Charcoal remains an essential commodity not only in Kenya but in the East Africa region as well.
This is because the commodity is cheap, efficient and easily transportable making it the main energy source in rapidly growing urban areas.
The Star has however established that some of the regulations put in place to reduce deforestation while suppressing the charcoal trade have resulted in ‘grey markets’ where criminality and corruption allow illegally produced charcoal to be sold.
Decades of unchecked wood harvesting have taken a toll on the country’s woodlands and indigenous trees.
Many charcoal harvesters do not apply any tree management practices a situation that has resulted in the scarcity of the most suitable tree species for charcoal production.
In 2018, Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu announced a ban on the sale and transport of charcoal within the county sparking mixed reactions.
A month later, Deputy President William Ruto announced a 90-day nationwide logging moratorium amid environmental concerns.
However, though the government effectively banned the movement of charcoal amid efforts to avoid further loss of its forest cover, it did not ban charcoal production and use.
Kenya’s urban centres are highly reliant on the charcoal to meet the population’s energy needs.
For instance in Nairobi, about 86 per cent of households use charcoal for cooking and boiling water and 43 per cent use it as their main energy source.
Ecological alternatives such as briquettes made of charcoal dust or sawmill waste have failed to gain widespread consumer acceptance due to local socio-cultural and economic barriers.
The fallout from restrictive measures is that for two years now the sector has been forced underground.
Research by the World Agroforestry -ICRAF indicates that farmers are now making less profit as transporters charge higher fees due to the increased restriction on movements.
If they are caught, they risk paying hefty bribes and fines, or even having their vehicles confiscated.
As a result, this cost has been transferred to consumers, who must now pay more for sacks of their charcoal.
In 2016, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry estimated that the charcoal trade was the largest informal-sector employer, employing 700,000 people, who in turn were believed to be supporting between 2.3 million and 2.5 million dependents.
The high demand for charcoal means that a ‘grey market’ for charcoal continues in Kenya, facilitated by criminality and corruption.
A report by the Global Initiative Against Transitional Organised Crime Indicates that the high demand has led to widespread deforestation and damage to ecosystems and biodiversity that in turn threatens the environment that sustains rural populations.
According to the report, the ban on logging has had unintended consequences affecting the livelihoods of those in production areas.
Charcoal producers association Msambweni branch Tsingwa Nduria told the researchers that the ban came like death because there was no forewarning.
However, despite the ban and the disruption, the charcoal trade has continued as a lucrative grey market, where corruption and criminality now exist along the value chain.
According to the report, due to the ban on the movement of the commodity, dealers have devised ways to continue operations.
One of the ways is to use Public service vehicles that transport the charcoal under the seats.
The report reveals that PSV drivers after normal operations would travel to Meto forest in midnight.
The sale is then arranged between powerful cartels, charcoal dealers and brokers working in the Meto forest region.
The brokers ensure enough charcoal is collected from ‘bases’ of charcoal production throughout the forest to meet his dealer’s needs.
At the production level, the very act of harvesting wood for charcoal production is illegal, but production has nevertheless persisted.
In some areas, local communities are intimidated into producing charcoal for dealers who control the region’s market.
The cartels involving local chiefs, Kenya Forestry Service officers, police and some politicians target private and communal land that is home to indigenous tree species for production.
At sunset the following day, transportation begins with drivers having to evade law enforcement or negotiate a series of bribes along the route.
The dealers prefer to use PSV drivers for transportation because of their speed and their know-how in dealing with police.
According to the report, how much a transporter pays per bribe varies, but they are able to estimate what they are likely to pay based on the quantity of their charcoal consignment.
"Due to the higher risk of transporting charcoal under the ban, transporters and dealers who control transport have pushed up prices to account for money paid as bribes or potential losses due to confiscation and arrests," reads part of the report.
Retail prices have doubled to over the past four years by over 80 per cent.
Currently consumer prices for charcoal on average range from Sh120 and Sh150 per 2kg tin.
A dealer interviewed by the Star revealed that the increased risk of having trucks seized by the police, or of arrest, has forced transporters who are not ‘protected’ by dealers out of business.
Those coming from the Meto forest will drive their trucks to a car wash at Ilbisil, where all the dust and mud is removed before they set out for Nairobi.
