When the Burundi crisis started, many took to the roads and crossed their borders seeking refuge.

Many of them, especially the middle and well-to-do class, moved into urban areas thinking that it would be just a matter of time before the crisis was resolved. Now two years have passed and many have run out of money.

With no option remaining but to go to refugee camps where their basic needs would be met, soon the numbers started to bloat. As of Thursday, data from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) put the current figure at 87,833. Add on the over 73,000 Congolese refugees who have been here for close to two decades and one gets a picture of the complexity of the refugee problem.

None is more worried than environmental stakeholders who have been grappling with the issue of depleting forest cover to cater for firewood which the refugees use to cook. The Minister of Disaster Management and Refugees Affairs (MIDIMAR) says that it spends Rwf 900 million annually just to buy fire wood.

Definitely that would not be sustainable for long and new measures had to be sought. MIDIMAR together with the UNHCR are now toying with the idea of using gas instead of firewood. It is still in the trial stage but whatever the outcome of the experiment, it is an idea that should not be dropped.

At the end of the day, there will be no equivalence to a destroyed environment, depleted forest cover and the consequences of global warming.