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CIFOR–ICRAF publishes over 750 publications every year on agroforestry, forests and climate change, landscape restoration, rights, forest policy and much more – in multiple languages.

CIFOR–ICRAF addresses local challenges and opportunities while providing solutions to global problems for forests, landscapes, people and the planet.

We deliver actionable evidence and solutions to transform how land is used and how food is produced: conserving and restoring ecosystems, responding to the global climate, malnutrition, biodiversity and desertification crises. In short, improving people’s lives.

Bioenergy

Bioenergy

It has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect ecosystems and secure livelihoods for rural communities – if developed sustainably.

Bioenergy from plants with oil-producing seeds or wood that can be converted to biomass energy has the potential to produce clean energy, secure rural livelihoods and restore degraded lands, helping countries achieve their climate change targets and sustainable development goals. Bioenergy can also strengthen the economic incentive for private sector and community groups to undertake restoration efforts. It needs to be carefully managed at the landscape scale to avoid displacing food crops or promote land-clearing.

CIFOR Germany gGmbH and CIFOR-ICRAF work on biofuels includes woodfuel such as charcoal and firewood production in Africa, as well as using bioenergy species to restore degraded landscapes (including peatlands) in Southeast Asia. We also work on introducing short-rotation bioenergy crops in the Western Balkans, coupled with environmentally protective permanent tree areas and productive agroforestry borders, to help countries in the region to create jobs, provide a just, clean transition from coal, reduce air pollution and increase human health. We see bioenergy as part of a comprehensive approach that considers energy poverty, health, climate change, and food and nutritional security through diverse production systems involving forest landscapes. We are also studying social and gender dynamics and outcomes along woodfuel value chains, from production through to consumption.

Contact us

Himlal Baral

Senior Scientist

Dietmar Stoian

Lead scientist, Value chains, private sector engagement and investments

Mary Njenga

Research Scientist

Christopher Martius

Managing Director, CIFOR Germany gGmbH
Team Leader for Climate Change, Energy and Low-Carbon Development (CCE)

Bioenergy: Fast facts

~3.5 million ha of degraded lands in Indonesia have the potential to grow biofuel species

 

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