Fuelwood Use Research Articles

Identifying local actors of deforestation and forest degradation in the Kalasha valleys of Pakistan

Prevention of forest loss is a high priority in Pakistan, where catastrophic flooding in 1992 and 2010 has been linked to deforestation. Under the United Nation's REDD+ program, new incentive schemes are developed to encourage forest protection and reforestation, while implementing social safeguards for forest-dependent indigenous groups. The objective of this study is to support Pakistan's REDD+ readiness activities that affect the Kalasha, a unique indigenous people that are nominated for enhanced protection of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. We aim to identify actors and power structures that have caused deforestation in the past, and recommend policy improvements that protect forests as well as the Kalasha's culture and traditional livelihoods. A remote-sensing based historical analysis showed that government actors have significant power to influence land use practices in the region, although their policy instruments may not have had the intended effects. A logging ban in 1993 could not stop forest loss and instead caused a shift to illegal selective cutting of the same magnitude. Near human habitation, forest loss actually increased after the ban. In household surveys, self-reported clearing of forests conformed to remote sensing data, and fuel wood use was identified as the primary pressure on forest resources. Results from expert interviews, however, revealed contradictory perceptions regarding the actors responsible for forest loss. Both local residents and government officials hold the other side as primarily responsible, while rationalizing their own contribution. We recommend policy changes towards more balanced power structure in joint forest management committees. In addition, alternative heating methods would remove the currently largest pressure on forest extraction for fuelwood. Since fuelwood production for regional consumption constitutes one of the largest sources of income for the poorest households, REDD-based compensation schemes would have to support the most affected households of the indigenous Kalasha.

Determinants of willingness-to-pay for attributes of power outage - An empirical discrete choice experiment addressing implications for fuel switching in developing countries

In many developing countries, there is a desire to switch from traditional fuel to renewable energy. However, the supply of renewable energy is often characterized by a severe lack of reliability. This paper seeks to answer if, and to what extent, power outages inhibit switching from fuelwood to hydropower based electricity supply, and factors that determine households' willingness to pay to reduce power outages using a unique combination of mixed logit and seemingly unrelated regression models. We find that frequency, duration, timing of power outages and advance notice are important characteristics determining whether households switch to electricity. The less reliable the electricity supply is the less likely households are to switch to it. Therefore, unreliability in electricity supply maintains the current use of fuelwood, resulting in continued environmental and health problems. Hence, policymakers should work to improve reliability to speed up the desired fuel switching process.

Fuelwood use patterns in Rural Mexico: a critique to the conventional energy transition model

This article presents an historical account of patterns of household fuelwood use in Mexico from 1960 until the present. The results of scenarios outlining the likely evolution of future fuelwood use according to different socio-demographic and technological variables are offered up to 2030 along with the expected environmental impacts. Mexico is an interesting case as it went from importing oil to becoming an oilexporting country during the historical period under analysis and the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) intensified in the residential sector. However, rather than exhibiting a sharp decline in fuelwood use, as would be expected from the energy transition model, we observe that fuelwood use has remained almost constant for more than 40 years. In fact, rather than completely switching to LPG, a large portion of rural and small-town households adopted a fuel-stacking strategy, combining both fuels on a long-term basis. We conclude by examining the implications of the current patterns of fuelwood use and fuel-stacking in terms of future fuelwood consumption, numbers of users and emissions of greenhouse gases.

Detecting Human Presence and Influence on Neotropical Forests with Remote Sensing

