Re-assessment of woodfuel supply and demand relationships in Kampong Thom Province, Cambodia

This study re-examined a previously published relationship between supply and demand for woodfuel at different spatial scales within Kampong Thom Province, Cambodia. We considered three different scales: The first was the whole area of the province. The second scale calculated village-scale data in zones of 1, 3, and 5 km from each village and then aggregated for all villages of the province. The third scale also calculated data for the three zones at the village-scale, but the data were then aggregated according to three regional groupings based on population density and forest availability. When evaluating woodfuel supply, we excluded biomass increment of trees with diameter larger than 30 cm because it was found that local people rarely collect trees larger than 30 cm for fuel. On the demand side, dead wood, which was included in the previous assessment, and woodfuel obtained from non-forest sources were excluded to enable comparison of supply and demand that related only to living trees originating from forests. The re-assessment revealed large decreases in both supply and demand at each scale as compared with our previous assessment; supply reduced by 46% and demand by 36% at the whole province scale. However, the ratios of supply to demand at each scale examined were very similar for both assessments. This re-assessment therefore supports our previous findings: there is a deficiency in woodfuel resources in areas of high population density along the main road due to high woodfuel demand and a predominance of agricultural land and regrowth forest in close proximity to villages. This study underscores the usefulness of taking detailed woodfuel consumption patterns into account when assessing the impact of woodfuel demand on forests. For a more accurate assessment on the sustainability of woodfuel resources and utilization, further research is needed to project future woodfuel demand, not only for green wood from forested sources, but also for dead wood and woodfuel from non-forested sources.