Tanzania’s forests are extensively threatened with excessive charcoal production fuelled by increased demand, especially in Dar es Salaam city which consumes over 50 per cent of all the charcoal produced in the country, the House heard on Wednesday.
Deputy Minister in the Vice-President’s Office (Environment), Mr Charles Kitwanga
Deputy Minister in the Vice-President’s Office (Environment), Mr Charles Kitwanga, said that it had been established that the country lost 400,000 hectares of forests per year due to increased charcoal production.
Mr Kitwanga said statistics further showed that 90 per cent of energy uses come from trees, whereas charcoal in most cases is used in urban centres like Dar es Salaam while firewood is used in rural areas for cooking and other uses.
The deputy minister was responding to Ms Anne Kilango (Same East – CCM) who claimed that records had it that Tanzania produced one million tonnes of charcoal annually, 50 per cent of which was consumed in Dar es Salaam alone and thus demanded to know the environmental impact caused by such massive charcoal production.
Ms Kilango also suggested that it was high time the use of charcoal in Dar es Salaam was abolished because the city was almost wholly electrified, thus had an advantage of other alternatives that could help to address environmental impacts caused by charcoal production.
Mr Kitwanga mentioned some the impacts caused by excessive charcoal burning as increased air pollution characterized by emission of tonnes of carbon dioxide, loss of forest cover which ultimately causes degradation of soil quality by increased soil erosion, degradation of water sources and disruption of rainfall patterns including inducing draught.
“In the current exploitation of this important natural resource, its sustainability is severely challenged and the whole concept of the forest being renewable is put into question,” he said.
The deputy minister said households in Tanzania generally used a combination of energy sources for cooking that could be categorized as agricultural residues and fuel wood, charcoal and kerosene while only 20 per cent of the entire population was connected to electric power.
By Christopher Majaliwa, Tanzania Daily News