The Amazon, and Neotropical forests, are one of the most important global biomes because of their extent and unique biodiversity, as well as their importance to global climate and as a habitat and resource for humans. Unravelling the influence of human presence on these forests is fundamental to our understanding of the biodiversity, ecosystem function, and service-providing potential. Human presence in these tropical rainforests dates back 13,000 years, and the impacts of this presence are hotly debated. Some authors suggest persistent effects of pre-Columbian plant domestication on current Amazonian forest composition. Other authors suggest that post-Columbian influence on forest composition is orders of magnitude higher than that of pre-Columbian times. Evidence from remote sensing has become increasingly useful as a way to help settle these debates. Here we review past, current, and future uses of remote sensing technology to detect human infrastructure in the Amazon and other Neotropical forests over the several historical periods of human presence, from archaeological to post-modern societies. We define human presence in terms of activities that left behind a footprint, such as settlements, earth-mounds, roads, use of timber and fuelwood, agriculture, soil, etc. Lastly, we discuss opportunities and challenges for the use of remote sensing to provide data and information necessary to expand our understanding of the history of human occupation in the Neotropical forests, and how this human occupation might affect biodiversity. There have been many recent applications of remote sensing to the detection of Pre-Columbian human infrastructure, from visual inspection of aerial photographs over deforested sites to uses of LiDAR on airborne and UAV platforms to detect infrastructure and smaller settlements under the canopy. Similar efforts are yet to be conducted for the Post-Columbian period, especially during the colonization and imperialism periods. Finally, our knowledge of human impacts in the modern era (20th and 21st centuries) is not-surprisingly more extensive. Remote sensing is still under-used and extremely useful for this type of application, and new missions might provide solutions that were unavailable before. Yet systematic ground surveys are irreplaceable, and detection accuracies of human presence from the combination of remote sensing and ground surveys need to be improved. It is vital therefore to understand how Neotropical forest biodiversity has developed in the presence of people in the past, the implications of this for predicting future directions of change in the Amazon and elsewhere.

The burning issue of dung in archaeobotanical samples: a case-study integrating macro-botanical remains, dung spherulites, and phytoliths to assess sample origin and fuel use at Tell Zeidan, Syria

Since Naomi Miller’s first discussion of dung fuel within macro-botanical samples from Malyan, Iran, considerations of dung fuel across Southwest Asia have become commonplace, yet archaeobotanists remain divided on: (1) the extent to which dung fuel contributed to archaeobotanical assemblages relative to remnants of repeated crop processing and household activities; and (2) the plant-based, middle-range theories that should be used to infer the presence of dung within macro-botanical assemblages. Here we present a case-study integrating a simple, well-established geo-archaeological approach to assess the presence and relative abundance of dung spherulites within paired sediment and flotation samples from Ubaid period Tell Zeidan, Syria (5300–5100 bc). Spherulite data generated from “sediment smears” are integrated with macro-botanical and phytolith data to assess elevated concentrations of dung within samples. Our analyses demonstrate that plant-based depositional processes across a site are complex, reflecting the rich nature of plant use in antiquity. By using a multi-proxy approach, it is possible to differentiate between predominantly fuel-based deposits and those resulting from predominantly crop-processing processes with greater resolution. This study documents the use of wood fuels in hearths and dung fuel within pyrotechnic features and an oven during the Ubaid period, thereby contributing to discussions of fuel selection and the Secondary Products Revolution. When spherulites are preserved within sediment in abundance, they are also present in floated material, so it is possible to use this approach to consider the presence of dung within archived macro-botanical samples and resolve decade-old debates.

Tree Species Preferred for Wood Fuel in Brick Making in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania

This study aimed at identifying the tree species commonly used in brick making in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania and proposing means for generation of modified energy sources that would cover the full value of forest resource production and consumption. The research approach was two-folds using; Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and quantitative measurements. Results revealed that almost all brick makers in the area used fuelwood as the major energy sources. Nine (9) tree species were used in brick making, namely; Mkarati (Burkea africana), Mlama (Combretum molle), Mbiriti (Senna siamea), Muarobaini (Azadirachta indica) and Mwembe (Mangifera indica). Others were Mkaratusi (Eucalyptus spp), Mchongoma (Pithecellobium dulce) Mjohoro (Senna spectabilis) and Mkrisimasi (Delonix regia). Of these, Mkarati, Mwembe, Mlama and Mbiriti were mostly preferred, though other species were also used insignificantly. Increasing scarcity of some of other tree species meant that deforestation from the nearby forests was a common problem. To reduce deforestation in the area, use of alternative energy sources in brick making such as rice husks and bagasse are recommended. Other recommendations are the establishment of woodlots, practicing agro-forestry systems and intensive afforestation and reforestation programmes for more sustainable fuelwood use.

