Forestry in Rwanda

Lessons

Senior 4 · Geography

Forestry in Rwanda

4 lessons

Lesson 2 of 4

Exploiting Forests: Factors, Lumbering Methods and Products

25 min

Three households in four cook with firewood

Figure 2. Main cooking fuel of private households, 2022. Drawn by Ganzaa from NISR, RPHC5 Table 76.

Almost every household in Rwanda cooks with wood, either as firewood or as charcoal. REMA estimates household fuelwood use at 2.7 million tonnes a year, about half of it turned into charcoal, and the demand for wood at about twice the sustainable supply (REMA, 2021, citing RWFA, 2017). Where does all this wood come from, and how is it harvested?

Definition

Forest exploitation: the harvesting of forest products for use or sale. Lumbering: felling trees and converting them into logs, poles or sawn timber.

Clear-felling: cutting all the trees in an area. Selective felling: cutting only chosen trees. Coppicing: cutting a tree near the ground so that new shoots grow from the stump, as eucalyptus does.

Growing stock: the volume of wood standing in a forest, in m³ per hectare. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs): products other than wood, such as honey, bamboo, medicinal plants and mushrooms.

Factors influencing forest exploitation

Factor	Effect in Rwanda
Fast-growing species and climate	Eucalyptus grows quickly in the mild, wet highlands and resprouts after cutting, so woodlots can be cut every few years
Demand (market)	Firewood for 76.1% of households; charcoal for 57.6% of Kigali households; poles for building and scaffolding; furniture timber
Accessibility and relief	Woodlots near roads are cut first; steep slopes and distant reserves are harder and costlier to exploit
Ownership and size	Many small private woodlots, often cut early when the owner needs cash
Technology and capital	Mostly axes, handsaws and traditional earth kilns; few modern sawmills
Transport	Head-loading, bicycles and lorries; poor feeder roads raise costs
Government policy	Natural forests in parks are protected; harvesting needs permits under the forest law, issued through RFA's Forest Business Support Unit (RFA)
Labour	Plenty of rural labour for felling, carrying and charcoal burning

Lumbering methods

Choosing and felling: trees are cut with axes, handsaws or chainsaws, either by clear-felling a woodlot or by selective felling.
Coppicing: eucalyptus stumps sprout again, so a woodlot can be harvested several times without replanting.
Cross-cutting and debranching into poles and logs on site.
Sawing: logs are split by hand (pit-sawing) or cut in mobile and fixed sawmills into planks.
Charcoal making: wood is stacked, covered with earth and burned slowly with little air in traditional kilns, or in improved kilns that waste less wood.
Transport and seasoning: by head, bicycle and lorry; timber is dried before use.

Forest products

Product	Uses
Firewood	Cooking in most homes; heat for institutions and small industries such as brick-making
Charcoal	Cooking in towns, especially Kigali
Poles	House building, scaffolding, fences, electricity and telephone poles
Sawn timber	Furniture, doors, roofing, boxes
Non-timber products	Honey and wax, bamboo for crafts and construction, medicinal plants, mushrooms, fodder; RFA has a unit for non-timber forest products and bamboo (RFA)
Services	Tourism, research and education (Nyungwe canopy walk, Arboretum of Ruhande)

How productive are Rwanda's plantations?

Figure 3. Growing stock of plantations by owner, 2016 National Forest Inventory, drawn by Ganzaa from REMA (2021).

REMA blames the low stock on "poor management which involves lack of adherence to silvicultural guidelines, early harvesting, poor selection of species and planting material and poor site matching".

Worked example 1: the gap between owners

\frac{127.48}{17.32} = 7.4

A hectare of public plantation holds about seven times as much wood as a hectare of private individual woodlot. If the private woodlots were managed to even half the public standard (about 64 m³/ha), they would hold over three times as much wood as now, from the same land.

Worked example 2: a growing wood deficit

Data (RWFA 2017, in REMA 2021). The gap between wood demand and supply was 4.3 million tonnes (oven-dry) in 2017 and is projected to reach 7.5 million tonnes in 2026.

r = \left(\frac{7.5}{4.3}\right)^{\frac{1}{9}} - 1 = 0.064 = 6.4\%\ \text{a year}

Interpretation. Under business as usual, the shortfall grows by about 6% a year, faster than the population (2.3%). REMA warns that the already low-stocked forests "will be subject to over-exploitation". The answers lie in managing woodlots better and using less wood per meal (lesson 4).

