Why Kenya cannot do away with charcoal

This is how Emily Nafula’s evening begins. She leaves work from Nairobi’s city centre at 5pm to reach home in Kawangware estate at about 6pm.

The children are already back from school. It’s getting dark, so she switches on the lights and turns on the gas cooker to warm tea for them.

She then fills her jiko with charcoal and lights it up on the balcony. With charcoal worth Sh15, she will cook full dinner, some mandazi for tomorrow’s breakfast and even warm bathing water.

All her neighbours use charcoal. And while some can afford to cook with gas, they will tell you that charcoal gives their ugali a particularly smoky flavour that just can’t be matched by the alternatives.

“It’s just easier for me to budget for charcoal because the price gas keeps on going up. I cannot even think of cooking with electricity,” Nafula says.

But that smoky ugali and cheap energy comes with a huge hidden cost. Traditional charcoal is produced by cutting down trees and burning them in kilns.

Though charcoal trade in Kenya was banned in 2017, the demand for it keeps going up.

A new policy paper now advises the government that rather than entirely demonise charcoal, it is now time to actively ensure sustainable production of the same and enforce a ban on illegal trade. It also urges the government to genuinely promote alternative energy sources.

From Charred to Charged: Combating Charcoal and Firewood Trade, and Illegal Logging in Kenya with Green Energy Options was published by rights organisation Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF).

It says the demand for charcoal is high. About two-thirds (66.7 per cent) of Kenya’s estimated 12 million households use firewood and charcoal to cook.

In rural areas, nine out of every ten households use firewood and charcoal.

However, in urban areas, just over half of the households (52.9 per cent) use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to cook, while about one in every four urban households still depend on charcoal and firewood to make hot meals.

“It is about survival, cooking the next meal,” says the paper, compiled by Edward Wanyonyi.

The paper notes this demand will not go away unless consumers have genuinely cheaper and accessible green energy options.

The Kenyan charcoal trade is also lucrative. It employs around 700,000 people and has an annual market value of over $427 million, according to multiple estimates.

The paper recommends: “Define and enforce clear rules for sustainable charcoal production in specific areas to ensure responsible forest resource utilisation, including establishing specific forests designated for charcoal production, creating a sustainable supply while preserving natural habitats.”

The paper notes illegal charcoal trade is fuelling desertification in Kenya.

LOGGING BAN

Kenya has been struggling with deforestation for years, even as the government laboured to balance the population's energy needs with environmental sustainability. This led to the ban on logging in 2017.

But even with the ban, illegal logging continues to happen, powered by corruption, enforcement inefficiencies, and a lack of capacity to monitor the huge swathes of forest land.

The lifting of the logging ban by President William Ruto in July this year caught many by surprise. The government's said its approach is to have responsible forest management, whereby food can be cultivated and production of firewood in certain forests sustained.

This raised fears of the unchecked destruction of Kenya’s indigenous and plantation forests.

The President added that the lifting of the ban officially was to allow the harvesting of mature trees. He said this would rescue the struggling forestry economy, create jobs and unlock economic dividends.

The FNF policy paper says effective protection of existing forests would make at least as much sense as the reforestation programme.

It urges the government to implement stricter penalties for illegal logging to deter economic incentives and safeguard forests.

“Invest in training and capacity-building programmes for law enforcement, forestry officials and local communities to effectively combat illegal logging,” the paper recommends.

It advises: “Promote adoption of clean energy by lowering the electricity costs to incentivise low-income households to shift from firewood and charcoal to electricity for cooking.”

The paper notes the key drivers of the charcoal and firewood trade, which in turn fuels illegal logging, include a high demand for forest commodities, legal and policy incoherence, corruption, greed, poverty and simply the quest for survival.

At least 14 counties in Kenya are affected by illegal logging, mainly to facilitate charcoal burning and firewood sales. Most of the charcoal comes from arid and semi-arid areas.

DROUGHT DESPERATION

Amos Wemanya, a senior energy adviser at Power Shift Africa, concurs that, due to desperation, some communities cling to anything to survive during the drought season.

“Apart from Kakamega, most of the charcoal comes from Asal areas. These counties are much affected by adverse weather,” he says.

“When it rains, there’s flooding, and when it's not raining, there’s dry spell. Communities are getting desperate. When you have lost everything to drought, you cling on anything, and they have vegetation to burn charcoal. So it’s a question of surviving also.”

Commenting on the paper, he said the government needs to make access to energy a human right.

“So let’s not commercialise energy. Electricity is becoming expensive and the fuel and gas are becoming expensive. Those using gas will go back to biomass in due time,” he said.

In Kenya, it is an offence for any person to trade in charcoal without a permit, but the practice goes on unabated in many parts of the country.

