Through massive contributions to afforestation, some Nigerians living in Cameroon are producing eco-charcoal through the use of biomass.
According to a report by Mongabay, these Nigerians are refugees who fled from the Northern part of Nigeria in 2016 to Cameroon as a result of Boko Haram activities.
The report noted that the Lutheran World Federation, a Protestant nonprofit in 2017, which committed itself to support the refugees in the camp, introduced an alternative to firewood: eco-charcoal briquettes.
The raw material for production was initially comprised entirely of household waste. But demand soon outstripped the supply, according to Tcheou Tcheou Samading Abel, environment and energy officer at L’Agence de Développement Économique et Social (ADES), an international NGO that’s running the alternative charcoal project as well as another one promoting reforestation.
He said, “As more and more people adopted the use of eco-charcoal and learned how to produce it, there was an acute shortage of raw material — household waste.
“So they turned to SEMRY, the Yagoua Rice Farming Expansion and Modernization Company, for rice husks, “and they responded favourably. Since then, the facility has been able to rely on a stable supply of tons of rice husks from SEMRY.”
Abel indicates that since the initiative was launched in 2017, it has trained at least 8,000 households on the production of eco-charcoal from biomass.
The briquette production program at Minawao is a sustainable mechanism, says Asaba Lynda Sirri, environmental education officer at Voice of Nature (VoNat), a community-based biodiversity conservation and sustainable development NGO.
Sirri said that wider adoption of briquettes like these across Cameroon could help reduce the felling of trees for firewood and limit the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. She says briquettes are a cost-effective option for low-income households while also providing a possible source of income for small-scale producers.
One of the refugees, Ousmane Bidal , who keeps watch over one of two production units that have been established, said that there are buildings that houses a solar dryer, large sieves, a grinding machine, and other equipment.
There were bags filled with corn cobs, groundnut shells, rice husks, grass, fallen tree leaves, and other organic household waste.
This varied feedstock is put into a metal barrel and toasted. It’s then ground, mixed with water to form a paste, and compressed by hand or using a machine. The resulting bricks or balls are then dried in the sun.
Bidal says this facility produces an average of 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of briquettes a day.
“This innovative cooking energy source is a game changer and has significantly helped us here in the camp,” Bidal said.
Another refugee, a 42-year-old Djumai Bitrus, said eco-charcoal is an answer to the chronic scarcity of fuelwood.
She said, “I was compelled to learn how to produce and use charcoal from groundnut shells because there is a lack of firewood which I usually used when I arrived here in 2015.”
The eco-charcoal project in Minawao holds promise in the effort to protect the ecosystem of Cameroon’s Far North, says Xavier Bourgois, a spokesperson for the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which runs the camp.
Bourgois said the initiative has made the settlement safer, and more inclusive, resilient and sustainable. “Women are protected as they no longer have to expose themselves to the risk of attacks by going out of the camp in search of fuelwood,” he told Mongabay by email.
As there are no indications the refugees will soon return home, the ecological charcoal project in Minawao holds promise in the race to protect the fragile ecosystem of the camp and its surrounding.