Charcoal

My desire is to make the charcoal industry in Zambia sustainable and economically sound. With the hope that other methods of cooking and heating take the pressure off the overused forests of Zambia. Here are some of the main points in the concept that are addressed:

Set up community forests across Zambia to implement the programme
Determine the demand of charcoal across Zambia by updating data on the industry
Implement a well-organized business plan
Educate the population of Zambia on the importance of the charcoal industry
Identify the major areas of supply, past and present
Expose and find a solution to the illegal trade in the exportation of charcoal
Set industry standards and prices that would be uniform all across Zambia
Issue charcoal manufacturing licences through newly formed Community forests and to other land owning stakeholders
Collect levees and royalties on charcoal at community level and introduce bar-coding to finished products that will be for sale
Standardizing the size of packaging with new charcoal bags from 5 to 20 kgs.
Meet world and country environmental goals set for the charcoal industry
Work with the Department of Forests and other government agencies on related issues
Establish centrally located briquetting making facilities
Set sustainable allowable cuts of timber for charcoal in all community forests
This concept needs to be launched as an Agency of the Government of Zambia

After reading the concept I would be happy to sit with you and explain it in more detail. It has the potential of producing many jobs directly and from contractors implementing a huge public relations campaign.

PROPOSED PROJECT BACKGROUND

The conditions of the forests in Zambia and the problems surrounding the charcoal sector are very well known. Therefore, it is not necessary to re-produce the facts and figures on the state of the industry at this time. This concept paper describes the way forward, turning charcoal burning into a sustainable industry providing jobs and revenues while addressing environmental issues at the same time. With this programme a stable profitable industry will evolve, creating an economy that will affect the lives of the average Zambian from the rural charcoal manufacturers to the urban end-user of the products. Making the industry sustainable will help preserve the natural environment of Zambia which is being decimated at an alarming rate. Determining the total use of charcoal used per year and setting an allowable cut in each newly formed community forest will stop the increasing deforestation rate. A suggested scale of replanting would be 100 trees planted for every tree cut for charcoal or other fuelwood. Creating tree plantations, of both indigenous and naturalized trees, that can be used for charcoal manufacturing is a positive move forward. Improved charcoal manufacturing methods include building efficient permanent and portable kilns and utilizing the waste created by antiquated manufacturing of charcoal. And by manufacturing briquettes at a central location or locations and selling it locally and for export. The illegal trade in charcoal is a large problem facing the industry and involves not only domestic trade but stretches across borders to adjacent countries. This programme will introduce a system of bar-coding the new packaging by introducing bags designed specifically for the use of charcoal and briquettes and set a regulated price on charcoal and briquettes. This system of control will provide the Government of Zambia with revenue from stumpage fees collected at the community level and also up-to-date data on the state of the industry. Charcoal and recovered fines from charcoal manufacturing will be collected at community depots and shipped to locations close to the largest markets for charcoal (Lusaka, Livingstone, Kitwe, etc.). At these central locations the fine particles of charcoal will be manufactured into briquettes and sold alongside charcoal to marketers in the larger markets. Overruns of briquettes will then be offered for export to neighboring countries and to outlets like Game, Shoprite and Spar. This solution is needed quickly and can be integrated into the already existing industry. Once it is on the ground it will spread to every corner of Zambia as everyone will want to use only sustainably made charcoal and briquettes.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

To create a programme that will create a sustainable charcoal industry in Zambia. This will be done by the following:

Set up as many community forests as possible to implement the programme
Determine the demand of charcoal across Zambia by updating data on the industry
Implement a well-organized business plan
Educate the population of Zambia on the importance of the charcoal industry
Identify the major areas of supply both past and present
Expose and find a solution to the illegal trade in the exportation of charcoal
Set industry standards and prices that would be uniform all across Zambia
Issue charcoal manufacturing licences through the newly formed community forests
Collect levees and royalties on charcoal at community level
Introduce bar-coding of product for data collection and eliminating illegal charcoal
Standardizing the size of charcoal packaging with new environmentally friendly charcoal bags
Meet world and country environmental goals set for a new charcoal industry
Work with the Department of Forests and other government agencies on related issues
Establish centrally located facilities to manufacture briquettes
Export charcoal briquettes to neighbouring countries where possible
Set sustainable allowable cuts of timber for charcoal in all community forests

