ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two remote peasant communities in the Mabalane District of the Gaza Province in southern Mozambique. Comprising mainly smallholder agro-pastoralists, in the past decades these households have been constantly vulnerable to food insecurity. Rain-fed crop production failed in seven out of the past ten years in the studied areas. Thus local livelihoods are becoming increasingly reliant on the sale of small livestock, mainly goats and pigs, as well as on charcoal production. The livelihoods 'turn to charcoal' portrait above depicts how these peasant communities are being pushed towards off-farm activities in order to cope with food insecurity. Subsequently, forestry exploitation brings ashore a global concern, that of fossil energy. The importance of charcoal production in such apparently remote communities brings forth the interconnectedness of spatial scales through environmental and socio-economic stressors. The study dealt with vendors selling cooked food, vegetables, garments, electronics, household utensils and leather items.
