Nigerian Companies Use Charcoal Substitutes to Reduce Deforestation

KUJE, NIGERIA - Some Nigerian companies are using coconut and palm shells to make charcoal briquettes in an effort to slow ongoing deforestation. Nigeria banned charcoal exports after a World Bank report showed the country lost nearly half its forest cover in just a decade.

Nothing goes to waste at the coconut processing facility started by Emeka Ugwueje 10 years ago outside Abuja. "We began thinking inward to say, ‘OK, let our waste become the necessary energy to make fire’ and this is where we have come," Ugwueje said. The shells burn for about an hour before turning from brown to a carbon-rich black derivative.