Firewood utilization and environmental degradation: A case study of Musanze District of Rwanda

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of firewood utilization has on environmental degradation, and it has also four specific objectives including to assess the effects of firewood utilization on environmental degradation in Musanze District of Rwanda for the last 5 years (March, 2014 – March, 2019); to show the connection between firewood utilization and environmental degradation in Musanze District of Rwanda; to find out the emergency response needed to mitigate the impact of firewood utilization on environmental degradation; to formulate recommended intervening strategies for halting firewood utilization and environmental degradation in Musanze District of Rwanda; literature reviewed showed that researchers stipulated that firewood utilization destroys the environment on high rate, the fingings of the study proved that residents of Musanze District mostly in rural areas prefer to use firewood to warm house in seasons of coldness. The findings indicate that 94 (94.0%) of respondents have agreed that government put much efforts in encouraging other sources of energy while cooking rather than firewood. The results also proved that there is correlation between destruction of species in system and rapid industrialization (p=.917with sig= 0.00 at 0.01 level of significance), it means there is strong positive significant relationship between destruction of species in system and rapid industrialization. The study finding proved that sociocultural factor (conservative behavior) is the highest rated factor to influence emergency response in cutting back negative effects brought by firewood utilization. The findings also prove that LP Gas is very cheap compared to other sources of energy considered in this study. In conclusion, the results prove that sensitization, mobilization and reinforcing environment protection regulations and policies can help to mitigate and prevent the effects of environment degradation; recommendations on sensitizing the members of local community to utilize gas cookers as a smarter, affordable and cheaper source of energy compared to others, increase safety awareness to gas cooker utilizers, enhancing the reinforcement and regulatory measures concerning environmental protection and further studies were recommended to be done on mining activities and environmental security, to analyze the impact of deforestation on environmental degradation, fire incidents and Liquefied Petroleum Gas utilization, other researches should be carried on analyzing the effect of biomass on environmental protection to mention but few.