Put. Hardly anyone knows how nontransparent this market really is for that one ton of charcoal requires 5 to 10 tons of wood and. This has an enormous impact on the environment. Where the wood comes from theres often trouble him and lots of uses of as poverty is deforestation theres deserts of occasional rise of the. Its completely unacceptable that tropical rain forests are being destroyed just to produce cheeta charcoal should be happening its mathes bonds in. Nigeria with 186000000 inhabitants its the most populated country in africa this is where most of the charcoal imported to the e. U. Comes from its a huge business not only in nigeria paraguayan in south america is another big global player. According to the un over half the trees cut down worldwide are burnt to produce charcoal with severe effects to the climate. Nigerian merchants praised the high quality of charcoal derived from tropical wood its particularly durable and its embers last much longer but these traders dont have to certify where they get their chalk on the wood could be from one of the few sustainable plantations for tropical timber in africa or it could have been illegally logged in the rain forest. Kingsley a county you specialize in export ready to be field which will. Work. Chins who want to import tropical timber to the e. U. Have to certify its origins the process is strictly regulated but those guidelines dont apply to charcoal. 88 percent of the charcoal used in germany is imported nigeria alone supplies 31000. 00 tons a year but most consumers have no idea what they are using to grill their sausages. Theres still a gemini and council tax the fridge and. Where it will form and. Yeah. It doesnt care there. Philo. All these stealable 40 feet container. Charcoal from nigeria made in germany made possible because there are no restrictions on importing charcoal made from tropical timber to the e. U. The spoke of garden trade fair in cologne this is where the outdoor grilling industry comes together many distributors cant see any problem with charcoal from the tropics the trade association however would rather not comment. From france has been fighting against imported tropical charcoal for years he works with the ngo the forest trust t. F. T. They want charcoal to be processed only from sustainably cultivated forests and for consumers to easily see if theyre buying charcoal from native or illegally logged tropical wood there is no transparency. But then what is the way in particular. Because. Some in fault are split them to be produced. But there we are british on of their tree can create over europe and walking work on the ball because. If we dont do that its good for to not be clear also for the 1st order. Theres a heart for all the all male members says it is a cure for rick us there are. Distributors who keep importing. With you but the market will force their hand the moment we change the market everyone who wants to carry on as usual will be left no other choice was that all this notion of the. Other was. In france t. F. T. Has already managed to change the market most buyers for a large retail chains have come to reject charcoal from tropical forests. Is meeting a belgian who imports not for can charcoal the man is convinced of his products quality and he even has a seal to prove its been produced responsibly she could understand the concern about tropically source charcoal. For the time it was either what you have to realize that there are also sustainably managed tropical forests and so on if over if i dont see why these products should be banned or you do and you cant forget that the charcoal market is helping feed thousands of people in africa with the fish traders wed be making things too easy on ourselves if we suddenly decided to just ban everything sourced from nigeria where john will be out of this and he could just get in asia we need to actively deal with the problem of who the 1st was that there is a kind of hope to magick. In nigeria its true that many people depend on the charcoal business in places where qualified jobs are hard to come by theyre they often live in the humblest conditions. People like kobe he and his family make charcoal for a living they travel across the country as nomads and love trees wherever they can in the wild not unsustainable estates. The process is simple enough the wood is stocks covered with dirt and then let. These socalled kilns seal off most oxygen allowing the wood to burn down slowly in about 11 days its reduced to charcoal 5 i walk that asked song they found produce it. Within a months. We dont enjoy the walk to enjoy the world is a. Level. Where you combat you are tired and was used. For one tonne of charcoal the workers need up to 10 tons of wood most of the energy escapes as acts as heat exhaust leaks from the highlands and the surrounding soil is contaminated with toxins. The forestation is a huge problem in nigeria. A study by the un food and Agriculture Organization found that 410000. 00 hectares of forest were cut down each year. Not only does that have a major impact on the climate it also leads to erosion and the forming of new deserts. But the forests arent being destroyed just to make charcoal theyre also being cleared for farmland and yet 87 percent of all trees logged in nigeria are used for firewood or charcoal. Harry hoffman is a scientist for years hes been concerned about the charcoal production in africa. Is this its the only way they can make a living during the dry season wants the end of the dry season before they return to that field if its nothing left to pay for school so they go to the forest and cut down trees to make charcoal they can sell on the street even if it is illegal. When they do they risk their fields drying up and. Back to germany. Is the wood specialist at the World Wildlife fund today hes brought bags of charcoal to the tune institute in hamburg to once trade restrictions for charcoal and hes backing up his arguments with facts if it were up to him importing illegal timber into the e. U. Would be banned as with the charcoal produced from it. And his colleagues want to see just how much wood from tropical forests these bags contain. Theres a lot of pressure from consumers