Guidelines needed to sustain woodland over charcoal production

“Adopting this sustainable approach to charcoal consumption will also increase tax revenue for village, district and the central government as well,” detailed Elida Fundi from the Tanzania Community Forest Conservation Network (MJUMITA), an NGO that is spearheading a project dubbed Transforming Tanzania’s charcoal sector project.

She made the statement during her presentation to Members of Parliament recently in Dodoma during a capacity building seminar for the MPs on the opportunities and challenges of the forest sector.

The MJUMITA sustainable charcoal model aims to establish a pro-poor sustainable charcoal value chain that will increase self employment opportunities.
“Tanzania’s woodland can sustain continued harvesting of charcoal if guidelines are followed,” she told the MPs.

By so doing, she said, the project will attract investment for community development and create incentives for the sustainable management of natural woodlands.

Since 2012 MJUMITA and the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG) have assisted eight villages in Kilosa district, Morogoro Region to integrate sustainable charcoal production into the management of their village forest reserve.

“First the villagers agree to a village land use plan that includes a village land forest reserve. The reserve is a few hundred hectors and has some areas of mature woodland in it,” she went.

She said the community prepares the management plan and by-laws for the village forest reserve. Approximately 10 per cent of the village forest reserve is designated for charcoal production the remaining 90 per cent is for protection, beekeeping and in a few cases, selective timber harvesting.

Within the eight pilot villages the maximum area that can be harvested per year is 257 hector ranging from 11-79 hector per village.

“The rotation period in Kilosa is 24 years. This means that an area harvested in the first year will only be harvested again after 23 years. Because the rotation period is 24 years, the charcoal forest management unit is divided into 24 blocks known as coupes.

Each year harvesting takes place in one coupe,” she expounded.
The Kilosa councilor Livinus Mhawila of the beneficiary district said since they adopted the sustainable charcoal project, illegal forest activities have decreased.

“The villagers are also protecting the forest voluntarily, no more illegal charcoal harvesting. We managed to build classrooms, address the issue of desk shortage in as well as connect several houses with solar power...this is the result of the sustainable charcoal project,” he attested.

Contributing during the seminar, the Mkuranga Member of Parliament Abdalah Hamis urged the government to adopt the sustainable charcoal project to help the community enjoy sustainable development and voluntarily protect their forest.

“Stopping the charcoal business without providing alternative solution will not end the problem,” he asserted “...the government should use more knowledge in dealing with charcoal issues instead of using power and then leave the charcoal dealers in poverty...the charcoal dealer cannot stop illegal harvesting of the forest when they do not have another alternative,” he added.

Suleiman Said Ally a Member of Parliament for Kilwa (South) also supported the project and suggested the government works with the NGO to implement the sustainable charcoal harvesting project that will also stop deforestation.

“The illegal charcoal harvesting cannot be ended by fighting issuing punishments, the government should offer good education on how to practice sustainable harvesting,” he said.

The Kilwa MP cautioned the government to approach the matter with utmost caution; “because it is not possible to stop people from harvesting charcoal even if there is another source of energy yet the demand for charcoal is still high.”

“Currently the government loses a lot of money through illegal harvesting; the money can be saved more if it adopts sustainable charcoal harvesting because in this project, villagers agree to protect their own forest.” The MP said.

Also in support of the project was the special Seat MP at Coast Region Zainabu Vullu who said she welcomes its implementation in her district that is endowed with large forests; “but we are not benefiting from them because of rampant illegal harvesting,” she admitted.

Chipping in, Masasi MP said educating the community on sustainable charcoal harvesting will effectively help the villagers protect their forests and that way illegal harvesting will end.

Member of Parliament from Liwale said without involvement of villagers on the best practice of sustainable charcoal harvesting the level of deforestation will increase as a result of continued illegal harvesting.

It is estimated that charcoal and commercial fuel wood generated approximately Sh. 1.6tr in revenue for more than 300,000 producers, transporters and traders in 2012.
96 per cent of household in Tanzania use wood fuel or charcoal for cooking and heating. 91 per cent of household in Dar es Salaam use charcoal for cooking.

Forests are being cleared faster than they can grow back; at present almost all charcoal is produced either illegally in reserves or from forest/woodland on village land for which no sustainable harvesting plan is in place.

Almost all charcoal reaching the market in the country is produced inefficiently and unsustainably because it is done with no management at all and as such, it has become a significant driver of deforestation and forest degradation.
Stakeholders caution that efforts to ban charcoal use will be (and have been) ineffective in the absence of affordable and available alternatives for urban household to cook with.
Whilst tree plantations offer an alternative supply of wood, they are far more expensive to manage than natural woodland and bring their own environmental problems.
Under the project, the charcoal producer joins the village charcoal association and then applies to the Village Natural Resource Community (VNRC) to produce an agreed number of bags.

The producer pays fees to the VNRC per bag of charcoal to be produced and the issues a permit to enter the reserve and produce charcoal.

So far, the project has trained over 500 producers to produce charcoal using the improved basic earth kilns and the trainees have gone on to produce and sell over 1270 tonnes of legal sustainable charcoal and earned income in excess of USD75,462 from the sale of charcoal

The eight participating villages earned cumulative revenue of USD99, 963 between October 2013 and December 2014.Decision as to how the revenue is spent is made at the village assembly meeting.

Charcoal’s bad image is justified given the uncontrolled production, there is need to shift the sector toward sustainability and to urgently stop illegal production.

At present, many districts issue permits in the absence of a sustainable management plan and without monitoring the producer’s compliance of the permit requirements.

Transforming Tanzanian’s charcoal sector is possible if the political is there and if not, then Tanzania locks itself into a downward spiral of deforestation, environmental degradation and rural poverty.

The project was funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation through to August 2015 covering 10 regions of Kilosa.

The project also works closely with the Ministry of Energy and Minerals and Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resource. The project is expected to be linked with ongoing REDD (Reducing greenhouse gas Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries) initiatives.