Species, sources, seasonality, and sustainability of fuelwood commercialization in Masaya, Nicaragua

The structure of the fuelwood supply chain and the impacts of urban residential fuelwood consumption on forests in Nicaragua are little known. To characterize the nature of fuelwood movements toward residential centers, we examined the fuelwood inventories and movements in the largest fuelwood market, in Masaya, during the peak of the rainy season, in October 1999, and again at the peak of the dry season, in May 2000. We found a stressed fuelwood supply that depended greatly upon natural forests. There was a diverse (64 tree taxa from 28 families) and strongly seasonally variable taxonomic composition of the supply of fuelwood. Greater volumes concentrated in fewer taxa (63,648 kg per 5-day period, with 58.9% in three species) were sold to vendors in the dry season than in the rainy season (12,921 kg per 5-day period with 24.6% among the same three species). The proportion of fuelwood derived from natural forests increased from one-third of the market sales during the rainy season to one-half in the dry season; virtually none of the fuelwood was derived from plantation forestry. We recommend a fuelwood supply management strategy based on incentives to farm owners for supplying managed fuelwood and increased vigilance to limit forest destruction for fuelwood production.