The law states: “Any person who makes or is found in possession of charcoal in a national, county or provisional forest; or in the community forest, private forest or farmlands without a licence or permit of the owner, as the case may be, commits an offence.”

The law prescribes a penalty for illegal production and possession of charcoal: a fine not exceeding Sh50,000, imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or both.

SOURCE QUESTION

Wanjira Mathai, the managing director for Africa and Global Partnerships at the World Resources Institute, said Kenya should not demonise firewood and charcoal.

“The question is the source, where does it come from?” she says.

“We also look at the preferences. People in rural areas prefer jikos that can warm the house, drive away mosquitoes, roast bananas and cook food at the same time. And the food tastes good. So we need to be very patient with locals as we address these challenges.”

Mathai, who also chairs the board of the Wangari Maathai Foundation, says research indicates charcoal use will continue to grow.

“We need not demonise the charcoal sector, but we must look at how we do it in a more sustainable way,” she said.

“We shouldn't demonise communities getting into the forest to get firewood. The bad people are the commercial tree dealers.”

She said the commercial sector, more than the communities, is the elephant in the room.

“We live in a complex forest system. We live in a society where we don’t want to hear the word logging, but to the government, logging is part of conservation,” she said.

Mathai adds that the biggest challenge is separating commercial and conservation forestry. She acknowledges there is a need for a commercial forest sector for wood harvesting, but its existence should not compromise conservation efforts.

A 2018 report on the state of forests and logging stated that the Kenya Forest Service was responsible for the destruction of forests countrywide due to institutional governance weaknesses that result in rampant corruption across ranks and collusion with Ministry of Environment officials.

These practices undermine ecological equilibrium, exacerbate deforestation and thwart the nation's commitment to cleaner energy sources.

While there are clear provisions in the criminal penal code against charcoal production, charcoal smugglers are fined $70 (Sh10,000) or sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.

From Charred to Charged report says this fine cannot act as a deterrent to the crime because it is small compared to the profits the smugglers earn from the business.

The smuggling is also facilitated by chiefs, police officers, politicians and officials who collude with the cartels by accepting bribes. The ban in 2017 led to widespread smuggling and drove the charcoal trade underground, it notes.

The report also indicates that while the widespread adoption of renewable energy sources that can replace charcoal, like coconut husks or sawmill dust briquettes, there is a lack of policies and tax incentives to encourage large-scale commercial production and community uptake.

This suggests a misalignment between government goals and community preparedness.

REGULATION IN PROGRESS

George Tarus, head of Forest Conservation in the Ministry of Environment, says people are quick to demonise charcoal while it is part and parcel of our lives. He says the ministry is working on a regulation around charcoal to give value for money for those producing it. 

“Whether we like it or not, the demand for charcoal will continue increasing. It also has great economic benefits for the country. Kenya Kwanza is working toward decriminalising charcoal and building a value-chain around that,” he said.

“In the current value chain, the producer takes home the least, so they don’t benefit from the toil. We will create value for them through creation of cooperatives and societies. We are quick to demonise charcoal but it's part and parcel of our lives.” 

The FNF report shows the burden of deforestation and degradation of the environment, leading to climate change impacts, disproportionately affects women due to culturally constructed gender roles. Women are more vulnerable to the negative effects because of their societal roles and responsibilities.

Women will spend a lot of time walking long distances to forests in search of firewood or water. The availability of firewood in rural areas makes the acquisition of cleaner cook stoves by men a complex activity, and it is women who have to take the lead as cooking is culturally perceived as their responsibility, it says.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) emphasises that energy access and utilisation have gender-specific impacts, with women experiencing more adverse effects, such as exposure to household air pollution, physical injuries from fuel wood transportation, and the risk of intimate partner violence related to cooking and heating.

The government hopes the decade-long tree planting exercise will boost the tree cover from the current 12 per cent to 30 per cent by 2032 and help solve multiple challenges, specifically the climate crisis as a result of deforestation and desertification.

The report indicates solution to charcoal dependency and smuggling lies in divesting funds and other resources into other energy sub-sectors. Prices of cleaner and more modern cooking fuels, such as electricity and liquefied petroleum gas, should be reduced to encourage households to use these as a preferred source of energy.

The country also has a strategy to make liquefied petroleum gas the primary cooking fuel through subsidies and other interventions, but implementation is slow.

The report also strongly recommends combating corruption within the forestry sector to maintain integrity and prevent illegal activities.

In addition, the paper calls for local communities to be able to participate in sustainable logging practices like agroforesty and community-based forest management and, through collaboration with government bodies and NGOs, develop and implement effective policies.

To have an accountable forest cover, the ministry should have a comprehensive monitoring scheme for forests, conservation efforts and regular publication of progress.

Lastly, the government should enhance law enforcement efforts to curb illegal logging and develop and implement long-term policies that promote sustainable forest management and clean energy adoption, ensuring a resilient and green future.