Africa's charcoal trade is decimating fragile forest cover
Source: Associated Press
Africas charcoal trade is decimating fragile forest cover
By RODNEY MUHUMUZA
September 25, 2019
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) The machete-wielding men lodge themselves deep inside forests for weeks at a time, felling trees that will be incinerated into pieces of charcoal. Because they often work at night and target seemingly idle public land, they operate with relative impunity while decimating forests in parts of Africa.
Fires in Brazils Amazon rainforest have underscored the challenges of conserving the Earths forest cover, a substantial amount of which is found in Africa. After the Amazon, the Congo basin tropical rainforest covering territory the size of Western Europe is the worlds second largest, often referred to as the Earths second lung.
The worlds poorest continent, home to over 1.2 billion people, has long struggled to protect its forests amid a population explosion that fuels demand for plant-based energy sources seen by many as cheap, especially charcoal.
Some 25% to 35% of climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions come from so-called biomass burning, which also includes seasonal fires intentionally set to clear land for agriculture, according to the European Space Agency. The majority of those fires occur in tropical regions of Africa.
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