[Stoves] Energy supply and use in a rural West African village

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Mark

 

Yeah that is about 1 kg per person per day - quite efficient compared with
Zimbabwe or Angola.

 

My next questions was about the area from which that wood is collected. Is
there a known sustained yield per ha that gives a 'farmable' area for wood
fuel? I am given to understand (from multiple sources) that the Sahel is
(net) being de-forested. But on the other hand, the Sahel is expanding
northward into the Sahara and no one is talking about it so it could be
observer bias like that old story about 'the southward march of the Sahel'.

 

There is a group I believe east of your working area that has a traditional
lifestyle of semi-permanent-ism whereby they move the village about every 40
years. When they do, the establish all the trees they need - food and fuel -
then live there until it is overgrown and move to new grasslands. The result
is an expanding forest. I read a criticism of their lifestyle that 'wrecked
the grassland with new forests'.  Because forests create more forest, and
deforestation creates droughts, I wondered how the fuel wood supply was
managed in your study area.

 

Thanks

Crispin

 

 

Crispin

 

Yes (and I think it is closer to 290 tons) - if you look at Figure 1 you'll
see that this is low for Africa (although not the lowest) based on more
approximately 40 other reports and in the band for reported values for Mali.
Given that Mali is one of the poorest countries in Africa this would be
expected. We have second paper currently in review that provides much more
detail on the stoves use and on the fuels used.

 

Mark

 

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