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

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at gmail.com
Sat Jun 2 17:46:09 CDT 2012


Dear Mark

 

Really appreciate the detail answer. I agree with your observation that
permanence is driven by services supplied from brick buildings.  What may at
first look like fixed settlements are in fact more ethereal long term. I
found the Sahel in the east of Niger to be increasing the number of trees as
a conscious act. In town every tree has a little ring of fence around it.
They are planting neem trees which do really well with even a small amount
of rain. There are huge (new) trees in Maradi. There is as a result far more
wood fuel than there used to be, though people still cook a lot with millet
stalks in very inappropriate stoves.

 

Thanks
Crispin

 

 

We didn't examine the yield of the forests around the village we were
focused on energy use and impact but not deforestation questions. That said
by careful examination over a period of five years it appears that the
forest is being sustainably managed. Also in interviews with village women,
every woman in the village thought she was walking the same distance to
gather wood and that it took the same amount of time since she was a child.
Wood is gathered on plots assigned by the village leadership and only
fallen/dead wood is gathered. 

 

I think this type of sustainable management is possible in this village
because it is the Sahel, Mali is relatively sparsely populated, and this
village is relatively remote. It is part of a cluster of 8 villages with a
combined population of 7000 - 8000. The closest villages to the study
village are 6 and 10 km away and have populations of 300 people each, the
villages beyond these two are more than 10 km away. And so pressure on the
forests is not great. I do know that these are semi nomadic people and that
part of the village moves to the fields during the growing season and that
villages have moved periodically in the past. But as improvements (bridges,
schools, clinics) are made I've wondered if the villages will move or not.

 

In contrast in other places in Mali (Mali is only 15% arable land) wood and
other fuels are dear and sustainability is a big issue. And so this study
should be regarded as applicable to the Sahel rather than to Mali.

 

Mark

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