Sustainable Charcoal
Deforestation is the problem. We want to be the solution.
At Kijani Forestry, we sustainably harvest the trees grown in our Nursery Hubs through a short-rotation coppicing system – a proven technique to create a sustainable harvest of fuelwood for generations. That allows us to continually harvest new fuelwood for charcoal production without deforesting.
Coppice (n.): An area of woodland in which the trees or shrubs are periodically cut back to ground level to stimulate growth and provide firewood or timber.
But then we take it a step further: Kijani has utilizes highly efficient kiln technology and production methodology to produce 80% more charcoal from the same amount of biomass than traditional methods. We provide training and free access to this technology to existing charcoal producers so they can reduce their fuelwood consumption while maintaining the same output. We ensure any endangered species or non-shrub trees are not turned into charcoal through our verification process.
Once harvested, we provide training and tools to manage the regrowth of the trees through Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). FMNR has proven to increase the growth rate of trees after cutting, leading to nearly three times the biomass over seven years for certain species!
