Energy and Environment: Demand for Wood Energy in Bangladesh
AHM. Mustain Billah Ph.D
Environmental and Resource Economist
Database Manager, SEMP-SDN Project
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS)

Abstract

Despite the high growth of population the economy of Bangladesh is progressing well. About 80 percent of the rural people of Bangladesh are heavily dependent on agriculture and natural resources for their sources of energy. The traditional source of energy accounts for 94 percent of the total energy supply where 70 percent comes from agriculture residues. The reduction in the contribution of agriculture sector has an implication that the economy is moving towards transition but it may have resultant effects on the traditional source of energy supply in the future. The Forestry Master Plan states that tree fuel provides 44 percent of biomass energy consumption in Bangladesh.

In order to analyse the above critical condition of the supply constraints and high demand for fuelwood, the study attempted to give an overview on total fuelwood energy use in Bangladesh. The study also highlighted the critical threat on environment due to shortage of traditional energy sources in the country based on secondary sources of information. The study explained the role of fuelwood as source of energy in the economy of Bangladesh from different sources of information such as FAO, UN statistics and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).  A comparative status of fuelwood consumption of Bangladesh is made with other SAARC countries like Srilanka. Some empirical stories are illustrated to explain the supply constraints and also to interpret how vigorous are the rural people in search of the alternative sources of energy in pursuit of their current demand for traditional energy. This resulted in a serious deforestation and environmental degradation in the country. The study recommended undertaking a careful economic and environmental evaluation of the plantation program to underscore the need for it. The expansion of the facilities for environmental friendly cheaper energy sources needs to be highly emphasized.

Introduction
Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world, a total population of 120 million with a density 755 per sq km, 81 percent of them living in the rural and the remaining 19 percent in the urban areas. Due to limited alternative sources of energy the rural people are mainly dependent on fuelwood for cooking and other household acitvities. About 20 percent of biomass are used for small-scale industries, while other 80 percent for the household. Presently, due to acute shortage of green coverage, fuelwood energy is losing ground to other sources of energy in the rural Bangladesh, although actual biomass consumption is rising tremendously. Under present management system Forestry Master Plan projected a deficit of 3.3 million m³ fuelwood by the year 2013. But under prevailing circumstances the reports from different districts including southern districts of the country demonstrate that the supply situation of fuelwood is the worse than as projected. The findings of previous studies on fuelwood consumption and information from the grass root level reveal how worse is the real supply situation and what extent the environment is under threat. 

Population and Land Use
Bangladesh has total area about 13 million ha, out of this about 15 percent under forest cover as against the 25 percent of international standard. About 75 percent is under permanent crop land where 66 percent of the total population are engaed in this field. In order to meet the demand for fuelwood of the growing population, the production of the fuelwood has also increased over time from 27 m³ million in 1987 to 31 m³ million in 1996 (table1).

Table 1: Population, Land use data and Fuelwood Production, 1987-96

A country is required to a have forest coverage 25% of total land area where as in Bangladesh it has only 3.3% (1993). FAO (1995) study (where remote sensing techniques have been used) showed that the evergreen forest cover in Bangladesh reduced from 7.4 percent in 1986 to 3.2 percent in 1993. Forestland has been degraded from 3.9 percent to 6.1 percent of the total land area due to shifting cultivation during this period (UNEP, Bangkok, 1995). Forestry Master Plan stated that tree fuel provides 44% of biomass energy consumption and per capita fuel consumption was estimated 225 kg.

Macro Economic Indicator
The economy of Bangladesh with a higher population growth rate 2.1 percent attained a progressive growth trend and reached it 5.9 percent in 1997 (table 2).  The predominantly agricultural economy is heavily dependent  on natural resources. The contribution of agriculture to GDP reduced from 46.6 in 1982 to 32.4 percent in 1996 (BBS 1997).

Table 2 : Macro Economic Indicators of Bangladesh

Source: World Tables, World Bank, (1995) and BBS (1997)

AIT, Bangkok study (1994) revealed that the traditional source of energy in Bangladesh accounts for 94 percent of the total energy supply where 70 percent comes from agriculture residues. The reduction in the contribution of agriculture sector has an implication that the economy is moving towards transition but it may have resultant effects on the traditional source of energy supply in the future. The major sources of traditional energy is depicted in the pie chart below.

Forests for Development and Environment
Presently, one of the most crucial environmental concerns is the potentiality of the global climate change due to increase in the carbon dioxide and due to change of other green house gases in the earth's atmosphere that resulted from human intervention in the nature. The carbon cycle is affected by process of photosynthesis where green plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Tree and forest store the absorbed carbon in the woody biomas. Almost 50 percent of the dry biomass is the carbon (FAO, 1990). The reduction of forest coverage leads to depletion in the woody biomass which have direct effect on the rate of carbon released into the earth atmosphere. The study of Dixon et al (1994) showed that a net contribution of 0.9 ±0.4 pg (=10¹⁵g) carbon from forests, most because of deforestation associated with the change of land use pattern. This is equivalent to 16% of the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. The other important things to be noted that carbon taken into account by carbon scientist for climate change include not only of the above ground biomass of stems and branches but also carbon stored in the roots, non-tree vegetation, soil organic matter, coarse woody debris and fine litter. Many developing countries in Asia still rely on wood energy. It was estimated that more than half of the total energy consumption in many Asian countries was accounted for by wood energy.