INPUTS

Provide environmental and programme education to all stakeholders
Provide funding for the programme
Educate the general population of Zambia on the charcoal industry
Providing new laws and regulations for the industry
Create community forests to encompass ever tree (urban and rural)
Train forest guards, tree nursery workers and charcoal and briquette industry workers
Set up offices and tree nurseries across all of Zambia
Provide data to the Government of Zambia for internal use
Implement improved production methods of product
Supply seeds, material and education for setting up community tree plantations
Standardizing environmentally safe packaging for all products
Establish charcoal collection depots in community forests across Zambia
Provide safe and legal transport for all fuelwood products
Build central facilities to supply packaged briquettes to wholesalers and end-users
Maintain warehousing for all fuelwood products across Zambia
Establish a marketing network for all fuelwood products

OUTPUTS

Produce an up to date data bank on the state of the charcoal industry
Creating community forests will be giving the forest back to the communities
Educating all stakeholders and the general public on environmental issues
Creates a stable sustainable flow of charcoal and briquettes to the consumer
Create plantations of trees, both indigenous and naturalized for charcoal manufacturing
Halting environmental degradation caused by the charcoal industry
Stopping the illegal export of charcoal to neighboring countries
Operate a safer, legal transportation system for product delivery
Maintain charcoal collection depots in every community forest
Build briquetting facilities to process the charcoal fines for domestic and export
Employment in the manufacturing and sale of briquettes
A central warehouse system for distributing charcoal and briquettes in population centers
A uniform marketing system suited to the consumer
Employment for forest guards, tree nursery workers and other related jobs

ACTIVITIES

Conduct and create a data baseline for the charcoal industry from the manufacturing to the final consumer which includes the whole country. This will enable the programme to regulate an allowable cut for each community forest
Sensitize all the stakeholders on the need for this programme. This is important at community forest level from teaching the charcoal makers to teaching the whole community that the forest is not up for grabs.
Create and conduct a public awareness campaign on the charcoal programme
Work with the Forestry Department and other Government Agencies to implement the programme
Select central areas where the programme will be used as a template
Introduce a well-marked, durable bag designed for charcoal use
Purchase charcoal and fines from the participating community forests
Collect and submit all taxes, levees and royalties to appropriate agencies
Ship and store charcoal and briquettes at central warehouses close to consumers
Produce briquettes for export and domestic use
Distribute legal charcoal to legitimate charcoal dealers both wholesale and end users
Continue the expansion until all of Zambia is involved
Work with inventors of new briquetting methods using alternative fuel sources found in and around the community and offer a marketing outlet for their product

GOALS

The socio-economic impacts of the proposed project will have a positive effect on forestry, which with agriculture is the main source of income for local communities in the five projected areas. However, due to severe deforestation charcoal production has been negatively impacted so it must be reintroduced as a sustainable commodity. In order to maximize the community benefits of the project, a participatory approach, involving: community development specialists, sociologists, legal and economic experts will be implemented. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods will be adopted in interviewing and consulting with charcoal makers and households in the project areas to understand the local community’s preferences, wishes, and concerns so that the proposed community forests can reflect on their desires for sustainable livelihood development. Communities will have a significant impact on the contractual agreements they enter into to create Community Forests. Local youth employed as forest guards will participate in the reforestation activities such as site preparation, planting, weeding, pruning, thinning, harvesting, coppicing, fire control, and security of their forest.

The main socio-economic benefits of the project include:

