Productions: Panoscope

Panoscope . Media Briefings . Island Beat . Our Own Voice . Le P'tit Nouvelliste
Order Publications

Panoscope Articles Index

Coal burning – big business in Mocho, Clarendon

By Avia Ustanny, Freelance Writer

Kingston, 29 May 2006 (Panos) - There are bags of coal on the grassy front yard of 56 year old Ventura Walker, a housewife living in Mocho, Clarendon. She always has her ears tuned to passing vehicles which stop to find out the price of the fuel.

“Its $300 for each bag or $250 wholesale,” she says. “My father used to burn coal from I was a child. Now I sell coal for people. Some days there is no sale but some days are very good.”

She and other residents in the community who burn coal for a living are seeing more of the good days since there seems to be an increased demand for coal both locally and for export.

The best times for coal vendors, Walker says is the rainy season when no one has time to seek wood for cooking fuel. “In the dry time, its hard, but when weather time, them run you down,” explained another vendor. Vendors find market not only from local people but from supermarkets, market vendors and also a growing export market. Data from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin) indicates that in 2004, 17, 863 kilos of charcoal was exported to the United States valued at J$530,884. In the same year, 9,413 kilos of charcoal valued at $123,774 was imported from the North American country.

The coal burners in Mocho are glad about the growing demand. ”When the truck passing, sometime they will take up to a 100 (bags),” says former Mason, Livingston Bryan, Mocho resident. “I can buy my shoes, everything. It (coal) can buy more things and you work for yourself. When I was working as a mason, they find money to buy the material and then they can pay you. Now, you sell your coal and pay yourself.”

Locals in Mocho say that during the recent shortage of charcoal in the United States “an occurrence related to a mining explosion” there was a surge in local demand for charcoal to be exported.

A May 8 report on Reuters by Nick Carey entitled ‘Coal is the new black’ states that after decades of relying heavily on natural gas, electric utilities are raising coal inventories as fast as they can. Now that natural gas is no longer cheap “the companies want as much coal as possible.” In April, Texas power producer TXU Corp. said it would spend $10 billion on new coal-fired power plants in 2006 and that it was looking to expand coal power outside Texas. The utility companies want coal with low sulfur content which makes it easier for utilities to meet smokestack emission standards.

Officials from the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) say they have noted no indication of an increase in use of charcoal for energy use in Jamaica. Usage, they state, remains primarily residential and no commercial applications are known.

Local uses of charcoal
In many Jamaican urban communities, however, those who jerk chicken for a living rely on the rural supply for their cooking fuel. Besides use as fuel for cooking, charcoal is used in certain metallurgical "purifying" treatments and as a filter to remove organic compounds such as chlorine, gasoline, pesticides, and other toxic chemicals from water and air. Activated charcoal, which has a super adsorptive surface is used in purifying and refining metals. NutraSweet (tm) uses activated charcoal to transform the product into a powder. Activated charcoal is used as an antidote for many types of poisons and is touted as an effective anti-flatulent.

But, burning coal, they say, is not an easy option for those who are looking for quick cash. ”Burning coal is not for lazy man. They say only woman and coal take so much work,” chuckles Bryan. He admits that he cried many tears when he just began burning coal as the cutting and packing was so hard that he did not think he could carry on. He cried, he said because in those early days he had invested his last dollars into the new venture and the possibility of failure was daunting. But, he persevered and today the tedious preparation process is routine for him. The wood is first cut, then packed, thatched, pegged, covered with dirt, lit and left to burn. The burning wood requires frequent inspections, involving journeys to the ‘still’ (kiln) at 3 am and other odd hours. The wood can burn for as long as one week before it is ready for bagging and the market. Sometimes the result is as much as twenty bags and these have to be carried by shoulder or donkey to the home.

Carlene Wesley, 33-year-old mother of four children claims, “Coal is my source.” She uses the proceeds to care for her children in addition to brothers and sister.“My mother (deceased) has five children and only one have a father. My mother used to burn coal. She died in the coal and we take it up. My children have to take it up too. Sometimes I have to stop them from school because there is no money. I begged for them to be included on the PATH (government assistance) programme and I did not get through.”

Coal burning – a health hazard?
“Carlene is not the only woman who burns coal for a living,” notes Livingston. “You have other woman bad with the cutlass. Them have children to go to high school. Every body here involve in coal. Is either do that or thief.” Oneil Williams, 58-year-old Clarendonian says, “You just burn coal because you want to live a honest life. Coal is dangerous work, life or death business. If rain fall you can die. Adds Livingston Bryan “I am a diabetic and the doctors says that the heat is not good. I can black out and fall in the still (kiln).”

”You have to know when to rest and how to drink water until your body temperature falls,” Mr Williams says. Arlene Wesley admits that one of her children -a male - fell ill in the bush and had to be taken to the doctor for treatment. “But we have nothing else to live off.” Other hazards involved in the coal burning life include the loss of investment from fires which burn out of control. Her mother, she said, once lost 100 bags of the fuel this way. The coal still has to be carefully watched to see when its ready. Wesley and Bryan say that the losses associated with farming are still much more than coal. So to coal they have turned.

Coal burning an environmental hazard?
In Mocho, the hills are red at night in the dry season. The glow however, is not from the setting summer sun but from bush fires set by those who burn charcoal. Some hills are piebald, mute testimony to summertime burnings. There are grassy hill sides on slopes which were once covered by trees.

”You come out at night and you cannot breathe. I can’t stand the smell. Sometimes, you look and see a light on every hill,” complains Odette Eccles, farmer from the district. She is concerned about the effect of the coal burning on the environment. ”Its destroying the environment,” says Eccles. “We are having less rain.”

But, coal is big business in Mocho and - where the alternative is to see their children starve - farmers prefer to burn trees as fuel.

But to persons like Carlene Wesley, environmental concerns pale in comparison to the need for survival. “We need help. I have children. There is no bauxite here. What will they give us to do when they stop us?” she asks. “They are importing it too so why stop us? If it should stop burning, my children would just die or tief.”

Keith Porter, senior director in the department of Forestry, states that coal burning is a recognized livelihood activity. The legal issue is whether areas protected under the forestry act are being plundered for raw material. When done on private land, coal burning is not a legal offence. Protected areas include the Blue and John Crow Mountains, the Cockpit Country and Big head in Clarendon. The areas of Mocho would be considered private property.

In many cases, he said, private properties are left untended and so trees may be taken without the owners knowledge. In other cases it is an issue of connived trespassing, as owners deliberately turn a blind eye to use of wood on their property for coal burning. If the landowner permits the activity, there is no problem.

The forestry official said that it is a problem if the wood is taken from mangrove areas, but he added that in terms of environmental impact rain falls regardless of the vegetative cover. “Lack of cover might affect the percolation into streams. But, production of fuel from wood is a reality we cannot get around. Denudation does not equal degradation,” he says.

Mr. Porter said that National Forest Management Plan has looked at the issue of wood for fuel production, as a sustainable approach is needed to the use of wood for fuel. The Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica has also studied the production of fuel wood at Font Hill. Many projects have been considered but none have been activated.

He also said that coal burning as a source of respiratory problems is unlikely in rural areas where smoke dissipates. The activity however should not be carried out near dwellings.

Research has also been done, he said, on more efficient ways in which the charcoal can be prepared as currently the ratio of wood to charcoal in common kilns is 5 to 1. Reduction of this ratio would mean the use of less wood.