Implication of energy poverty on health & environment

Environment

Inefficient and unsustainable cooking practices can have serious implications for the environment, such as land degradation and local and regional air pollution. There is some localised deforestation, but depletion of forest cover on a large scale has not been found to be attributable to demand for fuelwood (Arnold et al., 2003).

Fuelwood is more often gathered from the roadside and trees outside forests, rather than from natural forests. Clearing of land for agricultural development and timber are the main causes of deforestation in developing countries. Studies at the regional level indicate that as much as two-thirds of fuelwood for cooking worldwide comes from non-forest sources such as agricultural land and roadsides.

Charcoal, on the other hand, is usually produced from forest resources. Unsustainable production of charcoal in response to urban demand, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, places a strain on biomass resources. Charcoal production is often inefficient and can lead to localised deforestation and land degradation around urban centres.

Scarcity of wood typically leads to greater use of agricultural residues and animal dung for cooking. When dung and residues are used for fuel rather than left in the fields or ploughed back into fields, soil fertility is reduced, increasing the propensity to soil erosion.

Figure 8 shows the supply and demand balance of wood resources in East Africa. Red areas represent the risk of environmental impact due to overexploitation. In these areas, the supply of biomass energy resources is insufficient to meet the demand. The red deficit areas in Tanzania, along the border with Kenya, are the result of high consumption of fuelwood and charcoal, stemming from high population density and low levels of production of woody biomass.

As a result of charcoal production for urban and peri-urban households, biomass resources have been devastated in a 200 to 300 kilometre radius around Luanda, Angola (IEA, 2006).

Figure 8: Woodfuel Supply and Demand Balance in East Africa

Note: Based on the estimated consumption of fuelwood and charcoal, and production of woody biomass within cells of approximately 10x10 km (5 arc-minutes), applying the Woodfuel Integrated Supply/Demand Overview Mapping (WISDOM) methodology. Source: Drigo, R. based on FAO (2006).