Government policy, clean fuel access, and persistent fuel stacking in Ecuador

After more than three decades of access to low-cost liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) financed by large direct government subsidies, >90% of Ecuadorian households cook primarily with LPG. Due to the large fiscal burden of the LPG subsidy, increases in electricity from hydropower, and other socio-political factors, the Government of Ecuador has launched a major induction stove program (PEC) to reduce the demand for LPG. We assess the effects of the LPG subsidies and PEC using government records, interviews, academic literature, newspaper reports, household surveys, and focus groups. Household surveys, conducted in rural, northern Ecuadorian households (n = 383), characterized cooking patterns and fuel access. Focus groups (n = 6) were carried out with a subset of surveyed households to better characterize survey findings. The LPG subsidy was developed as part of broad social support reforms in the early 1970s, without specific aims to reduce the health impacts of household air pollution from woodfuel or provide economic benefits as part of the transition to a clean cooking fuel. Nonetheless, the subsidy has resulted in nearly all Ecuadorian households cooking primarily with LPG. PEC has generated the sale of 740,000 induction stoves since its inception in 2014, short of the goal of 3.5 million. Among the rural households surveyed, LPG use, acceptance, and satisfaction was high, however, more than three-quarters of those surveyed reported weekly woodfuel use. Induction stove ownership (17%) and use as a primary cooking fuel (1%) was low among the rural households surveyed; furthermore, households owning induction stoves reported very low satisfaction with the stoves. Here we show that nationally-representative surveys reporting only “primary cooking fuel” use may underestimate solid fuel use as a supplemental household cooking energy, particularly in rural areas where fuel availability issues play a stronger role in decisions about what fuels to use.

The Effect of Forest Access on the Market for Fuelwood in India

Fuelwood collection is often cited as the most important cause of deforestation in developing countries. Use of fuelwood in cooking is a leading cause of indoor air pollution. Using household data from India, we show that households located farther away from the forest spend more time collecting. Distant households are likely to sell more fuelwood and buy less. That is, lower access to forests increases fuelwood collection and sale. This counter-intuitive behavior is triggered by two factors: lower access to forests (a) increases the fixed costs of collecting, which in turn leads to more collection; and (b) drives up local fuelwood prices, which makes collection and sale more profitable. We quantify both these effects. Using our estimates we show that a fifth of the fuelwood collected is consumed outside of rural areas, in nearby towns and cities. Our results imply that at the margin, fuelwood scarcity may lead to increased collection and sale, and exacerbate forest degradation.

Impact of time expenditure on household preferences for cooking fuels

Access to energy for cooking is one of the major challenges that rural India faces. Most of the rural households of North-Eastern India rely heavily upon fuelwood and traditional open-fire cookstoves for cooking activities. And everyday collection of fuelwood is time-consuming. Hence, women often gather fuelwood to make charcoal. While the use of charcoal has some advantages, it is not clear whether the investment of time in making charcoal is worthwhile. In this paper, we compare household time investments for fuelwood and charcoal production. The study is done using survey data on Napaam village situated in Sonitpur District of Assam, Northeast India. We developed a model to analyse fuelwood needed and time spent upon the introduction of improved cookstoves and/or charcoal production. This analysis reveals that improved cookstoves using fuelwood results in the least time expenditure on the production of cooking fuel. Whilst introducing charcoal marginally reduces the amount of fuelwood, but increases time spent on cooking, due to the time required to produce the charcoal. Hence, rural households who make their own charcoal spend more time on producing cooking fuel than those households relying on direct use of fuelwood.

Community-Managed Forests, Household Fuelwood Use and Food Consumption

This paper evaluates the role of use of community-managed forests as a means of improving economic well-being of rural Nepalese households. It utilizes a nationwide survey consisting of detailed questionnaires related to household welfare and employs instrumental variable (IV) approach to investigate the linkage between community-managed forests and food consumption in Nepal. Results show that households that use community-managed forests for firewood spend significantly more on food consumption than those dependent on government-managed forests. The study further finds that community-managed forest users appear to be more participatory and are more likely to find their food consumption adequate. Together, these results provide compelling evidence that community-managed forests can be an effective means of addressing food insecurity in a developing country setting.

Assessment of fuel choices in a hilly region of Uttarakhand, India

In India, nearly 86% of rural households use biomass for cooking. Easy availability of fuel wood and prolonged winters increases its amount and usage in hilly regions. In the present study, to identify the current status of fuel consumption pattern of rural areas in a hilly region, three villages namely Naugaon, Mawana and Kota from the Pauri district of Uttarakhand were selected. A questionnaire was prepared comprising of queries related to socio-economic status, choice of fuels for cooking, health and social awareness among women. Estimation and comparison between greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of LPG and fuel wood were made. It was observed that monthly expenditure on LPG and fuel wood use per household was almost similar. The biomass energy is the fuel of choice in the region as sustainable fuel type. The fuel choices in rural and hilly regions of developing countries have also been discussed in brief.