This is so to avoid detection by traffic police on the lookout for charcoal. Dusty vehicles believed to come from forests draw attention.
The report indicates that the drivers part with not less than Sh3,000 at the first police roadblock.
This, the report quotes as a standard bribe that has remained consistent for some time.
The second roadblock is at the weighbridge at Mlolongo some 20 kilometers from Nairobi’s central business district.
Here, the transporters are forced to part with not less than Sh5,000 as it draws police and the county council inspectorate officers and one must take care of them all.
At any other roadblocks in between, the transporters will part with an average of not less than Sh1,000 and if unlucky to bump Into a patrol car, he would be forced to cough a whooping Sh10,000.
Aside from bribes made to the police along the route, the transporters also make payments to owners of farms passed when moving charcoal from the forest to the main highway, in order to ensure their cooperation.
Informal agreements may also be formed between charcoal transporters and the police.
These include what is known as ‘kusafisha barabara’, meaning ‘to cleanse the road’ in Kiswahili.
According to one dealer, this entails collusion between powerful charcoal dealers and the police service, whereby police are withdrawn from major transport routes, allowing the unimpeded flow of charcoal from point to point.
If by any chance roadblocks and patrols need to be reintroduced, dealers will receive prior notice from the police involved.
This has seen a number of traffic police officers actively get involved in the trade.
For instance, in March last year, Kenya Forest Service officers impounded an Administration Police lorry ferrying approximately 120 bags of charcoal in Malindi.
KFS officers stopped the lorry following a tip-off that a police lorry was being used to ferry charcoal to evade roadblocks.
Another GK lorry was nabbed with 29 sacks of charcoal in Kjado along the Namanga-Kajiado highway.
Surprisingly, large loads of charcoal that are impounded and confiscated In most cases are reported missing from the inventory with high probability of having been sold to another dealer.
This greed by the officers has for instance seen a route like LungaLunga and Likoni which Is the main supply route often used by charcoal transporters get 19 roadblocks in an area that is supposed to have just one.
Despite the intentions of the charcoal moratorium, the ever-increasing demand for cheap energy in urban centres and the ability of dealers and transporters to consistently evade and collude with law enforcement means that the charcoal market is still a lucrative proposition in Kenya.
Charcoal production regulations
The Forest (Charcoal) Rules of 2009 provide that charcoal producers and transporters must be licensed by the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and licensing requirements are laid out.
The rules require commercial charcoal producers to organise themselves in Charcoal Producers Associations (CPAs) which in addition to facilitating sustainable charcoal production.
They must also implement reforestation conservation plans with charcoal wholesalers or retailers not being allowed to trade with unlicensed producers and should keep records of their sources of charcoal.
Under the same rules, charcoal producers are prohibited from use of endangered or threatened plant species in charcoal production, among others.
However, while the regulations are a significant improvement on the unrealistic charcoal ‘bans’ that were periodically imposed during the 1980s and 1990s, they have proven unworkable and no production permits have yet been issued.
Owen in his research said the regulations lack an application track for individual landowners, contain a number of unclear provisions and are built around a highly centralised application approval process.
“ Few producers have applied for permits and there is uncertainty how applications should be handled within KFS,” he said.
The Environmental Management and Coordination Act (EMCA, 1999) is providing a workable legal framework for charcoal production on private land and empowers District Environment Committees (DECs) to process applications from landowners to make charcoal.
Charcoal movement regulations
The transportation of charcoal requires a movement permit under the 2009 regulations.
It is not clear which staff in KFS may issue these permits and the decision is frequently passed to Ecosystem (County) level, making the application process cumbersome.
Permits are also time-limited and vehicle-specific making it particularly difficult for charcoal to be moved in small volumes or redistributed from storage depots.
“The regulations are also vague on the carriage of fewer than four bags and unofficial interpretations result in fleets of bicycles, motorbikes and donkeys ferrying charcoal unimpeded to urban markets,” Owen said in his research.
According to him, the movement of charcoal is subject to significant extra-legal payments to police officers that may exceed 25 per cent of the retail price.
While these payments are a relatively predictable cost of doing business for regular transporters of charcoal, they are a highly variable element for those who produce charcoal only infrequently.
Most landowners opt to sell their charcoal at farm-gate and avoid getting involved in transportation.
