Charcoal in Haiti : A National Assessment of Charcoal Production and Consumption Trends
A widely cited report from 1979 suggested that existing wood supplies in Haiti would be enough to meet increasing charcoal demand until around the year 2000, but that ongoing charcoal production could result in an environmental ‘apocalypse’ (Voltai...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/697221548446232632/Charcoal-in-Haiti-A-National-Assessment-of-Charcoal-Production-and-Consumption-Trends http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31257 |
| Summary: | A widely cited report from 1979
suggested that existing wood supplies in Haiti would be
enough to meet increasing charcoal demand until around the
year 2000, but that ongoing charcoal production could result
in an environmental ‘apocalypse’ (Voltaire 1979, 21, 23) The
prediction that wood supplies in Haiti would be exhausted by
2000 was also supported by a report on trends emerging from
early remote sensing analyses of aerial photographs spanning
from 1956 to 1978, for threedifferent locations in Haiti
(Cohen 1984, v–iv). And yet, some 40 years later, Haitians
continue to produce large quantities of charcoal despite
these dire predictions to the contrary. The estimations and
subsequent extrapolations presented here are conservative,
using midrange estimates on a number of variables, including
charcoal bag carrying capacities for different-sized
vehicles in the classificatory typology, an average weight
assumption for charcoal bags, and the utilization of annual
extrapolation methods (for Port-au-Prince and all of Haiti)
based on extending data sampled during representative low
and peak periods of charcoal production to corresponding low
and peak seasons across the entire year. This research
provides targeted answers to a narrow set of research
questions, helping to fill an important information gap in
Haiti. Most notably, the total volume of charcoal moving
into Port-au-Prince has implications on the total required
volume of primary production of biomass for charcoal and the
total value of the charcoal value chains, demonstrating the
magnitude of importance of charcoal production for Haiti.
These two up-to-date figures may inform policy decisions for
development and government programming related to landscape
management, reforestation, tree planting, agroforestry, and
agricultural projects in Haiti. |
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