Wood Charcoal Supply to Addis Ababa City and its Effect on the Environment

Charcoal is a major source of energy for cooking, heating and lightening in sub-Saharan African countries. The livelihood of many rural and urban people also depends on the proceeds obtained from the sell of charcoal. Thus this, study was conducted with the objective to quantify the amount of charcoal supplied to Addis Ababa city, the capital of Ethiopia and its means of transportation. It is a result of a one week follow up study on the inlet of charcoal into the city. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and SAS software. The result indicated that about 7,549 different sizes and weights of bags of charcoal were supplied to the city in a day, suggesting an equivalent of about 68,886 tones of charcoal per year and about 899, 818 trees to being cut to this supply, releasing about 125,717 – 167,623 tones of carbon to the atmosphere. About 35% of the total charcoal flowing into the city enters in the morning between 6:00 a.m. and 11:59 a.m. While, about 34%, 21% and 10% enters the city in the afternoon, during the night and evening, respectively. Of the 9,822 vehicles encountered, entering in to the city in a day, about 2,148 of them were coming with loads of charcoal, Isuzus and heavy Trucks such as tank Truck, daf Tractor, Mercedes-Benz Truck etc. being the major ones. The finding of the study also indicated, the high dependency of the city on charcoal as an energy source, negatively affecting the environment.