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Commonwealth
Forests | | |
 Trends
All statistics indicate that fuelwood consumption in developing countries is continuing to rise.
The challenge with the growing population will be determining the sustainability of the ‘green
revolution’. That is, is there really a clever way that the inputs in fuelwood production can be
manipulated, for example through the use of fertilisers or irrigation or through improved growth
rates by genetic engineering? In developed countries recent figures indicate that new
technologies can increase the use of fuelwood for wood pellets, ethanol and bio-refining and co-generation
in industrial facilities.
In both developed and developing economies the property rights assigned to fuelwood are often
very poor, the production of fuel is not seen as economically significant and there are no clear
targets for production that are linked to sustainability. These present major challenges to the
users of fuelwood irrespective of the status of the economy.
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