Abstract:
Biomass energy source has been the major source of cooking energy for major segment of
Ethiopian population for thousands of years. To investigate household energy consumption pattern
of biomass energy sources and the biomass energy quality and safety of technology (wood-stoves)
in respect to climatecal, socio-economical and environmental benefits in the wolaita zone. A
community based cross-sectional study was conducted employing both quantitative and qualitative
approaches on systematically selected 138 households for quantitative and purposively selected
110 people for qualitative parts. Descriptive statistical method and qualitative analysis were used as
methodological tools. Moreover, one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was fitted to assess possible
associations and its strength was measured using odds ratio at 95percentCI.The study indicated
that 99.93perrcent of households still use biomass energy for cooking. More than 15 percent of
households collect tree biomass from their own homestead forests while 79 percent of households
acquire their biomass energy through purchase from neighbors’ market and remaining 6 percent
of household both collect and purchase. Testing reveals that quantity of firewood consumption by high
income households was significantly higher than that of medium income and low income category
households. Those who were less knowledgeable about negative health and environmental effects of
traditional utilization of biomass energy sources were 5.11 and 3.58 times more likely to utilize
them compared with those who were knowledgeable. The most outstanding finding of this study
was that households use traditional biomass energy for cooking mainly due to lack of the
knowledge and their beliefs about food prepared using biomass energy. Although 13% households
were using improved cooking stoves (ICS), mass motivation and subsidized ICS can increase their
uses. Therefore, mechanisms should be planned to promote modern energy and to teach the public
about health, and environmental as well as climate effects of traditional way of utilization of
biomass based renewable energy source. Along with reforestation programs government may take
initiative for climate compatible development from ICS programs on household energy markets as
part of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
Keywords: Biomass, firewood, cooking stove, reforestation