Income generation: All the communities will benefit either directly or indirectly from the programme. The revenue from the sale of charcoal and briquettes will be used to help meet the costs of project management, operations, maintenance and building the capacity of the local community. The programme will increase the availability of wood resources in the community forest with the establishment of plantations of indigenous trees as well as fast-growing naturalized species such as Eucalyptus, Pine, Leucaena, and Jatropha. Also the improved productivity of the existing natural non-timber products like bee keeping, mushrooms and eatable fruits and insects
Benefit sharing: The programme will reinvest the revenue from the project into community development such as water, both for domestic use and irrigation, dams, schools, infrastructure (roads and bridges), health facilities and the maintenance of this infrastructure.
Creating employment: The proposed community forests will produce many days of permanent and temporary employment in planting, weeding, and harvesting activities as well as forest guards, nursery people. Most employment opportunities will be given to local communities involved in each proposed community forest. These newly created jobs will contribute to government payroll deductions and conform to safety and labour laws of Zambia. The manufacturing of charcoal briquettes will also create new jobs at a centrally located site or sites. The increase in employment and legal paying jobs will benefit the government on the international stage.
Sustainable fuelwood supply: Local communities depending on fuelwood for cooking and heating will benefit from the proposed community forest system; especially the fast growing naturalized species, which will provide a more sustainable fuel source. A sustainable supply of fuelwood is very important to breweries, brick makers and tobacco drying.
Introduction of energy efficient stoves: All avenues will be taken on finding and distributing better fuel efficient stoves to all stakeholders including institutions and breweries.
Technical capacity building: The community forests sustainable charcoal industry ran by the programme is a useful and cost effective means of re-establishing vegetation in over cut forests. The programme will serve as a demonstration for creating sustainable forests from existing natural vegetation to meet communities own wood use needs. Also improving technics to reduce waste and introduce better methods of utilization of the forest. At the time of conception of the programme the community can also become aware of better timber harvesting methods, and the value in non-timber forest products like honey, mushrooms, insects and wild fruits.
Community ownership: The ability for this programme to be replicated throughout the whole of Zambia is very important and this will influence the legal structure of land ownership. The concept of community forestry giving forest user rights is not new to Zambians; however examples of successful implementation are limited. This new programme will serve as a model to other newly formed community forests on the inception of appropriate legal mechanisms which benefit both the community and the environment. Communities will sell the charcoal and fine particles used in briquette making to the programme, as it is delivered to the depot, ran by the programme. This will eliminate poor business practices and create legitimate employment.
Women: The women of the community will be encouraged to take the forefront in this activity. They will be represented on all committees and special efforts will be made to promote sustainable livelihoods for vulnerable women from these newly created community forests.

Potential socio-economic risks and countermeasures:

Cultural resources: Any cultural relics and/or cultural reserves that are identified in the project area will be preserved thus no damage to non-replicable cultural property will occur under the proposed community forests or project activities. The project does not involve any sites for local social gatherings or spiritual activities, thus the project activities will not impact the normal local gatherings and religious activities. The protection and re-establishment of natural forests will have widespread support from all stakeholders and will not conflict with any significant cultural practices or sites.
Economic risk: The only significant economic risk will be the inability of the project to realize its full potential and loss of potential income to the community from the programme and the failure to realize the projected goals. This risk will be mitigated through technical assistance and training to communities, sound project management and capacity building activities provided by experts. Coordination with local forestry agencies, forestry research and design institutions, as well as by the extension network of the forestry sector will assist in realizing the full potential of the project as sustainable natural resources management, climate mitigation and as a community development project.
Impacts outside the project boundary: If any negative socio-economic impacts outside the project boundary are identified as a result of this project a social mitigation monitoring plan should avail to identify negative socio-economic impacts to ensure that if problems do arise they can be dealt with by the participating communities, participating organizations and the Ministry of Green Economics and Environment.
Negative impact: If any negative impact is considered significant by the project participants, a socio-economic impact assessment will be conducted and the findings addressed with supporting documentation.
Planned monitoring: Descriptions of planned monitoring and remedial measures to address significant impacts will be submitted the first year and each year hereafter.
Stakeholder’s issues: A further important commitment will take the initiative to involve negatively impacted minorities in the safety net program; responding to the comments and conclusions from the stakeholder consultations, a Social Mitigation Action Plan should be prepared.

The main objective of the Social Mitigation Action Plan is to:

Ensure that the project fully benefits the local communities and is culturally appropriate and acceptable to the participating communities and other concerned stakeholders.
Undertake adequate consultations with the communities living inside the community forests in order to ensure that the project is undertaken with their full consent and active participation.
Identify and carry out full consultations with all members of the community that would be disproportionately affected by restricted access to gathering and selling fuelwood from within the community forest.
Create appropriate mechanisms to avoid, minimize or mitigate the potential adverse impacts on the vulnerable members of the communities as a result of restricted access to the community forest.
Ensure that the members of the community that are affected by restricted access to the natural resources in the community forest will define and propose activities as mitigation measures.

