The war in Iran is driving fuel disruptions that are forcing families in Africa and South Asia back toward charcoal, firewood and other polluting fuels, while conservation efforts, wildlife habitats and funding for protected areas take the hit. In Nairobi’s Kibera settlement, Brenda Obare said her stove is often cold and she now cooks over a charcoal burner outside her tin-roofed home because cooking gas is too expensive and often unavailable. “We don’t have many options,” she said. “You use what you can afford.”
Who Pays When Fuel Prices Jump
The people at the bottom are the ones left improvising. Across Africa and South Asia, governments had spent years pushing households away from charcoal and firewood and toward cleaner fuels like liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG. That shift was sold as a health and conservation fix, with air pollution cited as a major killer and forests treated as something to be managed by policy from above. But when energy costs rise, those gains start collapsing in real time, and the burden lands on cash-poor households first.
The article says air pollution killed 2.9 million people in 2021, according to the World Health Organization, and that firewood and charcoal increase pressure on forests and wildlife. Cutting trees faster than they grow back accelerates deforestation. As fuel becomes harder to afford, more people are pushed back into the same destructive cycle the authorities had claimed to be moving them out of.
What the Crisis Does on the Ground
The impacts are spreading beyond gas pumps to kitchens, forests and wildlife habitats. As more people search for fuel in forests, they are encountering wildlife. Economic pressures can also drive more poaching and bushmeat hunting, increasing the chance of diseases spreading from animals to people. Falling tourism means less funding for conservation, while high fuel costs make it harder for field teams to operate and respond quickly when wild animals enter human areas.
Mayukh Chatterjee, the International Union Conservation for Nature’s co-chair for its conflict and co-existence specialist group, said, “The longer this debacle runs, the harder it is going to hit conservation.” Paula Kahumbu, a wildlife conservationist and CEO of Nairobi-based WildlifeDirect, said many families turn to firewood and charcoal when LPG, kerosene or electricity become too expensive or unreliable because they are easier to get in cash-poor settings, even though they harm the environment. “The first conservation risk from an energy shock in Africa is not abstract. It is household fuel switching,” she said. She added, “The crisis is impacting more than forests.”
Rising demand for biomass fuels also degrades watersheds and wildlife habitats as people go deeper into previously undisturbed areas, increasing pressure on ecosystems and the species that depend on them. Experts fear rising diesel prices and higher fertilizer costs will also hurt farm productivity, reducing yields and increasing food insecurity. The damage is not neatly contained; it spreads through daily life, work, food and land.
The Reversal of Hard-Won Gains
Charcoal, made by slowly burning wood in kilns, is one of the most widely used cooking fuels in sub-Saharan Africa and a major driver of deforestation. Demand is climbing among customers in Nairobi’s low-income settlements, according to charcoal seller Munyao Kitheka. A similar shift is underway in India, the world’s second-largest LNG importer, with about 60% of its supply coming from the Gulf region, according to S&P Global.
Rama, a social worker who goes by only one name, spent years encouraging waste-picking families in Bhalswa, a poor neighborhood in the outskirts of the capital New Delhi, to adopt LPG. But with incomes below $3 a day, many can no longer afford pricier LPG cylinders and are reverting to stoves that burn firewood, or returning to villages where wood is easier to find. “Things are very, very bad,” she said.
Neha Saigal, a consultant with the environmental and social justice startup Asar Social Impact Advisors, said the shift places a heavier burden on women and girls who end up spending hours each day hunting for fuel, limiting their time for work or school. “Years of work went into making LPG aspirational. But a global issue like this can reverse some of those gains,” she said. Chatterjee of Chester Zoo said reducing pressure on habitats by reducing fuelwood use has been central to conservation efforts in Asia, citing an elephant conservation project in India’s northeastern Assam state where eateries had reduced wood use. He warned those gains could unravel as households shift back from LPG, which is produced from refining oil or natural gas. “That all risks going back to square one,” he said.
Tourism, Rangers and the Limits of Top-Down Fixes
Experts warn that the war in Iran and the resulting fuel shocks can strain funding and disrupt field operations, hindering global conservation. Airlines are cutting routes to Africa, potentially hitting tourism as rising fuel prices raise travel costs. Disruptions to aviation routes through Middle Eastern hubs make access to some destinations more difficult. Even a modest drop in visitor numbers can have outsized effects in countries that rely on wildlife tourism to fund protected areas.
Tourism contributes about 14% of the GDP in countries like Kenya and Tanzania, where it underpins park management, anti-poaching patrols and community conservation initiatives. Kahumbu said, “Less tourism means less income for conservation initiatives, fewer rangers and more opportunistic poaching,” adding that rising food and fuel costs could also push more people toward bushmeat as an affordable source of protein, increasing pressure on wildlife populations.
Conservation work in remote areas requires extensive and regular travel, often by motorbike or other vehicles, and higher fuel prices can disrupt that movement. Chatterjee said that in cases of conflict between wildlife and people in South Asia, rapid deployment of forest staff and conservation teams is critical to secure the area, manage crowds and safely guide or tranquilize animals before situations escalate. Delays increase the risk of injury or death on both sides, and fuel shortages can slow response times.
African governments have options to cushion the impact, but action has often lagged. Kahumbu called for protecting households from reverting to polluting fuels through targeted subsidies and stronger local supply chains and by backing local energy sources such as biogas, solar and geothermal. “Treat conservation as essential infrastructure during economic shocks,” she said.