Due to a population growth that increases demand for perceived low-cost plant-based energy sources, particularly charcoal, Uganda has long fought to conserve its forests.
In Africa and Asia, where some African cities rely nearly exclusively on charcoal for cooking, there is a higher reliance on charcoal or firewood, according to a 2018 report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation.
According to the European Space Agency, between 25% and 35% of the glasshouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming are produced by so-called biomass burning, which also includes periodical fires started on purpose to clear land for farming.
The majority of such fires take place in Africa’s tropical regions. In Uganda, an East African nation with 45 million inhabitants, charcoal is preferred in homes of all income levels, but especially in urban poor households. It is thought to be the best cooking method for several recipes that call for slow cooking.
Families in the middle class use both gas and charcoal burners.
Northern Uganda, the nation’s top source of charcoal, has long been the site of extensive forest degradation, and local authorities have long called for a complete ban on commercial production.
Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, recently issued an executive order prohibiting the commercial manufacture of charcoal in the region. This has disrupted a national economy that has long been driven by cultural sensibilities as well as the seeming abundance of charcoal.
How effective the president’s directive will be in the face of allegations of corruption and an impending shortage that will inevitably drive up the price of charcoal remains to be seen.
Despite the presidential directive and a law enabling local governments to control hazardous activities, charcoal manufacture continues.
The charcoal-burning enclave in a remote area of Gulu is still operational days after Museveni’s directive.
A little patch of bamboo gives way to a nearly naked section where trees have been cut down, with some juicy stumps remaining fresh.
The official, Patrick Komakech, the chairman of Patiko Sub-County, is furious and about to cry.
In many locations, lumber has been piled like illegal ivory, and a processing pile is emitting grey smoke.
A stack of charcoal-filled bags is nearby. In little tarp tents covered in drier leaves, the charcoal manufacturers slept.
“These people are destroying this environment,” claims Komakech. They were introduced and integrated into this community; they are not the local indigenous population. As you can see, they do this without so much as leaving any vegetation behind.
He surmises that the felled logs came from an African Shea tree, esteemed by the Acholi inhabitants of the area for both its delicious fruit and the cosmetic oil it produces.
One of the justifications the president gave for prohibiting the commercial production of charcoal there was the cutting down of the Shea tree.
However, the men who work here claim that they are only trying to make ends meet.
One claims that even in the State House, charcoal from northern Uganda is probably used.
Some claim that the landlords, who sell charcoal-making rights to interested merchants by the acre, are complicit in the tree-cutting.
“Even those policemen who are coming to beat us, they are cooking with charcoal,” says charcoal burner Peter Ejal.
“We are not here to spoil the environment. We are here by their orders, those people who are selling these trees.”
In Gulu, an acre of land with lots of trees can be purchased for up to $150, while the price may be significantly lower on distant ranches with abundant of greenery held by the poorest family.
When they have felled all the trees they were sold, the investors send out personnel equipped with power saws and machetes to work over designated regions.
When the guys are finished and all that is left are some saplings and shrubs, the scene may appear oddly devoid of any tree cover.
The charcoal is removed using trucks that are driven through the forest.
“We are not going to stop,” says Deo Ssenyimba, a ragtag charcoal maker, who’s been active in northern Uganda for 12 years.
“We stop and then we do what? Are we going to steal?”
Ssenyimba claims that each bag of charcoal he produces earns him roughly $3.
A bag costs around $14 in the nearby towns, but when the products go closer to Kampala, the capital, the price increases even more.
In areas like Gulu, where a former congressman recently led an attack on a vehicle that was looted of 380 sacks of charcoal, some local activists have established vigilante organizations.
The nation’s chief justice commended the suspect as a hero despite the fact that Odonga Otto has subsequently been charged with aggravated robbery.
“We decided to make central Uganda lose appetite for Acholi charcoal, this is now where my politics came in. I mobilized all the youths in the region to stop any truck carrying charcoal,” says former lawmaker Odonga Otto.
According to Museveni and Otto, some security personnel have provided armed security for truckers, while district governments in the area rely on licencing and levies for funding.
Otto has assisted in the seizure of several trucks in the last several weeks, including two that were just taken into custody and were waiting outside a police station when a throng assembled to try to take the goods one recent afternoon.
Otto claims he intends to file letters of intent to sue for any environmental protection violations on hundreds of local politicians.
The rest of Uganda is supposed to “lose appetite” for charcoal from his region, according to him.
“We managed to make the business risky. As of now, you drive a hundred kilometers, and you will not find any single truck carrying charcoal,” he says.
