OPINION
* A government policy paper on forestry estimates that 800,000 m3 of logs are cut each year, a rate of timber harvesting that exceeds sustainable cutting levels by a factor of four.
* Timber prices have gone up since the ban was instituted.
* Members of the Natural Resources Committee of parliament have asked the minister to rescind the ban but she says that’s impossible. Some timber dealers say they will organize a demonstration against the ban.
Concerned about the possibility of seeing its forests disappear within a decade, the government of Uganda announced last month an immediate three-month ban on the harvesting of the nation’s timber. If enforced, the economic and practical impact of the ban will be huge for this East African country where more than 90 percent of the population depends on wood and charcoal for fuel.
Uganda’s government is rightly worried about the unsustainable harvesting of forests for timber and fuel, and frustrated with earlier failed measures to stop illegal logging.
But telling people they can’t cook with wood or charcoal without providing viable alternatives means this new policy is dead on arrival. In fact, if enforced, this new policy is likely to have a devastating impact on the country’s most vulnerable populations. That’s because policies designed to reduce consumption of wood and charcoal for cooking will only drive the market for these fuels underground and lead to a spike in the price of these solid biomass fuels, the only home cooking option available to the country’s poorest families.
Price subsidies for alternative cooking fuels like paraffin or LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) cannot be seen as a viable, long-term solutions, either. Subsidies may work in the near term — that is, while subsidy funding remains available — but they are not sustainable for market-based economies with no fossil fuel production of its own. Any attempt to move populations over to improved cooking fuels like paraffin or LPG will enrich only the manufacturers and suppliers of equipment and the fuel by creating a economically unsustainable dependence. Once, the price of oil reaches a certain threshold and/or the subsidies prove too expensive, people will revert to using unsustainably harvested wood and inefficiently produced charcoal.
The reality is that societies must first reach a critical threshold of economic development before they can reasonably be expected to switch over to more “modern” sources of fuel.
In the meantime, the best option of Uganda is to encourage the production and use of sustainable alternative solid and liquid biomass fuels, such as briquettes made from agricultural waste, “green” charcoal made from well-managed forests, or ethanol from plants. Rolling out more efficient stoves for business and home cooking could also quickly reduce consumption of wood and charcoal. Many improved cookstoves are already for sale on the market in Kampala. Another long term solution is to encourage the planting of forests for energy. This could open the door for the country to access the productive energy it needs for industrial economic growth. Developing wood fuels for domestic and economic growth could jumpstart a whole new energy sector in the country and the region. What’s more, developing a sustainable wood energy industry could allow Uganda to reduce its exposure to the ups and downs of the oil markets.
In fact, few people realize that solid biomass fuels make up the fastest growing slice of the global renewable energy pie. That’s because wood energy in industrialized countries is seen as a modern, renewable fuel. Unfortunately, its image as the lowest form of fuel remains firmly stuck in the mind of energy policymakers in the developing world. But before Uganda can make the switch to advanced wood energy, it will first need to pass legislation promoting the adoption of renewable energy and economic incentives for renewable energy production. This is not pie in the sky: Uganda has only to look at its neighbor, Kenya, who is leading the way in advancing the right policies.
Still, like a drug addict in a 12-step program, the first step must be to recognize the role that fuels like wood and charcoal play in the nation’s energy balance. Until this happen, Minister Mutagambas policies are bound to backfire, I’m afraid.
J. Kim Chaix
The Charcoal Project
English 
French 
Actually,some of us are already in production of alternative fuel for cooking(Briquettes)however we are facing challenges of marketability.People are still used to cooking using traditional charcoal and are taking long to adapt to new technologies of using briquettes or even bio gas.Yet the cost of other types of fuel like LPG gas is not sustainable here in Uganda.Every thing here depends on the availability of the foreign currency($) . When the price of the dollar goes up, the cost of cooking fuel such as LPG gas shoots up including charcoal because the cost of bringing it to the end users also rises.Whereas the briquettes are not expensive and we regard it as a renewable source of energy, the government should sensitize the population on the use of such new technologies before putting bans on timber products, otherwise this might cause a crisis which would affect the people at the bottom of the energy pyramid. Thanks
Mwesigwa Geofrey
ED
Vision for Green Light(U)
producers of ”GreenCoal”
Please keep us updated on the price changes of these solid energy commodities in Uganda.
This is a very big mistake that they have made. Kenya has tried the same thing multiple times with no success. The one positive thing it does do is it drives up the prices of wood products to the point were it starts to become more commercially lucrative for private farmers to grow trees for food, fuel and fodder.
I wonder what made them write this legislation.
Since I was born until l I became of age, people used wood products as the main domestic source of energy in Uganda. Other sources of energy like Electricity, Paraffin and Cooking Gas are so expensive that no ordinary rural family can buy them even if they wanted to.
I am surprised at the Minister’s logic of creating a law or a ban which she knows so well that it won’t be implemented or if it is enforced will lead to mass suffering and at best create a black market for those items just to profit the unscrupulous.
The Minister ought to do first things first. Create the alternatives, educate the people then enforce the ban. Without these, the Minister’s ban can remain on paper and even her own workers in her village home will be part of the disobedient to her ban.
I am a Business Representative of DPR Korea in Uganda.
I can supply charcoal producing equipment with which people can use plant skins as fuel not forest wood. any person who are interested in this subject, please call me.
mobile: 0779189398
Dear Mr. Han,
Thank you for reaching out to offer your country’s technology. I would welcome the opportunity to learn more about the technology, what type of biomass can be used, what is the burn efficiency ratio, etc. Do you have a brochure or a website where we could view your products? Thank you! J. Kim Chaix, Director, The Charcoal Project. Please feel free to email me directly at jkimchaix (at) charcoalproject (dot) org
I am interested in setting a charcoal manufacturing plant in Ivory coast. Can you put in touch with relevant people able to assist.
OUMAR SILUE
CEO – SBI
Abidjan Ivory Coast