Europeans working in Africa often focus on areas related
to food. Attention is paid to nutrition,
ensuring that people are eating the right foods; to hygiene with regard to food
preparation, cleanliness and sanitation; and to agriculture, helping people get
the best yield of crops for domestic consumption and for sale. These things are all of great importance, especially
in a country like Uganda whose population has grown from 25 Million to 35
million in only 5 years. What is perhaps
just as important is finding a more sustainable way of cooking their food. Uganda does not have coal mines or piped gas,
its electricity is expensive and highly unreliable, and the initial purchase
cost of a re-usable gas canister and gas stove (like we use) is beyond the
means of most Ugandans. Even in the
capital city therefore, the vast majority of Ugandans cook with wood-charcoal
on a metal “siguri”, sometimes made from an old car-wheel hub. In rural areas where many people can’t even
afford a siguri or a sack of charcoal, cooking is often done with firewood
using a large pan over an open fire resting on three stones, as has been done
for centuries.
This is simply not sustainable. The production of wood charcoal (which is
made by part-burning wood to carbonise it) and collection of firewood are now the
primary causes of de-forestation in East Africa (especially as the
construction/carpentry timber industry is increasingly using managed plantations
of fast-growing eucalyptus & pine). Wood-charcoal
however, is usually made from cutting down whatever trees are available, with
the largest, oldest trees from primary forest yielding the most charcoal. Uganda’s tiny and densely populated neighbour
Rwanda has banned the production of wood charcoal out of concern for their few
remaining areas of forest. However,
having failed to effectively provide an alternative fuel, Rwandans are now
importing truckloads of wood-charcoal from neighbouring countries. Although this is not a common topic in the
vocabulary of many Ugandans, it is also a fact that burning wood, wood-charcoal
and kerosene also releases millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere,
further contributing to climate-change, – which Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly
susceptible to with its reliance on rain-fed agriculture.
In addition to its responsibility for stripping a whole
region of much of its forests, with all the consequences that entails for
rainfall patterns, soil quality, habitat destruction etc; burning wood charcoal/firewood
is also extremely unhealthy. Recent World
Health Organisation (WHO) research indicates that respiratory diseases now kill
more Sub-Saharan Africans every year than malaria does. Obviously people who smoke (which is very
rare in Uganda), and people who live in congested cities, drive old vehicles, or
work in poorly regulated factories are susceptible to a range of respiratory
hazards. However, in most rural areas
these factors are not relevant. What is
present, in almost every household across the whole region, is the smoke from
wood or wood-charcoal fires used for cooking, and at night-time the fumes from
kerosene lamps. In small and badly
ventilated homes it is not only the housewife that suffers from these fumes but
the whole household, especially children playing on the floor right next to where
their mother is cooking. Eye and skin
irritations are also common side-effects of burning these fuels.
Finally, as trees become ever scarcer, particularly on
the edges of towns, the cost of these fuels is increasing. WHO research now suggests that the average
family in Sub-Saharan Africa spends up to a third of their monthly income on
fuels: wood-charcoal or firewood for cooking, and kerosene for lighting.
In other words cooking on wood-charcoal is expensive,
unhealthy and extremely destructive to the natural environment at a local,
regional and global level.
The obvious antidote to the use of kerosene lighting is
the wider use of solar lighting (see other articles and projects). There is also an exciting alternative to
wood-charcoal, which is already used in various parts of the world and which we’ve
started to work with here in Kasese…
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