 24-years!

It’s all a question of proper, diligent planning, really. Parliamentarians, Activists and other wellwishers advocate extending the programme countrywide.Rhetorically banning wood-charcoal production/use will never work in severely-impoverished Tanzania! Up, up and UP with the ‘TFCG project.