Warning

Don't confuse forestry products with forest destruction. Harvesting a eucalyptus woodlot that is then coppiced or replanted is sustainable forestry; clearing natural forest for farmland is deforestation. Name which one you mean.

New Zealand Farm Forestry Association: "How to: mill eucalypts". Felling, cross-cutting and sawing eucalyptus logs into timber with a mobile sawmill. Compare these methods with pit-sawing by hand.

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Practice

Distinguish clear-felling, selective felling and coppicing.
Explain four factors influencing the exploitation of forests in Rwanda.
Describe the stages of lumbering from felling to timber.
List five forest products and a use for each.
A 2 ha private woodlot holds 17.32 m³/ha. How much wood (m³) is standing on it? How much would it hold at the public average of 127.48 m³/ha?
Why does charcoal use put more pressure on forests than firewood for the same cooking?
"Rwanda's wood problem is a management problem, not a land problem." Discuss.

Show answersHide answers

Clear-felling cuts all trees in an area; selective felling cuts only chosen trees; coppicing cuts near the ground so the stump resprouts.
Any four: fast-growing species and climate; demand for firewood, charcoal and poles; accessibility and relief; small private ownership; simple technology; transport; government permits and protection; labour.
Choosing and felling; debranching and cross-cutting; sawing (pit-saw or sawmill); seasoning; transport to market.
Firewood (cooking), charcoal (urban cooking), poles (building, fences), timber (furniture, roofing), honey and bamboo (food, crafts), medicinal plants.
$2 \times 17.32 = 34.64\ \text{m}^3$ ; $2 \times 127.48 = 254.96\ \text{m}^3$ .
Traditional kilns convert only part of the wood's energy into charcoal; the rest is lost as smoke and heat, so more wood is cut for the same meal.
Management: growing stock differs seven-fold between public and private plantations; early harvesting and poor species choice waste land; inefficient kilns and stoves waste wood. Land: farmland and parks leave little room to expand plantations. Conclusion: mainly a management problem, since better silviculture and efficient stoves could close much of the gap on existing land.

Quick check

What was the main cooking fuel of Rwanda's households in 2022?

Key points

Wood is the main cooking fuel (firewood 76.1%, charcoal 17.3% of households, 2022); demand is about twice supply; the deficit could reach 7.5 Mt by 2026.
Factors: fast-growing eucalyptus, demand, access, small ownership, simple technology, transport, permits, labour.
Methods: felling, coppicing, cross-cutting, pit-sawing or sawmills, charcoal kilns, transport and seasoning. Products: firewood, charcoal, poles, timber, NTFPs, services.
Private woodlots hold far less wood (17.32 m³/ha) than public plantations (127.48 m³/ha) because of early harvesting and poor management.

Sources and credits

Sources: Fifth Rwanda Population and Housing Census, 2022: Main Indicators Report, NISR, 2023 (cooking fuels); Rwanda State of Environment and Outlook Report 2021, REMA, citing RWFA (2017) and the 2016 National Forest Inventory (fuelwood use, charcoal, demand and supply, deficit, growing stock, causes of low stock); Forestry Management, Rwanda Forestry Authority (permits, non-timber forest products).

Figures 2 and 3 and the worked examples were drawn and written by Ganzaa.

Photos: Women and Wood, Olympe Marteau-Ferey, CC BY-SA 4.0; Eucalyptus regrow, Jnshuti, CC BY-SA 4.0; Fence (uruzitiro), Nkunda102, CC BY-SA 4.0; via Wikimedia Commons.

Video: "How To: Mill Eucalypts", New Zealand Farm Forestry Association, embedded from YouTube. The rest of the lesson and the exercises were written by Ganzaa.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1Three households in four cook with firewood

2Factors influencing forest exploitation

3Lumbering methods

4Forest products

5How productive are Rwanda's plantations?

Three households in four cook with firewood

Factors influencing forest exploitation

Lumbering methods

Forest products

How productive are Rwanda's plantations?