出版社：International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
摘要：It is estimated that about two-thirds of Africa’s population (around 600 million
people) rely on traditional biomass energy sources such as fuelwood, charcoal,
agricultural waste, and animal dung to meet their daily cooking and heating
needs. The use of these energy sources can be detrimental to both human
emancipation and the environment. Indeed, indoor pollution from poor combustion
in cooking stoves is responsible for approximately as many deaths annually as malaria
or tuberculosis. As basic energy requirements are vital to sustain life and cannot be
reduced, the absence of alternative energy sources is particularly problematic.
Within poor African communities, much time and physical energy is devoted
to basic subsistence activities, including collecting fuelwood. This clearly increases
marginalization and limits people’s ability to improve their living conditions. Harvesting
fuelwood unsustainably also contributes to deforestation, which not only harms the
environment but increases the distance people have to go to collect fuel and decreases
the associated services provided by the forest, such as food provision.