Assessment of fuel choices in a hilly region of Uttarakhand, India

In India, nearly 86% of rural households use biomass for cooking. Easy availability of fuel wood and prolonged winters increases its amount and usage in hilly regions. In the present study, to identify the current status of fuel consumption pattern of rural areas in a hilly region, three villages namely Naugaon, Mawana and Kota from the Pauri district of Uttarakhand were selected. A questionnaire was prepared comprising of queries related to socio-economic status, choice of fuels for cooking, health and social awareness among women. Estimation and comparison between greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of LPG and fuel wood were made. It was observed that monthly expenditure on LPG and fuel wood use per household was almost similar. The biomass energy is the fuel of choice in the region as sustainable fuel type. The fuel choices in rural and hilly regions of developing countries have also been discussed in brief.

Current Status and Future Availability of Fuelwood Use in Shiwa Town, Iwate Prefecture

Current Status and Future Availability of Fuelwood Use in Shiwa Town, Iwate Prefecture

The SEEA-Based Integrated Economic-Environmental Modelling Framework: An Illustration with Guatemala’s Forest and Fuelwood Sector

This paper develops and operationalizes the integrated economic-environmental modelling (IEEM) platform which integrates environmental data organized under the first international system of environmental economic accounting with a powerful dynamic economy-wide modelling approach. IEEM enables the ex-ante economic analysis of policies on the economy and the environment in a quantitative, comprehensive and consistent framework. IEEM elucidates the two-way interrelationships between the economy and environment, considering how economic activities depend on the environment as a source of inputs and as a sink for their outputs. In addition to standard economic impact indicators such as gross domestic product, income and employment, IEEM generates indicators that describe policy impacts on the use of environmental resources, wealth and environmental quality which together determine prospects for future economic growth and well-being. To illustrate the analytical capabilities of IEEM, the model is calibrated with Guatemala’s SEEA and applied to analysis of its forest and fuelwood sector where negative health and environmental impacts arise from inefficient fuelwood use.

Uso y disponibilidad de leña en la región de La Montaña en el estado de Guerrero y sus implicaciones en la unidad ambiental

La región de La Montaña en el estado de Guerrero, al sur de México, presenta altos índices de pobreza y deforestación. Al mismo tiempo, sus habitantes muestran una particular dependencia de los bosques para la extracción de madera para leña. El objetivo de este trabajo fue caracterizar y cuantificar el uso de la leña y determinar su disponibilidad en las diferentes unidades del paisaje. Para identificar especies utilizadas y preferidas, fueron encuestadas 60 viviendas en tres localidades con diferentes altitudes. Se midió la cantidad de leña consumida usando los métodos Día promedio y Medición directa, basados en el peso de la leña utilizada. Para evaluar la disponibilidad de leña se caracterizó la composición y estructura florística de los fragmentos de bosques más conservados y con extracción mínima de leña, y se extrapoló para toda el área de estudio. Se encontró que el proceso de utilización de las especies es similar a lo largo del gradiente altitudinal: en 100% de las viviendas se utiliza leña diariamente con un promedio de consumo per cápita de 2.06 kg y 1.70 kg (según el método) y 63% de los usuarios realiza la extracción de árboles completos principalmente de especies del género Quercus. Se estimó una disponibilidad de biomasa viva para leña de 28 t ha-1 y 14 t ha-1en fragmentos de bosque cerrado y abierto, respectivamente. Por las similitudes encontradas en términos de uso y disponibilidad, es posible considerar, para el establecimiento de proyectos de restauración productiva, las diferentes unidades estudiadas como una unidad ambiental.

From Darkness to Light: The Effect of Electrification in Ghana, 2000–2010

This article examines the relationship between electrification, the structure of employment, and the structure of the household using the rollout of electricity in Ghana between 2000 and 2010. We find, using the 10% microsamples of the Ghana census, that residential electric access led to movements out of agriculture and toward higher-skilled wage-earning occupations. Within the household, electrification resulted in a shift away from the use of wood fuels, reduced fertility, and led to larger investments in the education of existing children.

