Tata Precillia Ijang 235
VM1...n : Village markets
SM : Suppliers market (wholesalers)
BR1...n : Urban markets (big retailers)
C1...n : Small neighborhood markets
c1...n : Final consumers
R : Small retailers
C : Consumers
Figure 3. Fuelwood filière model
Source: Tata 1999.
Wholesalers did not have a fixed market, sold exclusively to retailers, and
were all men. Most of the wood, in logs and split-halves (more desired by
consumers), was purchased from the village markets and transported,
sometimes up to 200 km, to the urban center using 6 and 10 tonne trucks.
Suppliers usually bought on order and already had a market where to sell the
product before they went to the village markets.
The big retailers at urban markets included two categories of traders:
those buying wood from wholesalers and who sold exclusively at wood markets,
and those buying wood from village markets and who drove around urban
neighborhoods selling from their vehicles. Retailers buying from villages
transported the product using mostly the bigger Dina Toyota pickup trucks as
well as regular pickup trucks and bought mostly small halves and branches
obtained from immature trees (lower quality wood from findings). They did
not travel far to buy the wood (less than 70 kilometers from the urban center).
In both cases they sold to small retailers and consumers and they were all
men. Some of the large harvested branches were used in the urban centers as
poles for supporting dilapidated houses, while others were used for the building
and roofing of houses.
Sales between small retailers and big consumers took place exclusively in
small neighborhood markets and in front of households. More than 80% of these
retailers were women and young children (Awah 1995; Tata 1999). People who
gathered wood from degraded forests around the urban center and from other
sources were also represented in this category. Most of the wood was of poor
quality.
Final consumers such as urban households, meat roasters and restaurant
owners made up 67% of the total energy consumed in the urban center (Assan
1991).
Woodsellers sold to whomever they chose, at any time. They were often
needy, jobless men who moved on to other activities as soon as possible.
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