SUSTAINABLE FUELWOOD IN ZAMBIA

We all know that charcoal and firewood are consumed daily across Zambia to cook meals, and heat water for baths and in the cold season to keep warm. It is taken for granted where it comes from, just out there in the forest. At the rate the forest is being decimated in Zambia it is just a matter of time before there will be no forests left. So what is going to boil water for making nshima or for baths? Yes, there are alternative methods to take the place of fuelwoods but in the meantime let us move forward with better methods to make fuelwood sustainable. This will be with kilns that are 100 percent efficient and planting trees that produce good charcoal. We also cannot forget firewood; many housewives spend hours a month cruising through the local forest collecting firewood. Fuelwood is as vital as meale-meal to a rural Zambian household. Even in urban communities’ charcoal is a major commodity that most households cannot live without. Briquettes are the next step in convenience, nicely packaged, and yes…..sustainable.

My name is Garry Brooks, and I am a Canadian. But I do have a Zambian registration card 996113/11/2 showing I do have a second home, in Zambia. I have been working with rural communities across Zambia since 2002. My background has been in the forestry and environmental sectors since 1963 and I am a member of The Canadian Institute of Forestry. The people I have met and many I have become very good friends with, ranging from the people struggling to survive in rural areas, to chiefs and Presidents. My experiences have ranged from being chased by angry snakes, attending weddings, too many funerals, surviving car and motorbike accidents, being robbed, paying bribes, talking at many schools and gatherings across Zambia, and the list goes on. My achievements are rebuilding cattle dips, digging, and repairing wells, solar water systems, mobility aides to the handicapped, a girl’s dormitory at an isolated school, classrooms, a bridge, distributing packaged seeds in the millions, setting up tree nurseries and many more to remember.   A great satisfaction was to compile and publish a book on Zambian trees, Mr. Garry’s Collection of Zambian Trees.  And have donated over 1,000 copies to learning institutes from basic schools to the University of Zambia’s library, also almost 10,000 soft copies have been given online for free. Now comes the crown jewel, making the charcoal industry sustainable. Thanks go to the many people who have supported this idea over the years and now to Cabinet Minister Mutati of the Ministry of Technology and Science who has taken up the cause, and to the President and his staff who have endorsed the idea.

My concept for managing the charcoal industry has been in the works for over 10 years now and it is time for it to happen. Over the years of observing the industry and interviewing participants from the charcoal burners in the forest to the many users of the finished product, I realized that the industry can be greatly improved. Not just in the way charcoal is made, but that it was not a sustainable industry. The idea grew to include not only charcoal but also firewood and charcoal briquettes. Thus, the name Sustainable Fuelwood Agency (SFA). Why call it an agency, you may ask? It has some parallels to the Food Reserve Agency. The most important one is the setting of the price for fuelwood across Zambia just like maize and adding an environmental tax to help cover the cost of replacing the trees that are harvested for fuelwood. The fuelwood will be produced by community forests that will be regulated on how much fuelwood they produce each year. The fuelwood will be purchased from the community forests by the SFA once it is delivered to the agency’s depots. Monitoring the paid funds will ensure that the workers are paid as well as all fees and taxes owing. Once the fuelwood and charcoal fines are purchased, they will be taken to an SFA facility where they will be packaged and sent to market in urban areas. The charcoal fines will be sent to the briquette-making facility where the product will be stored and sold on the open market or exported. The Sustainable Fuelwood Act will need to be passed in the Zambian Parliament and the Sustainable Fuelwood Agency will be governed by a Board of Directors.

Every community forest in the programme will need to collect as many mature seeds as possible so they have an ongoing seed bank. It is important to keep the tree nursery growing trees both indigenous and exotic to meet the replanting quotas for the community forest’s sustainability. Workers will need to identify good mother trees throughout the community forest and monitor the proper times to harvest the seeds. These collected seeds must be kept in a cool secure location that is free of rodents, insects, and disease. The name of the species and the date of harvest should be clearly marked on the container. Adding a number to identify the mother tree would add to good recordkeeping. Don’t keep surplus seeds past their viability date (good to plant). A community forest seed exchange will be available and managed by the Agency. This is where community forests can exchange their surplus seeds with other community forests for their surplus seeds. We need to make sure every community forest has enough seeds to meet their reforestation goals. From time to time the Agency will introduce new fuelwood species that the community forests can test.

Barcoding is a magnificent way of keeping records of merchandise, especially in the fuelwood industry of Zambia. It is the system that you see at all the big stores in the urban areas of Zambia.  A simple block of bars and numbers on a cardboard tag when read by a scanner can tell you where and when the fuelwood was harvested, and if the taxes and fees have been paid. Each on-site reader will record the history of the package of fuelwood and when downloaded into the agency’s computer it will be compiled into records and sent to the various government departments to monitor community forests allowable cuts to prevent overcutting. Only fuelwood with this barcode displayed will be allowed to be transported from the community forest depot to the Agency’s facilities where it will be packaged in various size bags or made into briquettes destined for sale or export.  Each package of fuelwood will display a barcode containing its history and point of sale.

