Charcoal Burning: Outjo's "Black Gold"

Greetings Everyone:

Here is a brief look at the Charcoal burning aka "Black Gold" business I've come across during my economic survey work for WWF and the University of Pretoria-South Africa.

Some select farms in the Outjo District aka "Cattle Country of Namibia" rely on this burned wood product to pay additional bills. Currently, its an extremely viable business option, but comes with environmental and social impacts that raises concern among many Outjo district residents. To understand part of the problem, its beneficial to review the brief political history of Namibia recently.

The political, cultural, and ecological landscape has been changing drastically since apartheid ended in 1990 here in Namibia. The emergence of Affirmative Action black commercial farmers [AA Farms] is the newest growing landowner population in the Outjo District, because prior to 1990, if you were black you could not own land in Namibia.

There are unique start-up challenges AA farms face coming into their new landowner roles, unlike their Afrikaner counterparts who have been utilizing wildlife and cattle for income for some time. Thus, one finds more intense management plans for resource extraction on AA farms like Charcoal Burning to help cover their over-hedge, or heavy loan payment situation.

AA farms have to deal with additional loans for fence improvements, cattle, and farm improvements on top of the AA loan. The average lifespan of an AA farm is 5 years according to many of the farmers I've interviewed in Outjo. This does not allow one to have any type of long-term land improvement management plan. Its often referred to as a "sick circle" as one Afrikaner farmer told me and a "huge struggle" according to one AA farmer.

All the AA owners Uapii and I interviewed on these farms have come from the communal lands of Namibia and each had 200 plus cattle in the communal land, which is the minimum requirement to receive this loan. The cattle are then moved to the farm when the farmer signs the loan and continues farming. These farmers told us they know poaching is associated with charcoal, but they need it to stay on the land given the loan structures. Wildlife is still seen as a "white man's business."

Many of the Afrikans farms are now converting to wildlife as the main land use by utilizing trophy hunting fees to generate income from hunters mainly from Europe then the States. This has been possible due to the fact that landowner rights were devolved on wildlife for the Afrikaner farmers in the 1970's, so wildlife gained a market price and their numbers have slowly increased and been utilized as trophy, own use, shoot and sell, and biltong hunting.

Great disparity has been created from this process, because even the communal lands were just given wildlife and tourism revenue rights in 1990 where many AA farmers come from.

Conflict is created between the two groups, because one many farmers feel the AA loans are just another incentive and unfair for their previous hard work, this group often associates poaching to occur from the hired hands used to harvest charcoal, and the environmental air pollution forces wildlife to migrate out of the area.

One usually finds Charcoal Burning on emerging farms, or farms that have special incentive loans where the new owner only pays the interest on the 5 year loan, then continues to pay the premium after the 5 year period. Some Afrikans farmers do utilize charcoal burners on their land, but many prefer other methods of bush extraction like using goats, slow fire burns, or highly "centrally managed" charcoal burning groups that selectively harvest and cannot have dogs, visitors, and are fed only cattle meat so one can see if poaching is occurring.

When you drive in the Northeastern part of Outjo district, you can see many piles like these containing the "Black Gold." The contents are destined to South Africa and Europe to be used as an energy source or insulation in coolers. Many farms off the NamPower grid utilize make-shift coolers using charcoal.


Many of the famrers in the Etosha and Outjo area blame their poaching problem on the charcoal operations, and there is some truth this matter, but its a given poaching happens everywhere and across all boundaries racial and political. But the common trend research has shown, is when there are large concentrations of populations poaching is more likely to occur due to poverty conditions and a large market demand created by larger groups. When there are large families or groups of workers collecting wood and burning along with loosely managed burning operations, its a formula suited for poaching to possibly occur.



Many of the emerging and resettlement farms are using charcoal as supplemental income to stay on the land as stated previously and I've seen it range from 10% to 70% of an AA farmer's income in the Outjo district. I've also seen a lot of interest from the emerging farmers in wildlife, but they're being excluded currently from the commercial conservancy movement and this will only create more problems in the future I feel for the wildlife and community cooperation needed in conservancy operations.

