The potential of agroforestry in the provision of sustainable woodfuel in sub-Saharan Africa

By M. Iiyama, H. Neufeldt, P. Dobie, M. Njenga, G. Ndegwa, R. Jamnadass. 2014

188 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Woodfuel plays a critical role in energy provision in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and is predicted to remain dominant within the energy portfolio of the population in the coming decades. Although current inefficient technologies of production and consumption are associated with negative socio-economic and environmental outcomes, projected charcoal intensive pathways along with urbanization may further accelerate pressures on tree covers. This paper reviews the status of the woodfuel sector in SSA, and estimates the magnitude of impacts of increasing wood demand for charcoal production on tree cover, which will be obviously unsustainable under business-as-usual scenarios. Agroforestry, if widely adopted as an integrated strategy together with improved kilns and stoves, can have a significant impact to reduce wood harvest pressures in forests through sustainably supplying trees on farm. A systematic approach is required to promote multi-purpose agroforestry systems compatible with farmers’ needs under local farming systems and current dryland socio-economic contexts.

Subfields: Forestry, Global and Planetary Change, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e378681d02fb17812b3235ade8e47e06da318635

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Forestry

1. Z. Tchoundjeu
2. R. Leakey

In Global and Planetary Change

1. M. van Noordwijk

In Pollution

1. C. Njiru
2. R. Leakey
3. S. Letema
4. Z. Tchoundjeu

Citations in the corpus

• Impacts of large‐scale forest restoration on socioeconomic status and local livelihoods: what we know and do not know (2016, background): “Woodfuel is a key resource, benefiting not only women, but also the poorer households (Iiyama et al. 2014).”
• The management of tree genetic resources and the livelihoods of rural communities in the tropics: non-timber forest products, smallholder agroforestry practices and tree commodity crops (2014, background): “…energy needs met be woodfuels in Malawi and Mali) indicated just how important woodfuel is as an energy source in the continent (a fact often neglected in policy discussions on ‘energy futures’ in Africa, which place unrealistic emphasis on ‘more modern’ energy sources there; Iiyama et al., 2014).”
• Knowledge gaps and research needs concerning agroforestry's contribution to sustainable development goals in Africa (2014, background): “On the evidence of this special issue, it is clear that successful agroforestry systems require favourable sites [18], appropriate tree and crop germplasm [31], adoption of suitable management practices and integration of those practices into rural livelihood systems [4,20,32– 35].”
• Energy Poverty and Its Implication on Standard of Living in Kirinyaga, Kenya (2018, background): “Inmany developing countries, biomass for cooking accounts for over 90% of household energy usage, with sub-Saharan Africa having the world’s largest share of per capita wood fuel consumption when compared to the global average per annum [76].”