This is how it’s going to work!

1. All fuelwood harvesting areas across Zambia will be organized into community forests
2. An allowable cut of trees for fuelwood will be determined from past production
3. The community will hire charcoal cutters from the area to produce charcoal
4. The charcoal will be produced in efficient kilns both permanent and portable
5. The charcoal and charcoal fines will be delivered to a depot and the community paid
6. Data will be collected through bar-coding of packaged fuelwood for efficient record-keeping
7. All taxes, fees and wages will be paid from this income
8. Local fuelwood users will purchase the product directly from the community forest
9. The remaining charcoal will be packaged and shipped to urban markets
10.  The fine material will be made into briquettes and sold locally and exported
11. The community forest will operate tree nurseries to replace trees that have been harvested
12. Development will be ongoing to find better ways to produce heat for cooking and heating water

Please feel free to email me at africancommunityproject@gmail.com and ask questions about the programme.

Part of my mandate is to turn the charcoal industry around and make it sustainable. This can only be done by fact-finding and one of the first questions asked, “is the charcoal industry wasteful?” Are too many trees being cut down with no benefit to the natural environment or to the community? Over the years, I have heard the accusation that as much as 40 percent of all charcoal kilns fail. This is to say that after the kiln is fired, the charcoal maker loses control of the kiln and the kiln just becomes a big fire. With the waste of valuable timber and the loss of wages to the community. After a kiln has completed its purpose and has cooled, a rush is on to get the sellable charcoal to market. This usually results in the loss of perfectly good products being contaminated with the soil that was used to cover the pile of logs during the firing of the kiln. This valuable product is in the form of charcoal dust and smaller pieces of charcoal. We will deal the solution to this problem with, we will introduce better kilns to reduce waste from uncontrolled kiln fires burning up good saleable products and from contamination of charcoal by the collapse of the earth-made kiln. And secondly, the charcoal dust and small pieces of charcoal will be bagged and sold by the community to the Agency for making briquettes.

By creating community forests across Zambia there will be a big need to provide nursery stock for reforestation. This restocking is part of the agreement with the Agency to replant 100 saplings for every tree cut for fuelwood. All in accordance with the community forests allowable cut set out at the beginning of this programme. This will mean that the community forest will need to establish tree nurseries to meet this requirement. The nurseries should be located where there is enough water available during the dry season and easy access for transporting the trees for planting-out and soil delivery. The nursery workers will be trained in all aspects of tending to the daily chores of the nursery. They will be paid a fair wage and be able to exchange their labour for fuelwood produced by the community forest. There will be a nursery manager who will be responsible for producing the quota of trees and organizing seed collection and other materials. The community forest committee can also work with schools and set up tree nurseries at the schools and teach environmental education. The tree nurseries can also produce fruit and nut trees, boulevard trees, as well as commercial species for future income to the community.

Zambia forest lands need a quick makeover to survive! If the forests fail to survive the Zambian rural lifestyle will not be far behind. Your forest lands are shrinking as families venture out into the art of farming. The first thing to go is the trees, which most of the time are cut down and just burnt. This is not the only thing that is decimating the forests of Zambia. Thousands of cubic meters of timber are cut each day for fuelwood both for human use and for supplying fuelwood markets in urban areas. The continuing cutting of fuelwood by breweries, brick makers, tobacco growers, institutions, stakes for gardens, building timbers and the list goes on. And don’t forget the commercial cutting of trees for timber. So how much is replaced through reforestation? Very little is given back. The forest is doing its best to rejuvenate itself but is falling behind quickly. This is where community forests come into the picture. Forests must be managed. And who better to that is the community that is relying on the forest for a good part of their existence.  What about potential livelihoods? Incomes! A society that realizes the need to give back to the natural environment.  A society that contributes to the future of the rural lifestyle of rural Zambia. Start the ball rolling, talk to your family, your friends, and other stakeholders, and most importantly talk to yourself!

Yes…. it can be done! We can do it together!

Send me a message at: africancommunityproject@gmail.com  if you have questions or want to start a community forest.

There is so much to understand about how this programme is going to be run. The days of just taking an axe and randomly cutting trees are over in Zambia. There is no blame here, just a solution to a big problem that is only going to get worse if something is not done soon. This programme is here to set the community up as a business run by the community through an elected committee. A name will be chosen by the members for this community forest that will be controlled by the community and regulated through the Forestry Act of Zambia. It will be given an allowable cut of trees for the fuelwood harvested by the Agency. This will include firewood and charcoal used by the community and fuelwood offered for sale to non-members of the community. The remainder will be taken to a nearby depot and sold to the Agency for public sales in urban areas. Workers harvesting the fuelwood will receive a wage for their labour. They will also receive an employee discount on the fuelwood they personally use. This arrangement will be the same for workers in the reforestation and other sectors. Full benefits will be in place for each worker employed by the community forest. The community forest will also provide fuelwood to the less fortunate in the area through a social welfare scheme paying up to 100 percent of their fuel costs. If you have any questions, please send an email to:  africancommunityproject@gmail.com