Jan.
17, 2013 — The dwindling reserves of fuelwood in Africa have been
illuminated in a new study published January 18, which shows a bleak outlook
for supplies across savannas in South Africa.
Presenting
their findings in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters,
researchers have found that at current consumption levels in the communal areas
of Lowveld, South Africa, reserves of fuelwood could be totally exhausted
within 13 years.
The
consequences are significant, with around half of the 2.4 million rural
households in the country using wood as their primary fuel source, burning
between four and seven million tonnes per year.
Consumption
of fuelwood is greater across the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, which includes
countries significantly less developed than South Africa -- around 80 per cent
of households rely on fuelwood as their primary energy source.
The
researchers measured the amount of biomass currently covering the study areas
using the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO) -- an aircraft loaded with
state-of-the-art imaging systems (funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation).
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