Rush to turn ‘black diamonds’ into cash eats up Uganda’s forests, fruits
▻https://news.mongabay.com/2021/06/rush-to-turn-black-diamonds-into-cash-eats-up-ugandas-forests-fruits
As recently as 2018, only a little over 42% of Ugandans had access to electricity — many were too poor to afford it. As of 2016-17, 90% of all households burned wood fuel for cooking, with just 15.5% using charcoal in rural areas, but 66.4% of urban households using it.
Those using charcoal account for roughly 23% of the country’s total population, which means that some 10.7 million citizens in a nation of 46.8 million rely on charcoal to cook their meals, based on recent U.N. data.
Charcoal producers are working hard to meet this exploding demand, degrading and depleting the nation’s forest reserves, and now buying up fruit trees on private lands to make into briquettes. Many charcoal producers lack the licenses required by the government, so are cutting trees and making charcoal illegally.
The surging charcoal industry is destroying Uganda’s forests and biodiversity, while briquette burning is also causing respiratory and other health problems, and its carbon emissions are adding significantly to global climate change.