But as a colleague and I were talking about the last few days, many of the non-emerging farmers here could possibly be singled out as poaching too with their shoot and sell permits if this system is abused like we hear of from time to time.

These permits allow a farmer to go on their farm and take game at will and sell it as meat to a butcher. For the hunters out there from the States, this may sound mad, but there really is no season for hunting and in this process bulls and females are taken at will sometimes. Many of the farmers who I've interviewed who are serious about game ranching never practice shoot and sell or biltong hunting because they feel its unethical and not suitable for viable wildlife populations.

The difference is, these farmers have land thus power and the government stamp to go through and clean up their game at will, while on the other end we call it poaching when a family struggles to provide food.

Nearly 90% of the farmers agree wildlife provide a great deal of food security to Namibia, yet many disadvantaged people don't have access to the market and are forced to poach sometimes. Game meat is found in stores, cheaper then beef and chicken, and often given to farm workers to satisfy the food quota laws set forth by the Namibian government, but the charcoal burners are on contract basis and thus do not normally receive food rations for their work.

This is such a complicated issue and I'm just beginning to learn more about the market and social pressures of poaching and charcoal burning, but here is what I've learned talking to guys who burn and here are some pictures that can show you a snap shot into the lives of many Angolans who are forced to burn to provide for their families.

Here are some pictures of a charcoal operation on an emerging Herero commercial farm:





Basically, a charcoal burner receives 400 Namibian dollars for a ton of charcoal. So about 70 US dollars per ton. Each individual bag weights 40-50 Kgs each or around 100 pounds. The final product is used for insulation in coolers, a fuel source in Europe and South Africa, or sometimes fence posts are produced from the strong straight trees workers cut down. Workers are usually paid by the ton they haul in, so there is incentive to cut down denser tree varieties that may not be part of the bush encroachment problem.



The men spend their days collecting wood on the road, digging up roots, and cutting trees down with pongas [sharp machetes] or axes on the farms. The work looks hard and grueling. The heat just swells around the large tanks containing charcoal on top of the summer heat now coming. Its grueling work and because of some much time in the field, many of the farmers in Outjo blame poaching to occur when harvesting of wood is occurring.

One of the harvesting methods. It makes for a strong and ca-laced hand-shake:


The lack of proper land mangement does contribute to the additional swartehwak trees creating the "bush encroachment problem." One wonders how cattle can graze or how wildlife can survive in some of these encroached areas, but they do.

The trees harvested for this process are normally part of the huge bush encroachment problem many farmers have here because of overgrazing and fire being excluded from the natural management. There are concerns of erosion, air pollution, and loss of wildlife habitat depending on how extreme the extraction rates occur. The removal of the trees takes away the root systems holding soil together, extracts the natural recycling of nutrients, and is no longer a carbon sink when burned for CO2, a green house gas blamed for Climate Change.

Even the farmers who charcoal burn will tell you they don't have wildlife because the smoke is too strong and scares them away.

I drove through the heart of the Charcoal business yesterday with Uapii when we were interviewing emerging farmers and it was rather depressing to see the working and living conditions. It doesn't surprise me poaching occurs, yet given the extreme situation who can blame people needing to provide for their families?

This problem is going to take a lot of thought and consideration by the Namibian government and the Outjo community. A good bridge I feel would be incorporating the emerging farmers into the conservancy systems and being able to benefit from wildlife and employing the Angolain refugees as employees for the operation. But this will take incredible training and financial resources to be feasible.

An Angolan refugee:



More pictures:



[Fence posts. Notice the Angolan style houses in the background].



A look at the biggest group of Charcoal burners we found. Many of the operations operate right by the road, so trucks can easily pick up the heavy bags. I would estimate 40 people were in this one camp alone with horrible housing and far far away from markets and grocery stores.



