Producing Charcoal in the Sub-Saharan Drylands: The Contested Fuelscape of Central Pokot, Kenya

在撒哈拉以南非洲，木炭是商业化程度最高但管制最少的商品之一。然而，尽管它作为烹饪、取暖和小规模工业活动的能源普遍存在，但迄今为止，人们对木炭生产对局部环境和生计的影响知之甚少。对木炭生产的普遍消极态度放大了这一研究缺陷，木炭生产经常被描述为森林砍伐的主要原因，或被描述为使人们陷入贫困退化螺旋的活动。然而，木炭与退化之间的关系显然更为复杂，尤其是因为一些研究表明，在有效的管理制度下，从已经退化的林地中提取生物量是可持续的。因此，木炭产区的生物物理特性和环境动态并不是预先确定的，而是通过（代表性的）实践和一系列不同参与者之间的谈判而出现并获得意义。因此，我们的研究将木炭生产部门视为具有复杂材料和话语维度的燃料景观或有争议的能源景观。通过采用一种方法方法，将遥感技术与基于经验的跨多个时空尺度的社会科学分析相结合，我们打算更好地理解人类和环境过程的变化耦合，通过这些过程，燃料景观将永远（转化）形成。我们的研究将极大地加强目前监测撒哈拉以南旱地普遍退化活动的努力，从而将与碳有关的政策和研究推向新的方向。

Charcoal ranks amongst the most commercialized but least regulated commodities in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, despite its prevalence as an energy source for cooking, heating and small-scale industrial activities, the localized environmental and livelihood impacts of charcoal production are poorly understood so far. This research deficit is amplified by widespread negative attitudes towards charcoal production, which has often been described as a major cause of deforestation or as an activity that entraps people in a poverty-degradation spiral. However, the charcoal-degradation nexus is apparently more complicated, not least because some studies indicate that the biomass extraction from already degraded woodlands can be sustainable under efficient management regimes. The biophysical properties and environmental dynamics within charcoal producing areas are thus not predefined but they emerge and gain meaning through the (representational) practices and negotiations between a whole range of different actors. Our study, therefore, approaches the charcoal producing sector as a fuelscape or contested energy landscape with complex material and discursive dimensions. By adopting a methodological approach that integrates remote sensing techniques with empirically based social scientific analyses across multiple spatial and temporal scales, we intend to establish a better understanding of the shifting couplings of human and environmental processes through which fuelscapes are perpetually (trans-)formed. Our research will critically enhance current efforts to monitor prevailing degradation activities in the Sub-Saharan drylands and herewith push charcoal-related policy and research in new directions.