Environmental Benefits...

The Clean Energy Initiative (TCEI) development programme implemented by TCEC is helping to establish and support local entrepreneurs and micro-enterprises through wind powered micro-grids so that they do not have to rely on selling firewood or charcoal production as an income.

Climate change poses a serious challenge to social and economic development (OECD, 2006). Developing countries likes Mozambique are particularly vulnerable to climate risk because their economies are generally more dependent on climate-sensitive natural resources.  In Mozambique rain-fed agriculture is the main livelihood for subsistence farmers, with over 95% of the food crops being produced under rain-fed conditions (INGC.2009). Therefore, impacts of climate change such as prolonged drought periods are affecting human well-being severely. All sectors and social groups are obliged addressing it trough mitigation and adaptation measures.

Selling firewood and charcoal is often the only income source for many small-hold rural farmers

The Northern Province Cabo Delgado - where the project activities are focused - is amongst the least developed within the country. Average household yields per zone are very low and show no trends of increasing. Observed production growth has been primarily the result of increases in cultivated area, rather than increases in yield (INGC, 2009). Rapidly increasing populations have put considerable pressure on available crop land to produce more food per area but under worsening conditions of increasing temperatures, rainfall variation and soil degradation: Expansion of cultivated land in Mozambique is often linked  to the various stages of vegetation re-growth of fallow land in the traditional shifting cultivation system (INGC, 2009), which in turn, leads to reductions in soil fertility and increased soil and environmental degradation and erosion. The single most important source of risk for crop failure nation-wide is drought (INGC, 2009).

Biomass – firewood and charcoal – is the main energy resource, used by 80% of the population (MICOA, 2004). Rural areas rely basically on firewood, in urban and semi-urban areas more charcoal is used. The Mozambican National Energy Management reported a national firewood consume of nearly 10’000’000 tons of firewood per year and more than 2’000’000 tons of charcoal per year (MICOA, 2004). Selling firewood or charcoal production is often the only income source for many small-hold farmers (MICOA, 2005).

 20 May, 2010