Resource information
Dry tropical woodlands provide around 80
percent of the energy needs of both urban and rural
populations in Africa and are of similar importance on a
more localized scale in other areas. They also provide
livestock fodder, building poles and many of the daily needs
of the rural people living in and around them. Concern about
the degradation and depletion of these woodlands date back a
long time. Large numbers of woodfuel projects were launched
but it soon became evident that many had started with
simplistic views of the problems they were addressing. Many
of the proposed solutions were impractical or depended on
continued inputs on labor and materials not available in the
long term. Others made unrealistic demands on local
administrations and institutions. Even more importantly, it
began to emerge that there were serious flaws in the
woodfuel supply and demand analysis on which the great
majority of these woodfuel projects were based. This had led
to a gradual evolution and change in thinking. The newly
emerging consensus suggests that the danger posed by
woodfuel harvesting is far less than previously supposed and
that the "woodful crisis" has been greatly
exaggerated. If the dry tropical woodlands are in danger, it
is not because they are being depleted by woodfuel
harvesting but because they are of little, if any, economic,
as opposed to environmental or social, value. It may be that
woodfuel harvesting can provide an economic reason for their preservation.
