Sudan’s three-year civil war has accelerated the silent collapse of the country’s forest belts, with families across Khartoum and Gezira states turning to firewood and charcoal as cooking gas cylinders now sell for around 90,000 Sudanese pounds — about $22.50 — whilst basic services break down. That is according to Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat, which reported environmental experts describing the tree felling and forest belt depletion as a silent disaster threatening the country’s natural resources and climate balance amid a near-total absence of environmental oversight.
On the outskirts of Khartoum state, among acacia trees near the confluence of the two Niles, Aisha Abdullah described the choices now facing families forced back onto firewood. “We have no option left but firewood to cook food,” Abdullah told the outlet, with cooking gas now beyond the reach of households earning in a collapsing local currency.
Wood Central understands that pressure is concentrated on Sudan’s hashab acacia belts, the source of the country’s pre-war gum arabic exports and a critical feedstock for food-grade emulsifiers for soft drink majors, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Sudan supplied between 70 and 80 per cent of the global gum arabic market before the war erupted in April 2023, with pre-war exports of 100,000 to 150,000 tonnes a year collapsing to roughly 48,000 tonnes across the 2023-24 season.
The collapse of fuel supply chains and the displacement of millions into wooded zones has reversed the historic balance, with charcoal and firewood now the default cooking fuel for households unable to absorb cylinder prices, whilst the trees that once produced premium hashab resin for European processors are increasingly being cut for fuel rather than tapped.
Internal displacement has compounded the harvest pressure, with large numbers of Sudanese moving to safer areas and setting up temporary shelters in wooded zones, whilst the state’s monitoring and enforcement capacity has effectively collapsed. Experts cited in the report described the situation as no longer routine environmental degradation, with the depletion of forest belts amounting to a direct threat to the country’s broader climate balance.
It comes as Wood Central reported on the World Bank’s push for value-added domestic milling in Liberia earlier this week, with conflict and currency collapse now the most durable accelerators of forest loss across an African continent where regulatory oversight has thinned in fragile states.
In Gezira state, Salah al-Tayeb told the same outlet that economic hardship has pushed entire communities into the forests, with Sudan’s gum arabic exports having collapsed from roughly 150,000 tonnes a year before the war to around 48,000 tonnes across 2023-24, whilst the same hashab trees that once produced premium resin for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are now being cut for cooking fuel.
