• The lucrative business in charcoal has seen residents invade forests to ban charcoal, travel as far as Mombasa on Boda bodas with charcoal while brokers the cruel attack on nature.
• The ban has been ignored came in as the government intervened to save the country’s forest cover while at the same time showing commitment to introduce access to clean cooking devices to save the lives of Kenyans, especially women. Nearly 21,000 Kenyans die annually from household air pollution-related to using traditional cooking methods including the open three stones that use wood fuel.
Image: LINAH MUSANGI
Charcoal trade around Shimba hills, samburu and mackinon road in Kwale County is a security threat to the residents, causing untold health challenges and environmental destruction even as the government ban on the trade remains in force.
The lucrative business in charcoal has seen residents invade forests to ban charcoal, travel as far as Mombasa on Boda bodas with charcoal while brokers the cruel attack on nature.
The ban has been ignored came in as the government intervened to save the country’s forest cover while at the same time showing commitment to introduce access to clean cooking devices to save the lives of Kenyans, especially women. Nearly 21,000 Kenyans die annually from household air pollution-related to using traditional cooking methods including the open three stones that use wood fuel.
The Forest (Charcoal) Rules of 2009 provide among other things: charcoal producers and transporters must be licensed by the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and licensing requirements are laid out; commercial charcoal producers must organize themselves in Charcoal Producers Associations (CPAs) which in addition to facilitating sustainable charcoal production, must implement reforestation conservation plans; charcoal wholesalers or retailers should not trade with unlicensed producers and should keep records of their sources of charcoal; charcoal producers are prohibited from use of endangered or threatened plant species in charcoal production, among others.
The Forest Conservation and Management Act of 2016 provides for the Kenya Forestry Services to “receive and consider applications for licenses or permits in relation to forest resources” and to “implement and enforce rules and regulations governing importation, exportation and trade in forest produce”.
The Government of Kenya recognizes the negative impact of the cooking methods such as three-stone open fire and other traditional stoves and acknowledges that accelerated access and uptake of clean cooking solutions is greatly hampered by factors such as limited distribution network and supply of the cooking technologies and cooking fuels especially in the rural areas, inability to pay for cleaner cooking solutions, durability of cooking technologies, safety concerns and cultural resistance. Access to clean energy in Kenya still remains a challenge, and players in the sector must scale up efforts to deal with this problem.
The Government has made it clear in a number of policy statements including the Big Four Agenda and Vision 2030 that it is committed to ensuring access to clean energy a key priority. Kenya’s Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) Action agenda envisions that universal access to modern cooking solutions for all Kenyans is achieved by 2030.
The national Government and the county government in Kwale must work hard to eradicate this vice while at the same time working to introduce, through use of the various existing affirmative funds to introduce use of improved cooking technologies. The Energy Act, bestows some functions to the counties including the regulation and licensing of charcoal production will be devolved to the counties. Biomass, which accounts for about 69% of total national primary energy production, does not have an institutional home outside the Ministry of Energy except for Kenya Forestry Service (KFS) and Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI) which focus on upstream issues including production.
Non-State Actors have been at hand to supplement Government efforts on that front. For example, HIVOS under the Green and Inclusive Energy Programme Strategic Partnership is supporting the Clean Cooking Association of Kenya to implement a project targeting the involvement of vulnerable women in clean cooking entrepreneurial and will see the development of policies guidelines on the establishment of an affirmative fund towards women entrepreneurs in the clean cooking sector, access resources to set up businesses or loans to purchase clean cooking stoves for use in the houses.
The Ministry of Energy in collaboration with the Clean Cooking Association of Kenya have listed several advantages that come with the use of clean cooking technologies including the realization that using clean cooking solutions will support the move by the Government to restore Kenya’s forest cover to 10% up from the current 7%. A decline in forest cover affects energy availability in rural areas negatively impacting on households particularly, women and children who often collect wood-fuel. The use of clean cooking technologies will reduce the country’s annual disease burden attributable to Household Air Pollution from 49% (21,560) to 20%.
Improved cooking technologies reduce the amount of time women and girls spend collecting fuel, giving them the opportunity to pursue education, training and economic activities in addition to the fact that high-efficiency cookstoves lead to even larger benefits in time and energy savings, hence also contributing to emissions reductions
Lastly, affordable, efficient, improved and renewable energy technology not only increases energy security and reduces greenhouse gas emissions but can also provide new economic and educational opportunities for women, men and children.