Geography Producing charcoal in a sub-Saharan dryland

Wood charcoal is the most important cooking fuel for urban households throughout sub-Saharan Africa, while it is generally produced in rural areas. Despite its importance as an energy and income source, decision-makers continue to disregard the needs of rural small-scale producers. Official regulations focus mainly on large-scale production areas and thus do not fit all highly variable production settings. Consequently, the impact of small-scale charcoal production on the environment in connection with the significance of this livelihood for rural communities is currently not known to provide the basis for more fine-tuned policies, this dissertation reconstructs the complex interdependencies between environmental and socio-economic dynamics, household assets, and livelihood outcomes from charcoal production in Pokot Central (Kenya), a remote rural region facing many issues shared by sub-Saharan drylands. The methodology is based on remote sensing of different spatial and temporal scales, social science data, and local knowledge, which complement each other at every step of the analysis. Results represented here reveal complex land-use and land-cover dynamics for the study area between the 1960s and 2017. Most of these changes are related to bush encroachment into former pastures due to conflict, changing management regimes, and climatic reasons. Local informants perceive charcoal production to play an important role in the process of deforestation and decrease of canopy cover. This link, however, could not be corroborated based on remotely sensed data. Neither a long-term Landsat analysis, nor a detailed mapping using an unmanned aerial system found significant effects of charcoal production on the vegetation structure. Instead, increased population as well as agricultural expansion appear more important. Despite possible environmental effects, more than half of the surveyed respondents depended on charcoal as an income source at least once. For them, the revenues were essential to purchase food and transform communally owned natural capital into privately owned human and financial assets. Although the occupation is often used as a mitigation strategy to compensate shocks, its potential as a safety net is not universal as it strongly depends on market access. The dissertation concludes that the small-scale mode of production and the presence of informal regulations are reasons why negative effects on the environment are not (yet) pronounced compared to larger-scale production areas. Nevertheless, before a rising demand can lead to an industrialisation of the process, site-specific strategies are needed. These should consider management of bush encroachment as well as existing informal regulations. By including local producers in the decision making, the charcoal sector could be transformed to provide an environmentally and socio-economically sustainable income  for rural communities.  

PhD Candidate: Maike Petersen
Funding: DFG
Project: Producing Charcoal in the Sub-Saharan Drylands: The Contested Fuelscape of Central Pokot, Kenya (NU 102/14-1)
Duration:

Petersen M & Nüsser M (2022): Using an Unmanned Aerial System to analyse environmental impacts of charcoal production on tropical savanna ecosystems in northwestern Kenya. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 194, 620. doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10241-2

Petersen M, Bergmann C, Roden P & Nüsser M (2021): Contextualizing Land-Use and Land-Cover Change with Local Knowledge: A Case Study from Pokot Central, Kenya. Land Degradation and Development doi:10.1002/ldr.3961

Petersen M, Kamurio CN, Kortom CD & Nüsser M (2021): Charcoal producers and the pandemic: Effects of COVID-19 in Pokot Central, Kenya. Erdkunde 75 (2), 121–137. doi:10.3112/erdkunde.2021.02.04