Protecting forests in a country fuelled by wood

With 95 percent of Niger's 10 million people depending on firewood as their main source of household fuel, there has been growing pressure on the remaining forests in the semi-arid nation.

In 1996, 153,000 mt of wood were transported to Niamey for use by households in the Niger capital. By 2002, the amount had increased to 188,000 mt, according to a survey on the wood sector, conducted by the Projet d'energie domestique (PED - Household Energy Project). The amount transported in 2002 to Niger's three main towns, Niamey, Maradi and Zinder, was 254,000 mt.

A significant population increase in recent years has put considerable pressure on energy sources, especially firewood. This is turn has helped increase the country's deforestation rate, which averaged 3.7 percent in 1990-2000. This has forced the authorities to seek new ways to tackle the issue, starting with the Household Energy Strategy.

The SED is a new forestry policy based on making rural populations responsible for the management and sustainable use of their timber resources. It hinges on the establishment of "rural wood markets", village-based organisations, each of which is granted a forest concession registered in its name, according to Hamissou Garba, director of the project.

Wood may be cut only by some villagers - generally local lumberjacks trained and supervised by officials of the environmental services. They are expected to know the species of trees which the community is authorised to cut - no more than four - when and how much can be felled in a given year, and how to cut them so as to enable regeneration.

Communities are supposed to manage and protect their resources while harvesting firewood, which they sell in major urban centres, and applying felling techniques that allow the trees to grow back.