Analyzing aspects of land-use sustainability in Tanzania: Current forest degradation, urban charcoal demand, and impacts of future firewood and charcoal consumption

The forest sector plays a significant roles both directly and indirectly in Tanzania. In total 54% of the land area of mainland Tanzania is covered by different types of forests, the main ones being the miombo woodlands, woodland mosaics, mangrove and the tropical or rain forests with closed canopy. Forestry supports directly or indirectly other sectors including agriculture and tourism through provision of habitats for wildlife, water resources and catchments as well as maintaining hydrological balance and soil protection. It plays significant roles in biodiversity protection and recycling atmospheric gases, and provides construction materials, income and employment opportunities. 7’anzania’s wood harvest volume is difficult to estimate, but according to FAO official statistics the country’s total annual harvest of wood in 2014 was about 40 mill m3 of which more than 93% was used for firewood or charcoal production. In Tanzania, more than 90% of the population use fuelwood (i.e. charcoal and firewood) as main source of energy. Most of this fuelwood is supplied from the miombo woodlands which covers about half of the forest area in mainland Tanzania. The country’s demand of forest products is strongly increasing due to substantial economic and population growth and increased urbanization. Currently the population growth is 2.7% p.a., the economic growth is 6.9% p.a. while the urban population growth is about 5% p.a. Such growth rates imply increasing pressure on forest lands and forestry. Charcoal and firewood are key products from the forest in Tanzania and are the country’s main fuels for cooking, with charcoal mainly used in urban areas. Production and consumption of charcoal and firewood play a significant role in enhancing the livelihoods of people, but may also lead to adverse environmental impacts. In Tanzania, large uncertainties exist about the present quantities of fuelwood consumed, as well as about the future integrated development of fuelwood demand and supply. The main objectives of this study are to improve the knowledge base regarding the present and future production and consumption of charcoal and firewood in Tanzania and their impacts on forest sustainability. More specifically, the thesis addresses the following research questions: Qi. What is the extent of land degradation and land rehabilitation potential in Tanzania? Qz. Which information do previous studies provide about charcoal and firewood production and consumption in Tanzania? Q3. What are the effects of price, income and household size on charcoal consumption in the three Tanzanian urban areas Dodoma, Morogoro and Mtwara? Q4. T o what extent is it possible to: (i) develop a dynamic forest sector partial equilibrium model for mainland Tanzania which consistently links forestry data regarding tree species, forest growth and growing stock from about 32,000 single plots in Tanzania's national forest inventory NAFORMA, with socio-economic data regarding the country’s present and future consumption and production of charcoal and firewood; and (ii) apply this model for analyzing how assumptions regarding population growth, urbanization rate and economic growth would influence the future consumption and production of firewood, charcoal and poles, forest resource use, and forest sustainability? In this thesis those questions are addressed in four papers, one for each question. Most efforts have been made in developing the quantitative model described in Q4, and issues related to theories of land-use or policy analyses are only briefly discussed. Below follows a summary of the papers and chapters 4 and 5 of the synopsis. Paper 1 aims at (i) assessing the potential for land rehabilitation in various regions of Tanzania based on new data from NAFORMA, and (ii) reviewing main experiences and economic results gained in previous land rehabilitation studies in the country. It is found that about 49% (43.3 mill ha) of the total land area in mainland Tanzania is under either light (43%, 37.7 mill ha), moderate (5%, 4.4. mill ha) or heavy (1.3%, 1.2 mill ha) erosion. These figures are substantial and imply large opportunities for land rehabilitation. The present land degradation is high, and parts of the degraded areas could be reforested, thus giving increased sustainable supply of forest and food products and maintaining environmental benefits, including increased carbon sequestration for global climate change mitigation. Very few economic studies are found on the benefits and costs of land rehabilitation in Tanzania, and new studies are highly needed in order to identify and prioritize among the potential rehabilitation activities. In Paper II, a review is presented of studies of charcoal production and consumption in Tanzania, and promising new research tasks are identified. Many interesting and valuable studies have been done, and it is clearly seen how important charcoal consumption