NAIROBI (Reuters) - Illegal charcoal exports to Gulf states are a big source of income for rebel groups in Somalia, injecting millions of dollars to the war that has devastated the nation, its environment minister said on Monday.

The Horn of African country's environment ministry, which receives just a $12,000 monthly budget, says the level of destruction the business has caused is huge.

"These radical groups cut the trees and allow corrupt businessmen to export charcoal from ports they control, and the money is used to perpetuate the killing of civilians," Burci Hamza told Reuters in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

"We cannot wait for security to come while ignoring this disaster."

The minister said his government is in discussions with Gulf states and the Arab League to bar charcoal imports from Somalia.

"At this stage, if we convince these countries to stop importing charcoal, they (exporters) will not have a market."

Hamza, who spearheaded Somalia's signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty in December, said his government would also enlist youths to replant trees in depleted areas.

"We have to do something; engage the youth in reforestation projects, offer them an alternative that will have double benefit for the country; security and preserving the environment."

REBELS CONTROL PORTS

The U.N.-backed administration of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, which controls just a few blocks of the capital, outlawed charcoal exports in April 2009, but the order was only enforced at the port of Mogadishu.

Al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked rebel group, controls the other three ports in the south; Barawe, Merka and Kismayu.

The minister warned a human-made disaster was in the making for Somali which has had five years of successive droughts.

An environmental campaigner who did not want to be named said residents' attempts at reforestation were thwarted by rebels.

"If we try to replant some trees in the areas they have cleared, they think we are working there on behalf of other international organisations. They do not think the residents can take the initiative," he said.

A truck driver who transports charcoal from across the southern region to the Barawe port said smaller forests were disappearing fast as charcoal burners cut down big trees.

"About three ships leave every month from the town of Barawe alone," he said. "Big ships wait offshore and smaller boats take the charcoal to them."

"The cost of this man-made disaster is human lives," said Bashir Mohamed Abdulkadir, a member of the National Association of Science and Environmental Journalists.

"The locals should not be overly confident in their traditional belief that the environment is natural and protected by Allah, they need to stop this business," he told Reuters.

Reuters