In Bangladesh, biomass fuels, including dung, accounted for around 73 per cent of total energy consumption in 1989/90, one of the largest percentages in the Regional Wood Energy Development Programming (RWEDP) countries. Of the estimated 39 million tonnes this represents, around 20 per cent came in the form of fuelwood, tree residues etc. According to a survey (Habib, 1994), 20 per cent of that woodfuel was used in the industrial sector, the rest being used in households. Many rural industries, as well as less formal village applications such as catering and cremations, are as reliant on biomass energy as the household sector, particularly the more traditional industries involved in processing agricultural and forest products. These industries are traditional, and often operate at or close to the source of the raw materials on a relatively small scale, using the same technologies and processes they have been using for decades. However, they play a vital role in rural economies. They provide employment and extra income for often poor rural areas cut off from development.

Other environmental benefits are the biodiversity conservation, where the direct beneficiaries are future generations, cultural minorities, traders and forest based industries either or local foreign. The indirect benefits are soil conservation, preservation of catcment area, protection of wildlife and benefits from eco-tourism.

It is now urgently needed to bring the issues of employment and fuelwood shortage to the attention of policy makers and national planners in the relevant areas of the industrial, energy and forestry sectors; agricultural development authorities; and rural development authorities, to decide it in time, specifically on wood-based energy systems for rural industries and village applications.

Objectives of the study

The objectives of the study are:

• to assess past and present fuelwood consumption and production from forests and othertraditionalsources and analyse the future contribution of fuelwood energy in the economy of Bangladesh and

• to present an overview of the different approaches on demand supply condition of the fuelwood energy in Bangladesh.

The specific objectives of the studies are:

• to present an overview of on total fuelwood energy use in Bangladesh based on secondary source of information.

• to highlight on critical threat on environment due to shortage of traditional energy crisis in Bangladesh.

• to make recommendations for future improvement of the existing fuelwood energy supply and some alternative options.  

Methods and Materials
In order to attain the above mentioned objectives, the following approaches have been undertaken: Review of literature to examine the demand and supply condition of fuelwood energy in Bangladesh from secondary sources of information. Evaluating the environmental impact in pursuit of ever-growing demand against the supply constraints of fuelwood in Bangladesh.

Energy Situation

Figure 2 manifested a comparative status of fuelwood consumption in Bangladesh and progressing a SAARC member country like Sri Lanka. The figure demonstrated that total fuelwood consumption in Bangladesh increased very sharply from 1980 (7.0 million m3) to 1994 (8.8 million m3), where as the same is almost constant in Sri Lanka over the same period. This indicated that the high demand for fuelwood would lead to higher rate of deforestation. The reason is obvious of high population growth and constraints to access to other alternative sources of energy consumption.

Another study based on energy statistics indicated that in early 1980s fuel wood consumption was very high, it declined from 1983 onward and remained constant almost over the year. One implication of this is that government barred to use fuelwood for brick burning. The other implication is the supply constraints of the fuelwwod caused to reduce the consumption from 1983 onward.  But under both the circumstances of policy measures and supply constraints the fuelwood consumption in Bangladesh has increased over time from 1983 to 1994 though at a slower rate (figure 3). The same situation is also prevailed in Sri Lanka sa depicted in the same figure.

Figure 4 demonstrated a comparative study of the share of fuelwood in total energy consumption in SARC countries using FAO forest product year book data. The figure manifested that this share in India and other countries of the region declined except Bangladesh where it was found to increase even after 1991.

Nature of Primary and Final Energy Consumption
An analysis of energy demand study (AIT,1994) showed that total traditional  primary energy consumption constituted about 84 percent of the total energy consumption in 1982, but over the decade it has declined to 76 percent in 1992. The reason for this declined was the reduction of the availability of traditional and increased the production of conventional fuels.  But the share of fuelwood energy increased from 9.5 percent in 1982 to 12.4 percent in 1992 with a growth rate of around 6 percent per annum (FAO,1995).

The conventional primary energy production increased from 16.3 percent in 1982 to 24 percent in 1992.This was because of massive infusion of indigenous natural gas use. The share of natural gas use increased from 9 percent in 1982 to 19 percent in 1992 (AIT, 1994). It is interesting to note that despite substantial increase in final conventional energy consumption the fuelwood energy consumption has increased over time.
 

Table 3 : Total energy consumption in the household sector (ktoe)