The challenges of wood energy in Central Africa

Africa faces two major challenges due to the extremely rapid increase of its population: How can we increasingly provide abundant food supply quantities and in particular how can we provide to these populations the energy needed for cooking food? These issues go far beyond the African continent alone. On the one hand, this implies larger agricultural areas, often at the expense of the forest where the soil is more fertile; on the other hand, the wood from these agricultural clearings is used as firewood or turned into charcoal. With strong population growth to feed, the fallow are not as long, the land becomes depleted and the wood is increasingly rare: They must go further in the sprawling city to seek food and fuelwood. Supported by the European Union , the Makala project "Sustainable management of wood energy resources in Central Africa" ​​was undertaken to understand and quantify the problem and propose solutions to stop this vicious cycle of environmental degradation and the difficulty of rural and urban populations to obtain domestic energy. The results of this project carried out from 2009 to 2013, in Kinshasa and Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, are the heart of this book. The state of the wood energy consumption in large cities, particularly in the supply area of Kinshasa are presented first, then the essential proper management of the timber resource, so useful for tree management tools and forest. Then models which are available for managing this resource developed under this project. Finally, the authors develop prospects and avenues of research to provide answers to the needs for food and fuel wood resources in these areas in a sustainable manner.

Summary:

Part 1 - Knowledge of the resource
1. The wood energy of Kinshasa and Kisangani sector ( DRC)
2. Changes in vegetation cover and carbon stocks in the supply area of Kinshasa
Part 2 - Tools for sustainable management of wood energy in the outskirts of cities
3. The simple management plans for community resources
4. A participatory approach to knowledge sharing
5. Secure tenure status of village forest plantations
6. Improved traditional kiln carbonization
7. Local perceptions of soils and their evolution in Batandu populations
Part 3 - Sustainable Resource Management
8. Local community forest management and wood energy
9. Assisted natural regeneration, a tool to make the most productive fallow
10. Agroforestry plantations of Mampu auriculiformis Acacia, an innovative agroforestry system
11. Reintroduce the tree in the cropping system: successes and challenges of agroforestry village
12. Sustainable management of the wood energy resource on the outskirts of Brazzaville: Challenges and Opportunities
13. Charcoal species forest around Kisangani
14. Planting trees in natural forests of picking culture
Part 4 - Perspectives
15. Redd+ and wood energy: between regulation and incentives, sustainable development issues
16. Secure source of wood energy: from reflection to action
17. Spatial planning: resource management for wood energy
18. Biomass energy in Central Africa: some predictions