One final side note:

Many of the emerging farms have small stock and cattle, but due to strong cultural traditions according to my friend and colleague Uapii, the Herero farmers do not sell cattle to Namibia's MeatCo and only utilize it for themselves on the farm or the new emerging Angolan market. An absence of marketing skills is also lacking according to Uapii and we're finding lots of interest in wildlife hunting, but a lack of education and facilities to make it a reality.



You wonder if anyone finds this stuff interesting and made it to this point, but if you did, thanks for reading!

I gotta run, but I'll continue this discussion later on and see what results Loxondonta Conservancy provide. It seems charcoal burning is less prevalent in the west vs. the eastern side of the Outjo District.

Cheers,

A.E. Price

Outjo, Namibia [One week of surveys-Recap]

“I should tell you the story about the time when a cobra was this far away from my pecker,” said one commercial game farmer with two skinny fingers spanning only a foot apart before resting in his lap again. “Oh, stop telling stories,” said his wife who was bringing out a warm loaf of bread. This story only increased my fear of all the poisonous snakes in Namibia. From what I gathered about this snake, if I am bitten, it’s best to find a nice peaceful tree to sit under, because I’m gone in two hours. This motivated me to purchase my new handmade seal skin boots that have shin guards from The Etosha Leather company in front of the cafe. The rainy season is coming and so are the snakes.

“This year we have found over 90 snares [used for poaching] on our farm,” said another disgusted farmer. “The communal lands are a success story, but the commercial farms have the worst poaching in Namibia.”

This one blew me away: “Apartheid ended in 1978,” said one black commercial farmer who supported the ruling party at the time. Uapii and I about fell out of our chairs. “Ok, so what happened in 1990” I said. “Nothing!” I guess you win some and loose some in the survey world, but we didn’t trust this guy for one second and proceed to throw out the survey. It smelled like poaching was rampant from this farm when 3 other farms down the road were about ready to pull their hair out recounting the stories of poaching.

“The stiff penalties of cattle poaching make it more likely for one to be murdered if you try to stop people on your farm,” said a neighbor of a farmer who was recently murdered for confronting poachers. “The poachers always are released and back to poaching again. Its just infuriating!” One receives 30 years for cattle rustling and only 5 for murder. $300 rand usually places a poacher on bail and it takes about 4 years to be prosecuted if you’re lucky. A poacher can bank on not being convicted. One farmer this year lost 80 oryx and over 100 wildebeest to poaching and it almost shut him down.

“Do you want to see the skin of a 5 meter python that ate our goat?” Ummm… sure I said. The skin took 5 seconds to unroll across the living room floor, while the jack russle just went nuts barking at it. A fully stuffed cheetah and a dozen other skins and skulls lined the living room and were all shot because they were killing cattle or trophies. I literally walked into a field museum and it’s amazing how much farmers here understand ecology and each animal’s tendencies.

“Take these two snares back with you as souvenirs. We have plenty of them! The small one is for birds and the other killed an oryx” Thanks, I’ll hang them on my office wall,” I said. The small trap must have taken one evening for someone to make. The craftsmanship is superb for just normal wire and leaves a mark on your finger.

“We don’t want to always have handouts and soft loans. We want to begin to stand on our own and use wildlife,” a black commercial farmer told me as we finished the survey. “I know my charcoal workers poach, but I can’t keep the farm if I don’t utilize charcoal. But the commercial hunting is still a white man’s business.”

“The more people you have on the land, the less game you have. Generally, the situation is getting worse for game from the current land reform and from now on it will have a more negative effect on game when 50 million acres will be resettled,” said another ex-ag extension officer of 10 years. “I’m a strict cattle rancher, but I know the wildlife is part of the natural diversity to, so that’s why I joined the conservancy –to protect our resources.”

“I usually estimate $190,000 rand in losses due to wildlife coming from Etosha and poaching damages each year,” said one tanned and winkled lonely Afrikaner farmer who can step out on his front porch and see the Etosha fence. “So how do you survive and continue farming,” I asked. “Its just part of doing business for me. This year alone I shot and skinned 40 lions. For poachers, if the nose is wet it’s gone. I hang reflectors all around the farm to confuse them at night.”

