Lumbumbashi depends on charcoal

Charcoal or "Makala" in Swahili is a highly energetic fuel. Most people in sub Saharan Africa use this charcoal to cook. It creates jobs for many people as you can see in this video, but deforestation, erosion and heath problems for users are a big problem.

Lumbumbashi for instance, the second most populated city in DR Congo with a population estimated at more than 3 million inhabitants. The city consumes about 150 000 tonnes of charcoal per year.
Lubumbashi is the capital of the mining province of Katanga to the south of the DRC.

It is all times, the most widely used by local people in Lubumbashi.

The charcoal is often produced more than 60 km from the city of Lubumbashi. The people who supply the urban markets ride their bikes for hours along dangerous roads. But all their efforts are of survival because they earn only $ 10 U.S. per bag.

The exploitation of charcoal has flourished since independence due to the rapid growth of urban population. The majority of this population uses wood almost exclusively (charcoal and firewood) as the sole energy source. The demand for wood has increased steadily in all municipalities.

If it was usually routed to the urban centers by carrying on the head or back during the colonial period, it is done today using rickshaws and trucks, or even by bicycle, as demonstrates our story today. It must be said that the inhabitants of that city, spend more than a third of their annual income in the purchase of firewood or charcoal.

In Lubumbashi before the founding of the city in 1910 by the Belgian, the area was covered by forest clear mixed with shreds of residual dense dry forest and gallery forest of the islets.

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• Africa
• DRCongo
• Congo
• Lumbumbashi
• charcoal
• makala
• energy
• fuel
• cooking
• forrest
• environment
• deforestation
• emmanuel
• pweto
• africanews