 In Africa's rapidly expanding cities, public services can't keep up with urban population growth. Most people can't afford or don't have access to electricity or gas, and therefore depend on wood fuel to cook their meals. Charcoal is a booming business across the continent, but what happens when forests and woodlands can't cope with mounting demand for energy? Some countries have tried to restrict or ban charcoal production to protect the environment. But despite these efforts, charcoal continues to reach avid consumers, sometimes even crossing borders to meet market demand. New research by CIFOR eCrafts studied several border crossings in Cameroon, Kenya, Zambia and their neighbouring countries, finding a complex web of traders who are moving huge loads of charcoal between countries. For example, every week the far north region of Cameroon exports over 400 tonnes of charcoal to Nigeria and Chad. In the busier crossing between Uganda and Kenya, a single border point over 300 tonnes of charcoal are exported every month. This is a lot of charcoal and a lot of money. Yearly flows from the Central African Republic into Cameroon through the Garoua-Boulai crossing have been estimated at almost $180,000. Using all kinds of transport from trucks to bicycles and hand carts, charcoal travels very long distances through both formal and informal routes. In Uganda, Kenya crossing in busier, 12% of charcoal was reported to come all the way from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The further charcoal travels, the more difficult it is to trace its origin and determine whether it was sustainably sourced or produced. Policies on charcoal cross-border trade are generally inadequate and don't consider sustainable resource management options. Legal frameworks, when they exist, tend to be oriented towards the domestic market and even when there are restrictive export measures in place, these are never fully enforced. As a result, most cross-border trade is informal and sometimes illegal. For example, Zambia has banned all charcoal exports. Yet for decades, it has been an important supplier for the eight countries that it shares borders with. Keeping cross-border charcoal trade in the shadows undermines national efforts to promote more sustainable wood harvesting and charcoal production. Africa needs a regional approach to charcoal governance. Only through cooperation, countries can address the environmental and social challenges associated with charcoal cross-border trade.