Beyond the Woodfuel Crisis: People, Land and Trees in Africa

Abstract

The woodfuel ‘crisis’ of developing countries was ‘discovered’ in the mid-1970s at the time the world was gripped by the energy crisis that followed the oil price shocks of 1973–4. The scale of deforestation across the Third World was already recognised. As energy analysts and anthropologists began to pile up the evidence across the developing world about the huge scale of woodfuel use and the difficulties that millions seemed to be facing in getting enough wood as tree stocks declined, it seemed natural to regard both types of crisis as essentially similar.