DURATION

The programme should start immediately and once in place should continue until at a time when alternative solutions are found to replace fuelwood as a source of fuel for cooking and heating. After each community forests have been formed they must submit a total gross figure of what charcoal and firewood they have used in the past year. This includes what has been sold as well as the amount domestically used. This amount will become their allowable cut, which will never increase except when harvesting of fuelwood in a sustainable operational plantation, specifically grown for fuelwood.

BENEFICIARIES

It is very safe to say that the whole of the population of Zambia will benefit as well as the natural and social environments of the country, but here are a few major beneficiaries:

Individuals already working in the charcoal industry
New employees needed in reforestation and manufacturing and selling briquettes
Families and spouses of those already involved in the charcoal industry
The spinoff of business onto town and village merchants
Traditional Leaders (royalties)
Government of Zambia in taxes and levies also in public relations
International recognition of meeting environmental goals
Trucking industry
Charcoal and briquette marketers in high consumption areas
The urban consumer of charcoal
The natural and social environments and co-existing species

IMPACTS

By creating community forests the community will soon realize the benefits of looking after their natural resources and the environment. The approach will be to practice ‘social forestry’ and good economics. Social forestry is the providing of clean, safe drinking water, basic health, and education as well as community well-being. This explains the positive impact of creating a productive community forests in Zambia. Providing the community with better methods of harvesting, packaging, transport and marketing will show immediately on the industries bottom line. Individuals and communities will see employment increased, thus creating a boost to the community’s economy. Profits on each bag of charcoal produced by the communities will provide funds to maintain reforestation programmes, community water supplies, community schools, clinics and infrastructure. Traditional Leaders will receive royalties and be encouraged to have a social conscience. The Government of Zambia will receive taxes on income generated to assist and contribute to the implementation of a rigorous reforestation programme across Zambia as well as contributing to the national revenue of Zambia.

PROGRAMME MANAGEMENT

Staff for this programme will be selected for their experience, innovational skills and will be Zambian nationals. The programme will be an equal opportunity employer. The writer of this concept paper brings to the table over 50 years forestry and community development experience.

MONITORING and EVALUATION

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) will be critical for dealing with activities, resources, monitoring progress, performance, and impact of the project. A performance management plan (PMP) should be implemented within 30 days of start-up and will form the basis of M&E efforts. There will be monthly, quarterly and yearly programme monitoring and evaluation reports. The monthly, quarterly, and bi-annual reports will be circulated to key stakeholders on the successes and challenges with regard to the programme and future development. And regular reports submitted to the Minister of Green Economy and Environment.

COSTS

The cost to launch and maintain this programme can be formulated by the Ministry accountants and internal workings. The point must be made that as the charcoal industry already generates revenue the costing will be for programme education, management, equipment, and infrastructure.

CONCLUSION

This concept paper has been written to provide an answer to the growing problem charcoal making has brought on the environments both natural and social of Zambia. Charcoal has and will provide cooking and heating to rural and even suburban households until a revolutionary energy source can be found. Solar and electricity can provide a certain amount of alternative methods of cooking but they fail to compare with the traditional use of both firewood and charcoal. The biggest problem that these two sources of energy have is that no thought has ever been put into making them sustainable. This project can do just that with little change to the industry except that it would be sustainable. Levees to the government and Traditional Leadership are sporadic and mostly unpaid. The real owners of this resource: the elderly of the village, the unborn baby, the community, they too own this resource and get no benefits from it. It is time communities take back their forests and reap the benefit from an industry that can be made sustainable and profitable to the community. Government levees and taxes will be collected at the community level. Workers making the charcoal and working in the community forests on reforestation will be paid for their labour from the sale of the charcoal and briquettes. The charcoal will be collected at community depots and transported to facilities for packaging and distribution to marketers in populated areas. The fine particles of charcoal will be collected from community kiln sites and transported to a centrally located facility for making briquettes. Sustainable charcoal will be tracked and monitored by bar-coding located on each bag. The profits from this lucrative industry will be funneled back into the community.

Garry Brooks