Fighting deforestation: Student uses organic waste to produce cheaper, ecological alternative to charcoal.

Global Forest Watch indicates that Cameroon lost over 1.2 million hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2024; a figure experts say can rise by 10% in 2025 if no meaningful interventions. 

The greatest threat facing these forests remain industrial logging (both legal and illegal), agricultural expansion for crops like palm oil and cocoa, artisanal mining, and large-scale infrastructure projects. 

In February 2025, the government launched a National Forest Recovery Plan, with the goal of auditing all logging concessions by the end of 2025, the suspending new logging permits in critical biodiversity hotspots, expansion of community forest initiatives, strengthened penalties for illegal logging and corruption within forest governance structures. 

According to the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Jules Doret Ndongo, deforestation rates were deeply concerning and the national forestry recovery plan will launch a new era of sustainable forest management.

This plan also aims to plant 10 million trees by 2027 to fight deforestation and its consequences including biodiversity loss, which disrupts ecosystems and threatens countless species. The government’s action in this domain is complimented by individual and collective efforts at all levels of the society.

Charcoal demand fuelling deforestation

The demand for wood energy consumption is a primary driver of ongoing deforestation and habitat degradation because producing one truck of charcoal requires approximately seven trucks of fresh wood cut down.

Charcoal production in Cameroon is one of the top drivers of deforestation, with estimates pointing to more than 2 million hectares of forest cover lost since 2001, equaling approximately 6.5% of the original tree cover. 

Despite bans on charcoal exports, the growing local demand sustains ongoing degradation, highlighting charcoal's role as a moderate but persistent driver of forest loss alongside other factors like agriculture.

Innovative alternative to charcoal

Ebot Simon Njah, a young innovator and climate change activist, is leading the fight against poor waste management, while providing alternative solutions to the increasing demand for charcoal for household use. 

“…there was a lot of waste mismanagement in my community and no available jobs for young people. So, I needed to bring out an initiative that will help the society by keeping the environment clean and also create a job opportunity for myself and the youths,” Simon Njah said.

He employs a simple process involving picking up the waste from dumpsites. This involves a scientific process of carbonising the cassava peels in the absence of oxygen to produce charcoal. 

After the products are carbonised, they are ground and mixed with a binder to get the environmentally friendly charcoal.

This simple process provides a rare beam of hope for the fight against deforestation since it bypasses the ill-advised process of cutting trees and burning them to produce charcoal. 

The main ingredients for this process are household waste cassava, banana and plantain peelings, and coconut shells, corn combs, palm nutshells shell and saw dust.

Despite this laudable initiative, the young activist lacks the right equipment to produce the environmentally friendly charcoal on an industrial scale because of lack of funding. 

In this light, he expressed his desire for collaboration and support from the government, civil society and the local community given the wide market and the potential to fight deforestation. 

While waiting for support, Njah said he plans to train 2,000 people in the skill of transforming waste into useful products, aiming to combat unemployment, limit deforestation, and eradicate plastic waste from his community.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3493 of Friday July 04, 2025