ABSTRACT
A recent study by Paul Harrison has highlighted four essential aspects of the crisis facing Africa: a decline in food production per capita, increasing poverty, rising debt and finally, and most serious for the future as it will profoundly effect the other three, the environmental crisis.' We will argue that trees and woody biomass more generally, are too important to be consigned "merely" to a fuelwood problem. Developing a policy for woody-biomass management can positively affect all four aspects of Africa's crisis because woody biomass protects Africa's soils and hence its productive potential. It also provides many of the needs of Africa's peoples. Annually, 3.7 million hectares of woodland and forest disappear, and already more than a quarter of the continent is undergoing desertification ranging from moderate to severe.
