Forests, biomass use and poverty in Malawi

Sushenjit Bandyopadhyay, Priya Shyamsundar and Alessandro Baccini

Ecological Economics, 2011, vol. 70, issue 12, 2461-2471

Abstract: Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa and has faced significant deforestation over the years. This paper seeks to examine the nature of the relationship between poverty and forests in Malawi. We try to answer three sets of questions: a) what is the extent of biomass available for meeting the energy needs of the poor in Malawi and how is this distributed? b) To what extent does fuelwood scarcity affect the welfare of the poor? And c) do households spend more time in fuelwood collection in response to scarcity? We answer these questions by matching household surveys with remote-sensing data.

Keywords: Fuelwood; Poverty; Biomass scarcity; Poverty; Malawi; Labor allocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:70:y:2011:i:12:p:2461-2471

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.08.003

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