But. Hardly anyone knows how nontransparent this market really yes for that one tonne of charcoal requires 5 to 10 tons of wood. This has an enormous impact on the environment. Where the wood comes from theres often terrible human rights abuses and theres poverty theres deforestation theres deserts of occasional vices and. Its completely unacceptable that tropical rain forests are being destroyed just to produce cheeta charcoal should be happening its madness bongs 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 paraguay 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 charcoal 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 rainforest. Kingsley i can use specializes in export ready to be field with charcoal. Murray. 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 cops on fox the jail. Where it over forbidden. Yeah yeah it was a jail. Filo want to contain up 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 here 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. Here only view what tough from france has been fighting against imported tropical charcoal for years he works with 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. For 10 what is a real and critical. Because. Some in photo spread them to be produced. But the re are produced on other trick uncreative or your pen walking work on the ball because. If we dont do that it could not be clear also for the distance that. Theres a hard ball the wall may men says it is a small rick us very. Distributors who keep importing. Thats what the market will force their hand the moment we change the market everyone who wants to carry on as usual or will be left no other choice is that all this often i think. By the way. 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 cant understand the concern about tropically source charcoal. With highly paid work if what you have to realize that there are also sustainably managed tropical forests is only for if i dont see why these products should be banned or you are that you cant forget that the charcoal market is helping feed thousands of people in africa with the 5th seed was 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 week of his to judge an asian we need to actively deal with the problem of who we force for such as i say i dont call him a cheat. In nigeria its true that many people depend on the charcoal business in places where qualified jobs are hard to come by there 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 log 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 the song they found produce about 200. 00 within their moths. We dont enjoy the walk to. The level most times when you come back you were tired. After coming back from the war. For one tonne of charcoal the workers need up to 10 tons of wood most of the energy escapes as excess heat exhaust leaks from the piles and the surrounding soil is contaminated with toxins. 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 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 towards the end of the dry season before they return to their fields 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 Corner even if it is illegal. When they do they risk their fields drying up. Back to germany. Is the wood specialist at the World Wildlife fund today hes brought bags of charcoal to the tune institute in hamburg he too wants 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 would 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 for these products coal 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 utilise the 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 can say where the charcoal is from can discern which type of wood it was made from even if it is imprinted on the back. He instantly recognizes some native trees species. Before i put it under the microscope i do a pretty examination sometimes i use a magnifying glass to determine what type were dealing with. Ive already dug of baytown from the bottom of the bag and as you can see what makes charcoal so special is that unlike wood its brittle to. Break it off it creates these clean edges and i can look at those with my magnifying glass. Here for example we have an ash tree. This bag doesnt contain any tropical timber 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. The entire forests are being cut down in countries like nigeria or in Eastern Europe and sometimes even protected forests are being plundered when that has an immense impact on the ecosystem or biodiversity and on the climate overall we need to act. We care we have 3 cats. 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 its a b c o 2 neutral. Inspects 20 bags of. Sand then had various hardware and Grocery Stores in many cases its evident the wood isnt native. 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 on its 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. Image told them that if identifying would species is called would anatomy we identify types of wood 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 but they arent. Thats why the cuny an institute of Wood Research stores thousands of samples of various trees. But in spoke to him that placed on the structural features we can see here we can definitely say this word is not from a temperate or even boreal reacher other way as who rushed out. That means this charcoal was definitely tropically sourced. 8 of the 20 bags they examined did contain wood from rain forests. That amounts to 40 percent of their samples 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 feed you 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 cultivation Environmental Protection labor laws none of it matters. That important so once cost insurrection costs are much much lower than operating a colliery here in germany and 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 to untie what they can some cost not arsenal. Most germans have no idea that their charcoal is sometimes produced with peoples bare hands and colby would never have guessed that hes talking was used to german sausages for many industry make use of power from. Industry to die make use of its like those before. They also make use of charcoal. Also to people who take it from they find 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 long gone transporters sorters distributors Everyone Wants to turn a profit the jobs are highly sought after. Jobs provided out of body level at a 0. 60 house what shop will be checking to see is one of the few jobs that actually brings jobs. To the rural areas to the local women to people who otherwise they have no way to go should have nothing to fall back to they have nothing. For the. And here is a lesson theres really no major industry here that cried a call me this is a boss brain chuckle that oswald wanted to work because the other thing. And this sector is growing. Just the one study estimates the market could be worth up to 12000000000. 00 by 2030 with 12000000. 00 people working at it thats a shot at market close to the money made in that sector will stay with a powerful distributors solution and pay. The money isnt made in nigeria its made in europe. Over here we have the products were ready to ship to places like poland this is ready what about 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 every package and then seltzer water. On trees for land is a very big haul there by a lot of us and europe 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 what is simply repackaged and distributed throughout europe. Continues his search in poland. More on that up force a strike. We are here to see if this factory really does produce charcoal it could also mean that we want to know if all the wood was locally sourced and processed with us. As this is in our previous visits to poland although the. 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 or the world. Today can only be and his colleagues are visiting europes largest charcoal producer once the company grease gun and has 3 factories that produce 15 percent of all the charcoal consumed in you 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 kids 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 that 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 was present a can earn higher Profit Margins on the import and trade than when done by import of their hunger for the. Meat 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 meet those prashad auctions that are forced onto them by the market by consumers and and unfortunately 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. 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 producing charcoal from. 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 sustainability. Of gold from this region. This photo place on the front 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 your 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 in the not for always. 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. Was growing. In poland it went from 8800000 hectares in 1990 to 9400000 hectares in 2015 that only works with truly sustainable methods. P. L. Only view what time is very pleased with what he seen here. For us just for his own show they have a forest cultivation plan set up for 10 years to fill with a registry for each logging so. And that way they know exactly how much wood theyre allowed to take from each plant to do dismiss means traceability right back to where it was felled and we know theyve been cultivating sustainably for years just what here for example is 60 years old supply of. Wood for guilt free charcoal. Thanks to the traditional forestry guidelines with modern technology and careful documentation this forest will continue supplying as much wood as it does today for centuries to calm the. Markets opened up already developed. This patch thats most of them 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 was that settled it. Hopes to someday find charcoal in supermarkets that is only produced from sustainable what but in europe there are many sustainable manufacturers like this one in poland and companies that produce charcoal and electricity on it such into the rule and so he sets off for france. One of the most modern charcoal factories in the world is here in the. Region is also home to vast deciduous foreign. And yet france still imports most of its charcoal and this manufacturer wants to prove that producing charcoal in france can in fact be profitable. You know 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. But also this word here comes from the forest park use 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 meaning their kilns require 4 times the amount of wood. But it. Has already offered to help if i knew it had been taking into. The charcoal is dried in huge baskets with the excess heat given off during production. First album was to set up on a couple as here is proof that were able to make renewable charcoal exists all it takes is Sustainable Forestry and todays technology. That using this method can produce charcoal electricity and heat in 3 products at once from one single resource for celtic also what it is up whats what makes this product competitive and profitable in europe of what it is it is. This size provides 10000 homes with steady electricity. The tropical charcoal producers can only dream of having such a modern plant. Worldwide followed were experiencing the deforestation of several 1000000 hectares each year or this is that is so much and so relevant that it makes up about 15 percent of manmade Carbon Emissions by tate. Satellite images