“Hello, how do you do?!” said a farmer who packs a 45 magnum pistol and told me not to touch the dog due to the fact he’ll bite me. Later on he told me, “We take security rather serious around here. Be sure to tell people you’re coming or they’ll most likely shoot at you. Be even more careful at night. The first three bullets in my belt are buck shot for snakes and the other 10 are regulars.” This farmer proudly displays years of metals earned from wining shooting contests in South Africa as a youth. His hearing, not so sharp in the left ear.

“Those skins over there, they were gifts from Etosha when this resettlement farm started,” said our resettlement tour guide. Uapii and I sure didn’t believe him. We both couldn’t understand how 200 families could live on less then 10,000 hectares sustainably.

……………………..

These are some of the more memorable quotes off the top of my head from the last week of doing surveys. I’ve learned so much about economics, wildlife, and racism in the last week then I probably have in the last 4 years. Its been a total whirlwind of conversation concerning conservancies, Namibia politics, the best game meat on can hunt, generous offers to come and stay in lodges, and many conversations discussing race issues.

Outjo is one wild place to say the least. I will say the racism is rather difficult to see on a regular basis and how its so absorbed and a “norm” for people living here.
But the stories and openness people have provided me has given me so much insight into the benefits and costs of conservancies and other issues. Luckily, I’m hearing both sides of the story by interviewing conservancy members, non-members, visiting resettlement farms, and talking to emerging black farmers.

I have a stack of 30 plus surveys that is beginning to look like a dissertation book. Each one easily contains a novel just waiting to be told, but I’ll have to first start with helping Peter Lindsey write up the science to be published [my first official published research ever!] and WWF’s case study before I begin telling them.
Its safe to say I’m only half way through the surveying process and still have Loxondonta Conservancy to go. I hear through the grapevine its even more wild and elephants now prevent people from farming so they have to do game ranching now.

The last seven days, I have been based in Outjo, Namibia conducting land use value economic surveys. Its starting to warm up something fierce. Mid to high 90’s is now average and it sucks the energy right out of you. This community is filled with many Afrikans and Damara people, while the black commercial farmers as they’re called are all of Herero decent. Outjo is also a hub for many of the rural farmers and makes conducting economic surveys rather easy, due to the fact many stop in the local café for sweets and coffee.

There can’t be over 3,000 people here in Outjo at any given time. There is one main street with shops that remind me of small town USA. Large carbon footprint tour buses roll on north to Etosha and are usually found early in the morning. Many of these tourists ask questions about WWF’s work in Namibia when they see the truck parked out front. I have a grip of emails and business cards from lawyers, teachers, and even tour guides who want to see the results of the study. So the pressure is now on to deliver.

Uapii and I are now well known in the Outjo Café and our waitress Miriam is a really sweet and puts our orders in first every time.
A make-shift craft center is located on the main drag and one will find Himba women walking around in the OK Grocery Store in traditional dress, while Afrikaner farmers talk about cricket and rugby leaning over their backie hoods before heading home for super.

I’m usually up and going by 6 AM and already hanging out at the Outjo Café eating the best German style food around and mingling with the locals and tourists by 7 and calling farmers up to set interview times. Recently, Uapii and I average 4 surveys a day and nearly half of them have been done in the Outjo Café, so the carbon footprint and price/survey should make the boss happy.

……

Its now late and a nice rain is falling over the veld. Uapii just served up some tasty smelling food from our hostel kitchen. I’m going to continue talking about my lessons learned shortly. I’m still digesting the survey results and can’t wait to begin crunching the results and blogging about everything.
But the blog is already to long with little focus. 8D Its bedtime.

I hope this finds my friends, family, and readers well! I'll post the most recent pictures of the past week soon!

Cheers,

A.E. Price

This is where Outjo is located:



I felt sorry for these donkeys. Their halters are interesting.



A child in the resettlement camp we visited:



Once one builds a house on the resettlement farm, the government takes away your tent:



A grandma who was making quilts in the resettlement camp:



Uapii looking like Aliens or "African Magik" taking him away:



Me: