The Marginalization of Sustainable Charcoal Production in the Policies of a Modernizing African Nation

Doggart, Nike; Meshack, Charles

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2017.00027

Cited by 45 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The objectives of the study were to assess the mix of drivers present in land deforested between 2010 and 2017. Specifically, we aim to inform ongoing policy discussions around the role of charcoal in deforestation (Doggart and Meshack 2017). We therefore include a range of drivers that are typically associated with forest degradation, with a view to improving our understanding of the interplay between drivers of deforestation and forest degradation at deforestation events in multiple land-use areas of Africa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture is the main driver of deforestation in Tanzania

Doggart

Morgan-Brown

Lyimo

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Reducing deforestation can generate multiple economic, social and ecological benefits by safeguarding the climate and other ecosystem services provided by forests. Understanding the relative contribution of different drivers of deforestation is needed to guide policies seeking to maintain natural forest cover. We assessed 119 randomly selected plots from areas deforested between 2010 and 2017, in Tanzania. Through ground surveys and stakeholder interviews we assessed the proximate deforestation drivers at each point. Crop cultivation was the most commonly observed driver occurring in 89% of plots, compared to livestock grazing (69%) and charcoal (35%). There was evidence of fire in 77% of plots. Most deforestation events involved multiple drivers, with 83% of plots showing signs of two or more drivers. Stakeholder interviews identified agriculture as the primary deforestation driver in 81% of plots, substantially more than charcoal production (12%), timber harvesting (1%) and livestock (1%). Policy-makers in Tanzania have sought to reduce deforestation by reducing demand for charcoal. However, our work demonstrates that agriculture, not charcoal, is the main driver of deforestation in Tanzania. Beyond protected areas, there is no clear policy limiting the conversion of forests to agricultural land. Reducing deforestation in Tanzania requires greater inter-sectoral coordination between the agriculture, livestock, land, energy and forest sectors.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture is the main driver of deforestation in Tanzania

Doggart

Morgan-Brown

Lyimo

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…The wood-energy sector is politically neglected in SSA (Doggart and Meshack, 2017) though it is huge and projected to increase. Thus, pressures on natural resources will increase too, even if the extent of its contribution to overall resource degradation is debated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless: Politically, claimed DFD remains an important argument against constructive charcoal policies and projects. The importance of the value chain is overlooked, neglected, or evaded by national governments (Doggart and Meshack, 2017), donors and implementing agencies (Kees and Feldmann, 2011). If at all, usually only partial attempts were made to intervene into the charcoal value chain, often with a biased attitude toward it.…”

Section: Charcoal In Sub-saharan Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying the Water-Energy-Food Nexus to the Charcoal Value Chain

Hoffmann

Sander

Brüntrup

et al. 2017

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Globally, natural resources are increasingly under pressure, especially due to population growth, economic growth and transformation as well as climate change. As a result, the water, energy, and food (WEF) nexus approach has emerged to understand interdependencies and commonly manage resources within a multi-scale and multi-level framework. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the high and growing consumption of traditional biomass for cooking purposes -notably fuelwood and charcoal-is both a key source of energy and contributor for food security as well as a pressure on natural resources. Improving the bioenergy value chains is essential for limiting environmental degradation and for securing the livelihoods of millions of people. Although the WEF nexus approach entails large potential to address the complex problems arising along the bioenergy value chains, these are currently not considered. Based on the WEF nexus approach, we analyze the different steps within the charcoal value chain in Sub-Saharan Africa and highlight the respective interdependencies and the potential for improving overall socio-economic and environmental sustainability. We emphasize the water, energy and food related implications of vicious and virtuous production cycles, separated by value chain segments. We discuss the potential and major challenges for implementing more sustainable value chains. Furthermore, we underline the necessity of applying WEF nexus approaches to these value chains in order to optimize environmental and social outcomes.

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“…Even biodiversity loss has been detected as a result of the selective harvest of indigenous hardwood species (Naughton-Treves et al, 2007). Charcoal, however, can be produced in more sustainable ways by avoiding deforestation or a permanently degrading process, as well as by protecting harvested areas from cultivation, intensive grazing, and fire, thus enabling natural regeneration (Doggart and Meshack, 2017). This has been the case in Mozambique areas where even under long-term charcoal production they continued to provide ecosystem services (Woollen et al, 2016).…”

Section: Water As An Integral Component Of Ecosystem Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By adopting a nexus approach, the group is facilitating the understanding of the socio-economic and ecological interactions of charcoal and agricultural production, especially by highlighting two dimensions of the socio-ecological contexts: charcoal value chains and tenure systems (Iiyama et al, 2017). In addition, the interconnections between sustainable charcoal production in Tanzania, ecosystem services, and trade-offs in the allocation of land, labor, and net primary production have been documented (Doggart and Meshack, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Food-Water-Energy Research through a Socio-Ecosystem Approach

Maass

2017

Front. Environ. Sci.

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The nexus approach helps in recognizing the link between water, energy, and food production systems, emphasizing the need to manage them in a more integrated way. The socio-ecosystem (SES) approach, however, goes beyond that, by incorporating the regulation and supporting services in the management equation. Changes in ecosystem integrity affect the delivery of ecosystem services to society, which affects local people's well-being, creating a feedback mechanism regarding management strategies. The SES approach makes explicit the "human-bio-physical" nature of our interaction with ecosystems, highlighting the need for a more integrated and interconnected social-ecological research perspective. In addition, the SES approach makes more explicit the multi-scale character of the ecological processes that structure and maintain social-ecological systems. Water dynamics have an important role in shaping ecosystem's structure and functioning, as well as determining the systems capacity for delivering provisioning services. The tropical dry-deciduous forest (TDF), is particularly useful in studying water-food-energy trade-off interactions. Recently, a category 5 hurricane landed in the study area (Mexico's Pacific coast), triggering various social and ecological problems. This event is challenging the current forest management strategies in the region. The extreme hydrometeorological event created an excellent opportunity to test and promote the SES approach for more integrated food-water-energy research. By using the SES approach within our long-term socioecological research project, it was easier to identify opportunities for tackling trade-offs between maintaining the transformation of the system and a more sustainable alternative: promoting the maintenance of the ecosystem's integrity and its capacity to deliver provisioning and regulating services.

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The Marginalization of Sustainable Charcoal Production in the Policies of a Modernizing African Nation

Cited by 45 publications

References 25 publications

Agriculture is the main driver of deforestation in Tanzania

Agriculture is the main driver of deforestation in Tanzania

Applying the Water-Energy-Food Nexus to the Charcoal Value Chain

Integrating Food-Water-Energy Research through a Socio-Ecosystem Approach

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