Kenya’s charcoal industry may be mostly informal, but it’s a big deal to the millions of people who rely on it for fuel or to earn a living. Charcoal is produced across at least 20% of the country, including in counties such as Kitui, Baringo, Kilifi, Kajiado, and Tana River. The charcoal trade employs around 700 000 people and has an annual market value of over US$427 million.
This makes it Kenya’s fourth biggest revenue earner after tourism, horticulture, and tea. Almost 1.4 million (out of over 12 million) households in the country depend on it, making charcoal the third most relied on cooking fuel after firewood and liquefied petroleum gas.
But charcoal production is taking a toll on local ecosystems. Large-scale tree felling is threatening the survival of over 100 local species, such as the Acacia, and causing the destruction of water catchment areas.
To address environmental concerns, the Kenyan government has imposed a series of trade bans on the charcoal business. In February 2018, it also renewed its 2017 ban on logging from public and community forests, and some county governments followed suit. The bans are set to end this year, although they may be renewed.
However, the Kenyan government’s responses to the production and trading of charcoal, including bans and other policy measures, are failing to ensure the sustainability of its production or protect the environment. They’ve also led to widespread smuggling. Rather than helping to regulate the trade and stem the environmental damage, the bans have driven the charcoal business underground.
Corruption enables charcoal smuggling both in Kenya and across the borders to Tanzania, Uganda, and South Sudan. In the counties where it is only legal to move charcoal internally, such as Kitui, smugglers forge permits or bribe state officers to move the product out of the county.
Reports suggest that cartels made up of state actors – including chiefs, police, county inspectorates, politicians, and Kenya Forest Service officials – are involved in moving illicit charcoal within the country and to neighbouring states. Bribes cost the smuggler upwards of US$90 regardless of the number of charcoal bags and trucks.
The fine for smuggling charcoal inside Kenya, as well as in neighbouring countries, is US$90 per bag or three months’ imprisonment. While there have been cases of smugglers being fined by the Kenyan courts, this penalty is minimal when compared to the potential profits. In some cases, it’s possible for smugglers to pay the fine and then bribe the police to release the charcoal to its destination.
The Charcoal Rules and Regulations, 2015, allows the production of charcoal only from government land. However, most charcoal is produced from privately owned and managed land. Private landowners must be licensed to produce charcoal for commercial purposes or to produce more than three bags for personal use.
Distinguishing whether charcoal has been produced from government or private land is impossible, as no identification marking system is able to effectively achieve this result.
To make charcoal production efficient and effective, regulations such as the National Environment Policy, 2013, emphasise a need for divergent and sustainable environmental programmes. These include tree-replanting schemes, efficient charcoal-producing kilns, tree inter-cropping, and civic education on environment protection. However, most of these programmes have either not been implemented or are ineffective.
Other renewable energy sources, such as coconut husks or briquettes made from sawmill dust, haven’t been popularly accepted as alternatives to charcoal. This is because charcoal production involves the use of low-cost traditional kilns, while alternatives such as briquettes are expensive to produce. Buying and installing machines such as dryers, which need to be set up in a factory-like environment, requires a fair amount of capital.
According to Murefu Barasa, managing partner of EED Advisory Limited, which works on energy challenges, ‘charcoal smuggling will not be ended by attempts to formalise the trade or make its production sustainable'.
Barasa explains that the current price of charcoal ‘does not include the cost of the raw materials because the trees are simply felled and not paid for'. Thus, formalising the trade would have to factor in the cost of the wood itself, making charcoal more expensive than it currently is.
Further, bans have already resulted in an increase in the price of charcoal. Charcoal in Kenya is now more expensive than kerosene, which affects the livelihoods and quality of life of many Kenyans.
The solution to charcoal dependency and smuggling lies outside the sector. Cleaner and more modern cooking fuels, such as electricity and liquefied petroleum gas, should be made cheaper to encourage households to use these as a preferred source of energy.
Kenya is Africa’s largest producer of geothermal energy and has an electricity penetration of 75%, yet the cost of access is still too high for many Kenyans. The country also has a strategy to make liquefied petroleum gas the primary cooking fuel through subsidies and other interventions, but implementation is slow. Prioritising access to such alternatives would reduce dependency on charcoal.
Instead of bans, county governments could consider offering charcoal-producing communities in rural areas alternative livelihood programmes. More emphasis on other agriculture-related activities such as tree planting would reduce their dependency on charcoal as a source of income.
Lastly, the United Nations Environment Programme has published many reports on land restoration, including how this can align with the Sustainable Development Goals. Kenya could consider developing programme guidelines on the restoration of ecosystems that have been damaged by charcoal production on both public and private lands.
Focusing resources and attention on these programmes, in addition to bans and smuggling will be addressing environmental and livelihoods insecurity. However if the pockets of officials are to be negatively affected by this focus, the social and environmental consequences, no matter how dire, receive limited attention.
Mohamed Daghar, Regional Coordinator – Eastern Africa, ENACT project, ISS
