About 92 percent of households in Madagascar use charcoal and wood for cooking while the remaining 8 percent use gas and electricity, data published by WWF in Madagascar said Tuesday.
More than 400,000 tons of charcoal were used in the country in 2012. Half of charcoal produced in the Indian Ocean island country was used in the capital Antananarivo, while 20,000 to 30,000 tons were used by other big towns in the country, according to data from World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
More than 70 percent of coal or 5.3 million cubic meters came from peasant plantations, while 20 percent of it or 1.38 million cubic meters come from natural forests, data from the NGO Alliance Voahary Gasy said.The charcoal came from peasant forests plantations in the capital while it is from savage exploitation of natural forests in the southwestern of the country, the executive coordinator of Alliance Voahary Gasy, Andry Andriamanga, said.
Rindra Rakotoharifetra said that Madagascar still has a reserve of 10.9 million cubic meters of charcoal and 7.3 million cubic meters of wood for cooking, but a drastic action should be taken to keep the remaining forests.
The figure is the fruit of a study on management of wood fuel sector done in five regions producers of charcoal in Madagascar, including Analamanga, Atsimo Andrefana, Diana, Haute Matsiatra and Moramanga, to enable the Malagasy authorities take necessary measure on protecting environment.
Deforestation make endangered 103 species of flora and fauna, including 62 species of plants and 41 species of animals in Madagascar, according to WWF.
Only 9 million hectares of 590,000 km square of Madagascar's area is covered by forests, 300,000 hectares of which are replanted, according to the president of the Association of Forestry Engineers in Madagascar, Ndranto Razakamanarina.
Ndranto Razakamanarina said that 524,700 hectares of forest have been recorded missing in Madagascar since 2000, and the country's forest cover will disappear completely by 50 years if concrete steps are not taken to completely prevent deforestation.