and production are both in a social, ecological and economic perspectives. However, the results of the studies diverge a lot and most of the reviewed studies lack clear hypotheses and specifications of behavior theories to be used for developing realistic and testable hypotheses. It is found that more research is needed on factors effecting charcoal demand - like changes in prices, income and policies, and for that, using national household surveys is recommended. More research is also needed about tree regeneration (time and volumes) in miombo woodlands; how various forms of land ownerships influence miombo woodlands management; the possibilities and preferability in Tanzania of establishing forest plantations for producing charcoal; total and distributional impacts of policies related to production or consumption of fuelwood; climate gas emission impacts of charcoal production and consumption; development of bio-economic models which make possible consistent analyses of ex ante defined possible changes from the present socio-economic and policy situation. In Paper III, results are presented from a survey of 360 households in the three Tanzanian cities Dodoma, Morogoro and Mtwara about the impacts of income, charcoal prices and household size on the household per capita charcoal consumption. For the total sample, statistically significant elasticities for charcoal per capita consumption were found to be 0.03, -0.13 and -0.62 for respectively per capita income, charcoal price and household size. In the low income group, statistically significant elasticities for annual charcoal per capita demand were found to be - 0.44 and -0.59 for respectively charcoal price and household size; in the middle income group only household size was found to be statistically significant with estimated elasticity -0.81; and in the high income group elasticities of 0.17 for per capita income and -0.44 for household size were found statistically significant. These results are based on small samples and should be viewed as exploratory results of value primarily as information for larger surveys. Paper IV has as primary objectives to develop a forest sector model which integrates wood supply from detailed forest data from Tanzania’s NFI (National Forest Inventory) NAFORMA with demand for wood products, and apply this model to evaluate sustainability impacts of the future production and consumption of firewood, charcoal and poles in mainland Tanzania. The developed model (TanzFor) is classified as an intertemporally optimized spatial equilibrium model, and links in an economic consistent framework supply and demand for fuelwood, poles and charcoal as well as forest industry products. The study is the first one applying this kind of model in Africa with data from a detailed NFI as NAFORMA and newly developed forest growth functions as basis for the wood supply. The model results show alarming negative impacts on forest growing stocks by the steadily increasing consumption of firewood and charcoal in Tanzania, mainly caused by high population growth, high urbanization rates, low utilization efficiencies in both charcoal production and consumption, and rather free access to forest land. Chapter 4 of the synopsis gives a more overall, perspectively oriented discussion of the results obtained in Papers I-IV, focusing on uncertainty, linkages between the four thesis papers, connections to land use theories, relevance of forest sector modeling in Tanzania, policy implications and future research. The following topics are mentioned as being among the most interesting ones for future research: Further use of the NAFORMA data in fuelwood analyses; provide more accurate data on the present and future consumption of charcoal and firewood; analyze wood supply impacts of various kinds of property right regimes and policy means; improving forest sector modelling in Tanzania both regarding data input quality and incorporation of land property/ownership specifications; applying the model in estimating GHG emission and impacts of climate change in the forest sector; using the model in estimating impacts of policy means. It is emphasized, however, that like all models TanzFor has weaknesses and is a simplification of real life conditions, and that all TanzFor model results should be interpreted with that in mind. In Chapter 5 it is concluded that the above mentioned four research questions Q1-Q4 have been addressed and new results obtained which clearly show that the current consumption of wood in Tanzania is not sustainable. Tanzania is experiencing high and increasing production and consumption of charcoal particularly in urban areas where charcoal is the main type of energy for cooking. The results in this thesis indicate that challenges of fuelwood production and consumption will remain large in Tanzania for quite some time if no measures are taken to make cooking energy substitutes to charcoal more reliable and affordable than at present, and the charcoal production more efficient.

Government of Norway through the Higher Education Loan Board