South African Workshop Presentations
Two Visibility Workshops have been held on the 28 – 30 January 2010 and 2-4 March 2011 and a Partner & Training Workshop on the 15 – 22 March 2013.
2.1 Abstracts of South African Workshop (January 2010)
2.1.9 Biofuels Feedstock Production in Africa – the Land Issue
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Presenter:
Helen Watson University of Kwazulu-Natal
The three year INCO project “Competence Platform on
Energy Crop & Agroforestry Systems for Arid and Semi-arid Ecosystems – Africa” (www.compete-bioafrica.net) which has just been concluded, sought to enhance the sustainable use of renewable natural resources and to stimulate bioenergy implementation in the arid and semi- arid regions of sub Saharan Africa. COMPETE produced policy guidelines on (a) avoiding the potential conflict between food and bioenergy production, (b) value creation of bioenergy development, and (c) financing and implementing bioenergy projects in Africa. The work described in this presentation was part of the COMPETE project. Its principal objective was to identify land in the arid and semi- arid regions of sub Saharan Africa where intensification of, or conversion to bioenergy use, will not have detrimental environmental and/or socio-economic impacts. Geographic Information Systems were used to interrogate a wide range of data sources. Case studies were made of eight countries. In order to avoid detrimental impacts on biodiversity, all categories of protected areas, closed canopy forests and wetlands were designated as unavailable for bioenergy crop production and filtered out. To avoid food security concerns areas already used for food crops, cash crops and tree crops were also filtered out as unavailable for bioenergy crop production. Lastly, areas with terrain, substrate, and climate unsuitable for bioenergy crop production were filtered out. The areas identified as available and suitable for bioenergy crop production in the eight case study countries are presented in Table 1 below. Arid regions are not represented in Tanzania and Zambia. In the other six countries they range from covering 1.9 to 39.7 percent of the country in the case of Burkino Faso and Kenya, respectively. While none of Burkino Faso’s arid region and less than a third of Mali’s arid region is potentially available and suitable for biofuel crop production, the greater proportion of this region in Senegal, Kenya, Botswana and South Africa is potentially amenable for such production. Semi- arid regions are represented in all eight countries and range from covering 19.8 to 78.0 percent of the country in the case of Mali and Botswana, respectively. The potential for biofuel crop production is least favourable in this region in the West African countries, and most favourable in Kenya and South Africa. Considering available and suitable areas in both the arid and semi-arid regions, South Africa clearly has the greatest potential to accelerate bioenergy crop production. Its potential is 1.9, 2.5, 3.7 and 4.9 times that of Kenya, Botswana, Mali, and Tanzania, respectively.
