The Casamance Kiln was developed over several years of field research in the Casamance region of Senegal, based on the idea that an efficient, low-cost kiln could be developed that would adapt well to local situations. The resulting kiln showed a dramatic improvement in both production efficiency and economic returns over the traditional method and was well accepted by the local charcoal makers.

This publication aims to show, step by step, how to build and operate the kiln. It also includes a description of the development process of the kiln, as well as brief introduction to some other kilns for charcoal production, such as trditional earth covered kiln, woodwall kiln, portable metal kiln, the Ghana mixed kiln, barrel kiln, the Argentine half orange kiln, brick kiln, Missouri kiln...

It was not meant to promote the Casamance Kiln as a most favored method of charcoal production, but to introduce one of the production methods that took into consideration of cultural, physical, environmental, and economic site-specific conditions and constraints.