In the hearth, on the mind: Cultural consensus on fuelwood and cookstoves in the middle Himalayas of India

While studies show that biomass-based ‘traditional’ cookstoves adversely impact health and environment, governments and nonprofits have struggled to achieve sustained adoption of cleaner cookstoves. Most cookstove diffusion programs focus on cookstove design, process of technology introduction, or market mechanisms. While such mechanisms are important, we postulate that a socio-cultural approach will go farther in informing programs that aim to diffuse cleaner cookstoves in developing countries. With our study, we step back from problems surrounding diffusion and deconstruct cultural beliefs that drive fuelwood and cookstove use in Lug Valley of Himachal Pradesh, India. The goal of this research is to understand the degree of consensus in shared beliefs regarding fuelwood use and cookstoves. Using cultural consensus analysis, we found an agreement amongst people for using fuelwood from forests and preferences for various cookstoves. We found that fuelwood use is driven by availability, lack of alternatives, and lack of infrastructure. Household factors like seasonality, cleanliness, smoke emitted, costs, taste of food influence choice of cookstoves at a household level. Cultural domains for fuelwood and cookstoves were independent from each other, therefore a holistic diffusion program focusing on cookstoves and fuel types is needed for diffusion of sustainable energy alternatives.

Ecosystem services trade-offs from high fuelwood use for traditional shea butter processing in semi-arid Ghana

Traditional production of shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) butter uses large amounts of fuelwood. This study examines the effects of shea production on the environment by identifying the ecosystem service trade-offs due to the high fuelwood consumption. Fuelwood species inventories for different land use types and on-site plot-based standing biomass measured. We estimate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and changes in carbon stocks for different shea products in rural and urban settings. Results suggest that, processing of shea can cause a significant change of carbon stocks in the four study villages and result in the loss of carbon sequestration ecosystem services. For GHG emissions, rural shea butter processors emit 3.14–3.31kgCO2 eq/kg shea butter, while urban processors emit slightly less (2.29–2.54kg CO2 eq/kg shea butter). We identify trade-offs with several other provisioning (woodland products), regulating (erosion control) and cultural ecosystem services (religious and spiritual values). Such findings can initiate discussions about the hidden environmental and socioeconomic costs of current shea production practices. Potential strategies to enhance the sustainability of shea production include the adoption of improved stoves, sustainable fuelwood harvesting practices, parkland management, alternative fuels, and product pricing premiums to fund the adoption of cleaner shea processing technologies.

English

Most of the tobacco in Zimbabwe are grown by small scale tobacco growers who rely on wood-fuelled inefficient conventional barns with fuel wood requirements as high as 14 kg wood to one kilogram of cured tobacco leaf. This level of fuel wood use is not sustainable as it results in massive tobacco-curing related deforestation. The main objective of this study was therefore to design an energy efficient barn (Kutsaga Counter-Current 1). Thereafter, the curing efficiency of the barn was evaluated against the energy efficient rocket barn and the standard conventional barn. Wood from Eucalyptus camaldulensis at 12% moisture content was used as the curing fuel and all the barns were loaded with tobacco of the same variety and fired at the same time. The results indicate that the barn utilizes 3.5 kg of wood to produce a kg of cured tobacco as compared to an average of 4.25 and 5.32 kg in the rocket and conventional barns, respectively. This high efficiency of the barn is derived from an effective heat exchange system. Given the high fuel use efficiency, the Kutsaga Counter-Current 1 barn is recommended for use by small scale tobacco growers. Key words: Deforestation, efficiency, counter-current, sustainable, tobacco.

Social Learning as a Vehicle for Complementary Strategies in Forest Resource Management

<p><em>Cooking is a daily activity often based on energy to satisfy individuals' nutritional requirements. Wood fuels are the main source of fuel in rural areas of Africa with detrimental health, environmental and livelihood effects. The study investigates how heavy dependence on wood fuels and the resultant degradation of scarce forest resources can be addressed employing social learning coupled complementary strategies. The qualitative method was used carry out the research in the West Gonja District of Ghana. The case study approach was complemented with Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) techniques to gather data from key informants, households and focus group discussions. The use of wood fuels is having a negative impact on critical rural resources such as forest ecosystem services which underpin land</em><em>-</em><em>based livelihoods of the study area.</em><em> The continuous knowledge co-production and utilization within the context of social learning is vital for enhancing adaptive capacity of vulnerable livelihoods especially those reliant on forest resources. Moreover it is crucial to integrate complementary knowledge systems as per social learning and harness appropriate technology when introducing interventions that enable communities to shift to alternative fuel sources. This helps to reduce pressure on communal forest resources and enhance forest conservation with spin</em><em>-</em><em>offs for sustainable development.</em><em></em></p>