not just with these products in particular is almost a cultural asset for germans finding a legal wood in their charcoal would leave a bad taste in their mouths thats mistress businesses cant afford that that utilize a few months or years ago this product wouldnt have gained such broad attend. To date importers dont need to show that the wood for their charcoal was legal. And any product information on the back doesnt show the country of origin either. Is one of germanys leading specialists in determining what. He cant say where the charcoal is but he can discern which type of wood it was made from even if it isnt printed on the bag. He instantly recognizes some native trees species. Before i put it under the microscope i do appreciate. Sometimes i use a magnifying glass to determine what type were dealing with. Ive already dug a bit out from the bottom of the bag and as you can see what makes charcoal so special is that unlike wood its brittle with. Break it off it creates these clean edges i can look at those with my magnifying glass with. Here for example we have an ash tree. This pack doesnt contain any tropical timber that other bags do. When. You swing by the nearest gas station to pick up a bag of charcoal of course you have no idea how far it has traveled already and what ecological footprint it has left behind. Tire forests are being cut down in countries like nigeria or in Eastern Europe and sometimes even protected forests are being plundered and that has an immense impact on the ecosystem or biodiversity and on the climate overall we need to act. We care we have briquettes. Here we have a product that were looking at. You know yes. This is pure charcoal. Here we have a different product with the slogan for the sake of the environment the c o 2 neutral. Inspects 20 bags of. Sand then have bought in various hardware and Grocery Stores in many cases its evident the wood isnt needed. Before just because before ive had a look at them under the microscope i cant say for sure these samples definitely have tropical origins kind its not that simple but i can say that the ones ive looked at all definitely not from regular wood. So we know for certain that it isnt. Compressed bearcats are especially hard to examine they consist mostly of coal dust and starch but even here the expert is able to find traces of wood. Demit totem an identifying would species is called would anatomy we identify types or would based on their anatomical structure or model the people have been examining plant structures for 2 or 300 years whats important is to have Reference Material what they are and. Thats why the cuny an institute of Wood Research stores thousands of samples of various trees. 6 but in spoke to him at my research on the structural features we can see here we can definitely say this word is not from a temperate or even boreal reacher way outsourced out. That means this charcoal was definitely tropically sourced. 8 of the 20 bags they examined did contain wood from rainforests. That amounts to 40 percent of their samples 6 5 bags even contained red list species of endangered or restricted will of. The findings are upset ng for your highness tannen of the World Wildlife fund. Not the innocents who feel this is been a topic for so many years to find such a catastrophic results here in germany was shocking it cant go on like this. Many distributors wont take responsibility for their products origin Sustainable ConservationEnvironmental Protection labor laws none of it matters. Important to ones cost and seduction costs are much much lower than operating a colliery here in germany and voice so that makes it attractive to transporting it over the ocean from nigeria to germany or europe is a fairly small portion of the total cost untie and what they can some cost not arsenal. Most germans have no idea that theyre charcoal is sometimes produced with peoples bare hands and colby would never have guessed that hes talking was used to grill german sausages for many industrial make use of pot from cost. To die making use of its like this before. They also make use of charcoal. Also to people who take insulin defined us there but i dont know why they use it for all we use it for them on the ticket system. Koby and his workers get 3. 00 for each bag of charcoal even in nigeria thats not a lot of money but the supply chain in africa is more transporters sorters distributors Everyone Wants to turn a profit the jobs are highly sought after. Jobs provided by level at a city sent us what shop will be choppered us is one of the few jobs that actually brings jobs. To the rural areas to the local woman to people who otherwise they have no education have a lot of to fall back to have. For the. Here is a lifesaver theres really no major industry here to cry to call me this is a boss. That also wanted to work because the other thing. And this sector is growing. Just one study estimates the market could be one thought to 12000000000. 00 by 2030 with 12000000. 00 people working at it thats a shadow market most of the money made in not sector will stay with the powerful distributors solution and paying. The money isnt made in 1000. 00 its made in europe. Over here we have the products were ready to ship to places like poland this is already one of the continent called saying we should get out. In 2015 alone exports from nigeria to poland grew by 51 percent. But im biased from africa most times there repackage and then sell to walk. On trees for land is a very big call that by a lot of friends around markets. The charcoal is shipped to europe in containers the t. F. T. Organization has seen to it that less nigerian charcoal is imported to france but exports to poland are on the rise here conservationists say charcoal from tropical wood is simply repackage and distributed throughout europe. What continues his search in poland. Board all that up forces to occur. We are here to see if this factory really does produce charcoal at all some of the we want to know if all the wood was locally sourced and processed with us or. This is in our previous visits to poland. We learned that some only pretend to be producers. Actually imports charcoal repackage it and then sell it. And then