NFA seeks to enforce charcoal ban, says prices likely to surge

President Museveni's Executive Order No. 3, released on May 24th, addressed serious issues such as environmental devastation caused by the charcoal industry.

Several months later, however, the presidential directive has had no discernible impact.

Now, the National Forestry Authority's Director of National Forests, Tom Rukundo, says that beginning this week, they will focus on the gaps in charcoal transportation that make it impossible to get it from Northern Uganda to other parts of the nation.

According to him, this is expected to hike the price of a sack of charcoal, which is now between sh100,000 and sh120,000.

He made the remarks during the official opening of the Uganda Baati annual environmental conservation campaign, codenamed "Safal Eye in the Wild Photography Competition."

The campaign's goal is to use photography to encourage environmental conservation.

Uganda has long struggled to conserve its forests, despite population growth that supports demand for low-cost plant-based energy sources, particularly charcoal.

According to 2018 research by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the use of charcoal or firewood is most prevalent in Africa and Asia, with some African towns relying almost totally on charcoal for cooking.

According to the European Space Agency, biomass burning accounts for 25% to 35% of climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions. This includes seasonal fires purposely set to clear land for crops.

The majority of these fires occur in Africa's tropical regions. In Uganda, an East African country of 45 million people, charcoal is preferred in houses of all income levels, but especially in those of the urban poor, as it is great for slow cooking certain delicacies.