ABSTRACT
Serious problems of watershed management are caused by the rapidly developing tropical fuelwood crisis. In developing countries, four-fifths of the wood harvested is used for fuel. China has the largest share of the problem with 350 million rural people suffering acute shortages of domestic fuel for 6 months of every year after the crop residues have been used up. Excluding China, South and Southeast Asia contain 30 percent of the world's population but only 2 percent of the world's known reserves of fossil fuels. Major hydropower and nuclear power development requires such heavy investment that progress is very slow and is directed to urban consumers. The fuelwood crisis presents an urgent challenge to those actively concerned with forestry and agriculture in the tropics. In Kenya, the Forest Department has continued to manage the former railway fuelwood plantations to supply population centers.