they claim it was produced here in their factory said. Today only d. And his colleagues are visiting europes largest charcoal producer wants the company grease gun and has 3 factories that produce 15 percent of all the charcoal consumed in the wide. The managing director is guiding a tour through the facilities. The conservationists want to find out if all the charcoal is truly produced here in poland or if its mixed with charcoal from tropical woods. For. The most important clue is a look in the Business Books hes interested in the amounts of charcoal and wood coming and going to so far hes been acting on behalf of french chains that have committed themselves to offer only sustainable charcoal. And therefore the forest trust checks that no tropicals would find its way into the backs of. Their biggest difficulty is figuring out how many tons of wood the Company Needs to produce one ton of charcoal. Based on the method employed the amounts can vary greatly. Now its p. L. Of these job to estimate how efficiently the plant works and compare the wood purchases with the charcoal sales competition in this sector is fierce as is the temptation to cheat with illegal african charcoal. When the countries keep production costs down and Companies Manage to buy raw material from dubious sources then they can earn higher Profit Margins on the import and trade when done by import of the model for them. Its. Just. While importers pay very little for their raw material european producers must dig deep into their pockets for the wood. Producers traders everyone looks to cut corners to make sure that i can make those prashad auctions that are forced onto them by the market by consumerism and more forcefully backed often leads to the cheapest would be illegal would getting into the system. The largest producer in Europe States that its wood is purchased from native forests thats a big cost factor and. Theres lots of ward whats important is that the wood is actually from this region cultivated sustainably and is so that it can be labelled as responsibly produced charcoal. Native wood from responsible forestry that means the amount of wood that can be logged is limited to how much can read grow. European foresters have known this principle for centuries thats how they responded to the massive clearing of forests in the early 18th century they call it the sustainability. Of gold from this region. This particular place. From 5 to make sure the charcoal is as sustainable as the managing director said it was their next appointment is with the forester again checks the production books and the woods origin. To make sure the forests are large enough to supply the amount of wood the manufacture needs are you know off he takes careful note of the numbers of hectares the age of the trees and the amount of wood extracted. From the 4 as they plant or theyre not rahway. Places he hasnt found a bug in the system yet but he keeps asking the manufacturers. Quality manager and the forester both take all his questions. Unlike in africa the amount of woodland in the e. U. Is growing. In poland it went from 8800000 hectares in 1900 to 9400000 hectares in 2015 that only works with truly sustainable methods. Is very pleased with what hes seen here. They have a forest cultivation plan set up for 10 years with a registry for each logging so. And that way they know exactly how much wood theyre allowed to take from each plant or do dismiss means traceability right back to where it was felled and we know theyve been cultivating sustainably for years. Disorder here for example is 60 years or so from your. Word for guilt free charcoal and thanks to traditional forestry guidelines modern technology and careful documentation this forest will continue supplying as much wood as it does today for centuries to come. Or. Is that still thats still the devil theres plenty of wood right here in poland that you dont need to buy it in africa. That out there is enough deciduous trees to cover the demand for charcoal thats. Hopes to someday find charcoal in supermarkets that is only produced from sustainable wood but in europe there are many sustainable manufactures like this one in poland and companies that produce charcoal and electricity on the exception to the rule and so he sets off for france. One of the most modern charcoal factories in the world is here in the region. The region is also home to vast deciduous forests and yet france still imports most of its charcoal. This manufacturer wants to prove that producing charcoal in france can in fact be profitable. What it lacks in size the business makes up for in innovation. The french Government Supports it with subsidies. The managing directors were even invited to the World Climate conference in bonn in 2017 to talk about eco friendly charcoal production at home and in developing countries. Id also this word here comes from the Forest Park East of sun. Thanks to modern technology they only need 2 and a half tons of wood. For each ton of charcoal they produce that means they can preserve 40 percent of the wood in comparison the earth mounds in africa only have an efficiency rate of about 10 percent interest meaning their kilns require 4 times the amount of wood. But there. Was the offer to open it but it had been taking. The charcoal is dried in huge baskets with the excess heat given off during production. Or someone was just set up on a couple days here is proof that were able to make renewable charcoal. All it takes is Sustainable Forestry and todays technology. That using this method we can produce charcoal electricity and heat. Products at once from one single resource poor fellow they can also do this up whats what makes this product competitive and profitable in europe when he visits he said. This site provides 10000 homes with steady electricity. The tropical charcoal producers can only dream of having such a modern plant. Developed by world wide fall where experiencing the deforestation of several 1000000 factors each year or this is so that is so much and so relevant that it makes up about 15 percent of manmade Carbon Emissions consumed by tate. Satellite images reveal that 30 percent of africas Oldest National park has already been de