Wood energy production and consumption in a rural and farming systems context. A case of family-householdand local industry, Northern Thailand.

Publikations-Art

Kongressbeitrag

Autoren

Praneetvatakul, S. und W. Doppler

Erscheinungsjahr

1999

Veröffentlicht in

Proceedings of The International Symposium of AFSRE

Herausgeber

Doppler, W. und Koutsouris, A.

Verlag

Margraf Verlag , Weikersheim

ISBN / ISSN / eISSN

3-8236-1320-0

Seite (von - bis)

238-255

Tagungsname

Third European Symposium on Rural and Farming Sytems Analyses: Environmental Perspectives

Tagungsort

Hohenheim

Tagungsdatum

25.-27.3.1998

Due to the fact that a non-sustainable use of wood energy from the forests, in terms of sustainable production and utilisation, occurs in northern Thailand, understanding the complexity of availability and use of wood energy resources is required as a basis to finding a solution. Therefore, monitoring as well as analysing the present situation of energy consumption and production are essential. This paper aims to examine wood energy production and consumption in the rural and farming systems context. The survey was done in Phayao province, Northern Thailand in crop year 1992/93. The results showed that wood is still the main energy source for rural families in Northern Thailand. Income was the main factor determining the energy type and quantity consumed. Therefore, any measurement of increasing income will result in decreasing the quantity of wood energy consumed by substituting modern energy sources e.g. LPG. The forest is the main source of wood energy production in the study area with wood from cultivated fields and around home still playing a minor role. The ever increasing distance to the collection places was reported by most wood collectors as the main problems of wood gathering and led to the longer time spent in acquiring wood as a source of energy. It implied that increasing the opportunity cost of labour (the families earning potential against their costs in gathering wood) would contribute to reducing wood energy collection. Finally, it was found that the sustainable wood energy supply constitutes less than 50 percent of total actual consumption of Phayao province in 1992/93. With the present wood energy consumption and production as well as respondents' attitudes, the pressure on the forest is likely to continue. In conclusion, enhancing local job opportunities to enhance family income would help to dampen the present problem of wood energy.