By Arsène Séverin
KINKALA, Congo, Jun 22, 2010 (IPS) – The trees are falling in Pool, and there are plenty of people to hear the sound. In a painful irony, the end of armed conflict in 2003, has signaled the wholesale devastation of forests in this southern region of the Republic of Congo.
All along the 75 kilometre road between the capital Brazzaville, and Kinkala, the southern region’s principal city, there are bundles of wood and sacks of charcoal stacked ready to be trucked to feed the household energy demands of the capital.
Since the end of the civil wars which lasted from 1998 to 2003, production of charcoal and firewood has become profitable for the people in the Pool department, one of 12 administrative areas in the country.
There are farmers who produce nearly 300 sacks of charcoal every three months. A 15-kilo bag of sells for the equivalent of $10 in Brazzaville. Read more.
English 
French 