ABSTRACT
More than 25 years ago, Eric Eckholm (1975) focused the attention of the international development community on the “other energy crisis.” At the time, the world was facing oil shortages, sharply rising petroleum prices, and long queues at gasoline stations. Forecasters were predicting that fuel prices would continue to rise, and the United States began filling the strategic petroleum reserve. But Eckholm contended that policymakers were ignoring an equally serious problem: looming shortfalls of biomass energy in the developing world. His projection was based on Club of Rome–type extrapolations in which population growth would proportionately increase the consumption of woodfuels, and biomass stocks would decline in proportion to consumption (Agarwal 1986; Eckholm 1975). This market dynamic would result in unsustainable tree harvesting, a “woodfuel gap” between excess demand and supply, and significant deforestation.
