BY PURITY LAMARA

On January 11, 2023, the Chief Administrative Officer Gulu District received a letter from the Ministry of Water and Environment to implement a directive on a ban of charcoal burning and to suspend issuance of all forms of licenses for forest produce movements.

This directive was received with a mixture of feelings as local leaders of Gulu District remained grumbling, indicating that the ministry had not consulted them on how the matter would be handled.
The leaders, according to sources, pondered their next move in a crisis meeting where they raised issues such as poverty, unemployment and what would happen to the families whose livelihoods solely depend on charcoal banning.

A meeting convened by the Gulu District Chairperson, Mr Christopher Opiyo Ateker including the Resident District Commissioner, the National Forestry officials, police and other stakeholders ended without coming to a conclusion.

“We are not sure how to handle this matter because most of the households use charcoal, and many youth have employment in the trade so we don’t know what to do,” said a top local leader who preferred to speak to News 24/7 on condition of anonymity.

The source also says that the leaders are also confused with the reality that comes with charcoal burning and one of them being environmental destruction as well as deforestation.

Mr David Ongom the spokesperson of Aswa regional police.

Mr David Ongom the Aswa river regional police spokesperson says that the local leaders are at logger-heads because they think this will only apply to Gulu District.

“The letter was only banning charcoal burning in Gulu district and the other RDCs in the other districts are complaining,” Mr Ongom said.

“The letter wasn’t very clear on how the process is going to be implemented and they said that directive cannot only apply to Gulu district but it must be applied to all the districts in the region,” he added.

“As for the permit I directed CAO to hand over the permit to the minister of water and environment and there is nobody who is opposed to that though they did not consult us before passing on the directive. But we are complying with it. Though the exact number of the permit issued wasn’t revealed,” Mr Opiyo, the district chairman, told News 24/7 in an interview.

“As soon as we received the directives in a letter through social media as the supervisor of the CAO, I directed the CAO to respond by notifying all the sub county chiefs. That is the senior assistant secretary,” he added.

The Uganda National Household 2019/20 survey indicated that there had been a surge in the number of households using charcoal to 73 percent from 64 percent in 2016/17.
73% of Ugandans during the survey done in 2019/20 were using firewood to cook up from 64% who were using firewood in a similar survey done in 2016/17.

Also, the number of people in urban areas using firewood to cook where the figure increases from 22% in the 2016/17 survey to 29% in the 2019/20 survey.

On the open market charcoal ranges anywhere between Shs60, 000 to Shs120,000. At a wholesale price, most of the dealers that we talked to for this story revealed that they sell a sack of charcoal at Shs35, 000 but also factor in transport costs and other factors.

The charcoal that moves within the country is not taxed by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) that means that the cash that is released from the trade goes clean into one’s pocket.

Authorities say that the people who are in the charcoal business are spread across the region and it is hard to ascertain the number of trucks that exit the region via Agago, Kitgum, Lamwo to the central part of the country where the business is very lucrative.

“If there are no clear directives stipulated then it’s hard for the police to implement the directives. It is a challenge to us because it causes conflict in interest. The trucks that pass via Gulu carrying charcoal are many but the exact statistics I don’t know. All I know is that the environmental police and NFA were always implementing and the trucks impounded were always parked at the National Forest Authority offices there,” Mr Ongom says.

The effects and intervention on deforestation
It is estimated, according to reports, that we use slightly over 30,000 tones of firewood per year, which translates to many trees that are cut down. The reports also indicate that in the last financial year alone, we spent over Shs1.6 billion on procuring firewood.

Figures show that over 590,000 hectares of tree cover is lost to illegal charcoal burning and logging which is rapidly being cleared.

According to the Global Forest Watch, the district lost 988 hectares to these activities in 2021 alone. It is also estimated that between 2001 and 2021, Gulu lost 38,700 hectares of tree cover.

“The clearing of the tree covers has greatly impacted the climate change in the country. The rainy season is not the normal one people used to know and the planting of food is being affected. Food production is becoming very hard yet the majority of the people depend on subsistence farming to provide for their families what to eat and sometimes sell the food for money,” a-2022-Global Forest Watch report indicated.

It also says that there are always prolonged dry seasons these days. This is because of the low evapotranspiration since many trees have been cut down and the ones who release some vapor in the atmosphere are very scarce. A lot of greenhouse gases are also emitted in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide which is also harmful to our health as human beings.

In Gulu District, under the Project for Restoration of Livelihoods in Northern Uganda (PRELNOR), Mr. Opiyo says 17 groups from Bungatira, Palaro, Paicho, Omel, and Owor sub-counties have been supported with various species of tree seedlings. This is intended to reduce the cutting down of trees for fuel.

There have also been efforts from the private sector to reduce the use of charcoal and firewood by introducing the use of biogas.

Last year the Electricity Regulatory Authority signed a memorandum of understanding with Uganda Prisons Service to kickstart a pilot project that intends to convert the cooking services in prisons from the use of charcoal to electricity.

If this is realised, we shall all translate into a biogas era. For instance, a 6kg gas cylinder, which previously cost Shs49,000 at some gas dealerships, has now almost doubled to Shs70,000. With the prices not coming down anytime soon, electricity could become an alternative.