Chad hopes ‘green charcoal’ can save vanishing forests

N’DJAMENA: As they zigzagged from one machine to another in the searing African sun, the workers were covered in black soot. But the charcoal they were making is known as “green,” and backers hope it can save impoverished Chad from rampant deforestation. Chad, a vast, landlocked country of 19 million people perched at the crossroads of north and central Africa, is steadily turning to desert. It has lost more than 90 percent of its forest cover since the 1970s, hit by climate change and overexploitation of trees for household uses such as cooking, officials say.

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