Household Energy Consumption and Deforestation Patterns

Dear Colleagues,

Globally increasing discourses on environmental crises are driving the enclosure of natural resource commons; consequently, the question of social and environmental justice is central in the re-allocation of access rights and the re-arrangement of decision-making processes in forest governance. In this context, the deforestation and biodiversity erosion/loss due to woodfuel (fuelwood and charcoal) harvesting for selling and its links with poverty still require deeper and more accurate research. At the same time, the projected fuelwood crisis has never materialised since the 1980s, and the anticipated transition to “modern energy sources” did not happen either. Recently, fossil fuels’ replacement by sustainable woodfuel use has even been considered a possible complementary route in climate change mitigation strategies.

Given the diversity of environmental, socio-economic, and political contexts and the complexity of deforestation drivers and actors, future research should reduce overgeneralizations and misrepresentations of the links between poverty and deforestation by woodfuel production for household consumption. Hopefully, it can also contribute to tackling the dispossession and disempowerment of local people in forest governance.

For this Special Issue, contributions should involve new empirical materials focusing on agrarian, rural, and/or urban settings of the global south. We welcome the submission of articles addressing one or several of the following topics:

• What are the energy consumption patterns of poor rural households (HH) for cooking, heating, and lighting? And/or what are the energy consumption patterns of poor urban HH? How are they changing, and what are the key drivers of change?
• What is the contribution of fuelwood harvesting and charcoal production for selling in poverty reduction/alleviation of poor rural and/or peri-urban HH? Is it possible to distinguish an array of sub-groups between biomass-dependent and biomass-specialized HH? How does charcoal production relate to HH agricultural practices?
• How is charcoal income being distributed along the value chain (including, producers, wholesalers, retailers, transporters, and forestry and police officials)?
• How sustainable is charcoal production in relation to forest degradation/afforestation/reforestation processes?
• How can we effectively measure and keep track of forest degradation caused by woodfuel harvesting?
• Is the so-called energy transition occurring in some places or does the pressure on woody biomass resources continue? Which energy mixes are being adopted by rural and/or urban households? Which factors determine given energy mixes?
• What is the impact of restrictive policies on charcoal, including trading bans, on deforestation/afforestation patterns?
• Which woodfuels policies, laws, and enforcement and regulatory capacities can contribute to ecological sustainability?
• How do religious practices, moral arrangements, and spiritual agencies interfere in HH decision-making processes related to forest degradation/afforestation/reforestation processes?
• How effective can tourism and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) business plans be in generating local revenues? Are these sustainable economic alternatives for forest harvest or do they produce welfare losses? How do they stand the test of time?
• What happens when the charcoal market frontier arrives? Do moral codes necessarily adjust to adapt to the need and opportunity to sell? If yes, to what extent? What concessions are made? Does it change the way the rural territory is occupied? Does it change local power structures or is it transmitted through them by strengthening them?

Dr. Marina P. Temudo
Dr. Rodrigo Bulamah
Filipa Zacarias
Guest Editors

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• developing countries
• deforestation
• woodfuels
• household energy consumption
• wood biomass energy value chains
• energy mixes/energy transition
• forest management and policies