Why TZ must tackle over-reliance on charcoal as source of energy

Dar es Salaam. Environment minister January Makamba says Tanzania must be ready to spare nothing in the resolve to end threats arising from its heavy reliance on charcoal as the prime source of cooking energy.

Mr Makamba said his ministry was keen to confront the problem, with the view of finding a sustainable solution to environmental and economic threats associated with excessive clearance of forests to bake charcoal.

The minister was speaking on Thursday night during a forum that brought together a cross section of interest groups to explore the dangers of charcoal use and suggest solutions to the problems.

The forum was organised under the auspices of Mwananchi Thought Leadership Forum (MTLF), an initiative of the media company to stimulate debate on critical issues of national development. The forum’s objective is to bring together stakeholders to discuss joint solutions to challenges in the respective topics.

Thursday’s forum was the third in planned MTLF series, following those of the burden of None Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and Tanzania’s industrialisation vision.

Addressing participants, Mr Makamba said the government was open to advise and contribution of various players in its endeavour to curb depletion of the country’s forest cover owing to astronomical demand of charcoal for domestic use and export.

According to the minister, the government would centrally coordinate efforts to respond to charcoal-related issues through the Prime Minister’s office for effectiveness. He noted that there are currently different state institutions dealing with the charcoal-use challenges disjointedly.

“In the Ministry of Natural Resources, there is a task force dealing with charcoal issues, in our office we have charcoal issues and there are other institutions with similar tasks. There is a need now to join our hands and coordinate this properly through the prime minister’s office so that we have a similar approach,” said Mr Makamba

“The Prime Minister has actually shown interest to call us players from the sector to see how we can work under one umbrella to address the charcoal problem,” he added.

Proposals such as introducing heavy taxes on charcoal, formalising the charcoal business as well as having a specific policy for the charcoal as measures to discourage its usage were presented at the forum.

Participants also proposed lowering prices of alternative energy and electricity and provide financial incentives that will discourage using charcoal. Mr Makamba said the government would work on the proposals but appreciated that the Tanzania electricity connection was already one of the cheapest.

Mr Makamba also said the use of charcoal would go down drastically if other energy sources like Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) are sold at affordable prices.

Currently, industry data show that 88.2 per cent of households use charcoal as their main source of domestic energy.

“Majority of Tanzania’s households cannot afford the price of alternative sources of energy like gas. I therefore encourage the relevant stakeholders to reduce the price in order to enable Tanzanians to use the energy source,” said Mr Makamba. He said since the production and trading in charcoal was a huge business in the country, it was impossible for the government to strike a ban on the use of charcoal. United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimate that charcoal is a Sh1.6 trillion industry in Tanzania.

“Charcoal business is among potential sources of revenues for local government authorities…I acknowledge that charcoal business employs a large number of Tanzanians but it also has a lot of negative impacts to the environment,” he said.

The chairman of the National Environment Trust Fund (NETF) board of trustees Ali Mufuruki said the fund plans to start providing financial assistance to researches engaging in environmental sciences and also increase number of experts in the field by giving scholarship opportunities.

Mr Mufuruki noted that the Fund, which was established in 2004, faced some operational challenges in the past three years, but efforts to resolve them have yielded and the organization was now operating at full capacity.

“The Fund has seven major objectives including providing funding for research in environmental sciences and conducting capacity building across the country,” he said.

According to him, the Fund will also provide scholarships for students in the environment sciences because there is a shortage of experts in the area.

“The fund will also fund the national environmental advisory council, which comprises of minister and government top officials to discuss the issues concerning environment”. Regarding the charcoal economy, which is the major topic for the forum, Mr Mufuluki challenged business community to always take into consideration the negative impact their businesses had on the environment.

A local entrepreneur Mr Benjamin Lane whose Tractors Company Ltd produces charcoal by using sawdust asked the government to impose more tax on charcoal business in an effort to reduce the cutting down of trees.

He said the current tax rates which are set by Tanzania Forest Services (TFS) were too low to discourage the cutting down of trees.

The call comes at a time when available data show that at least 61 per cent of Tanzania’s land mass is on the brink of becoming a desert, threatening future livelihoods of millions of the country’s livestock keepers and farmers. The situation, largely blamed on human activities associated with energy source needs and irresponsible farming and livestock keeping, has seen Tanzania losing an average of one million acres of forests per year. Mr Lane said if the government imposes more taxes the product would be sold at higher prices thus discouraging buyers.

Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL) managing director Francis Nanai called upon environment stakeholders in Tanzania to come up with recommendations, which will discourage use of charcoal as the main source of energy.

The MCL boss, whose company is the organiser of the event, called for massive investments in alternative energy sources in order to mitigate the effects of the changing climate.

“It is my expectation that today’s forum will enable the stakeholders to come up with solutions to address the harmful human activities that impose negative impact to the environment,” Mr Nanai observed at the opening.