Fuelwood and rural energy production and supply in the humid tropics

This book is a contribution to the Natural Resources Programme of the United Nations University. It had its origins in a meeting in Freiburg in February 1977 in which an attempt was made to identify key natural resource research fields in the humid tropics within which we could hope to make a significant contribution. One of these fields was recognised as the set of problems created by the dependence of large numbers of people on fuelwood for cooking and heating. This set involved difficulties in supply, in many cases because of a diminishing resource. These difficulties were made worse by the rising costs of alternative fuels. A related problem was the environmental damage associated with reduction in the area of woodland and forest, which had serious long term implications. A rural energy research project to study these problems (supported by the United Nations University) was eventually established at the University of Ife in southern Nigeria. We were then asked by Professor Manshard, vice-rector of the Natural Resources Programme, to produce a report which would examine for tropical Africa and southern Asia the wide range of problems connected with fuelwood exploitation. For this purpose we made a number of visits to research establishments in tropical Africa and southern Asia, and also to the Forestry Research Department of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations where we had access to a collection of original research reports and engaged in a fruitful series of discussions.