Dar es salaam remains the main end point of charcoal produced in the country due to large numbers of households who use the forest resources as the basic source of energy.

According to a recent study carried out by the Tanzania Traditional Energy Development and Environmental Organisation (TaTeDO) and Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), the use of charcoal in Dar es Salaam city has doubled in recent years.

This justifies the long standing presumption that a large portion of charcoal, which has promoted the cutting of trees, end up being consumed in Dar es Salaam and the practice continue unabated, despite efforts by the government to discourage its use through different means.

The increasing tendency of using charcoal instead of electricity comes as response to hiked power tariffs and its unreliability due to power rationing.

Environment and Energy Manager at TaTEDO, Gisela Ngoo says about 70 percent of charcoal comes from the mainland, while 10,500 bags enter Zanzibar daily, 7,500 of them through illegal means.

Findings also show that 94 percent of current charcoal consumers either use it as the source of energy alongside others sources such as fuel and electricity while 73 percent use charcoal as their only source of energy.

"Charcoal is most favored because of its efficiency, availability, affordability and cultural attachment. As a result, 22,526 bags of charcoal are consume at the household level daily," said Ngoo.

Other major users charcoal are hotels and restaurants, food vendors, hospitals, schools and military camps, whose combined consumption come to the total of 6,233 bags per day, she added.

In Dar es Salaam alone, about 6,777 bags of charcoal enter the region daily through Kilwa road (50 per cent), Morogoro (24 per cent), Pugu (13 percent) while only 3 percent enter the city through Bagamoyo.

It was discovered that the charcoal business is booming because of lack of alternative income generating activities, increase in charcoal demand and charcoal not being a perishable product.

According to Ngoo, about 3 million tones of wood is required annually to produce 28,759 bags equal to 3.6 million cubic meter of wood.

A 2002 report commissioned by the Tanzania Association of Oil Marketing Companies show that between 15,000 and 20,000 bags of charcoal enter Dar es Salaam every 24 hours.

This equals one million tonnes of charcoal and 3,320 square kilometers of trees being cut.

The statistics show that the number of charcoal bags in the country's markets is increasing every year, threatening natural resources such as trees and its sustainability.

Natural Resources and Tourism Deputy Minister Ezekiel Maige says about 30 million cubic metres of charcoal produced every year, of which 95 per cent is harvested from forests.

He says that deforestation rate remained higher than the reforestation activities.

The government projection of planting 123 million trees each year seems to have yielded positive outcomes but the minister says the government focus will be on the effective use of charcoal as well as extending environmental awareness campaign to the public.

Environmentalists say charcoal burning poses a lot of negative impacts on the forests in the country.

For example, degradation of forests is the major contributor to the current global concerns of climate change.

The degradation reduces water supply making water a scarce and expensive commodity.

Agriculture is another area which is very vulnerable from the woodland degradation problem, as it reduces agricultural productivity.

Food shortage, the world is experiencing now has been partly contributed by the degradation as well as the climate change.
Source:Guardian