Short Summary
I am a resource conservationist in the United States working on a community development program in The Gambia to address deforestation. This program will provide solar lighting to homes, build highly efficient wood burning cook stoves, and help the people manage their forests sustainably. The program is designed to teach local people the basic skillset to teach others, create jobs in their community, improve health, and decrease resource consumption in the country.
Deforestation is a major problem in much of the world and rocket stove technology can be as much as 90% efficient. This program uses local natural building materials to build high efficiency cook stoves. Solar lighting systems have been generously donated to start a rental program where each days electrical fees will go towards funding the next home's lighting. Teaching forest management ties the new technologies to the communities and allows the new practices to support the community in perpetuity. Typical family homes in The Gambia house 20 - 30 people, so one stove and one lighting system can make a huge impact.
All I need is approximately $2500 to cover airfare and minor travel expenses from Chicago to Kartong. My accommodations are graciously being covered by Sandele eco-lodge in the Gambia. Your small contribution can greatly improve both the environment and human health, as well as being a seed for the program to spread.
The annual health and environmental impact of open fire
cooking:
Health: 4 million deaths each year- Each year toxic smoke
from open cooking fires causes four million deaths worldwide and is the leading
cause of death in children under five.
Safety: 4 million reported burns annually- Four million women
and children suffer painful and debilitating burns from their cooking fires.
Environment: One billion tons of GHGs emitted each year- 500
million cook fires emit nearly one billion tons of greenhouse gases each year
and cause massive deforestation.
Poverty: 20 hours a week spent collecting firewood- An
average man, woman or child spends 20 hours each week gathering wood. Wood
collection takes valuable time that could be spent at work or school.
Approximately
3 billion people worldwide cook over open fires or on inefficient stoves, with profoundly negative effects on the
environment, health, and income. These methods speed deforestation and produce
harmful emissions that lead to respiratory illness in women and children and to
lung cancer in older women. This pollution, according to the WHO, is
responsible for 1.6 million deaths annually.
Replacing open fires or inefficient stoves with improved
stoves both increases efficiency of fuel use and reduces pollution. It slows
deforestation, improves health, saves families money, and empowers women and
girls by limiting time spent collecting firewood. And slowing deforestation in
turn improves food security by preventing erosion and the loss of ground water
and soil fertility.
Open fires are an inefficient use of biomass, such as wood and
dung, because biomass burns poorly in open fires and very little of the heat
generated actually heats the cooking pot. Improved stoves reduce pollution, by
creating cleaner combustion, and increase efficiency, by improving heat transfer.
One way an improved stove can improve heat transfer is with a “pot skirt,” a
circular piece of metal or ceramic that goes around the cooking pot and forces
hot flue gasses to travel up the sides of the pot instead of dispersing into
the air.
Deforestation in Africa:
Deforestation is an complex problem. A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that during the decade from 1980 to 1990, the world's tropical forests were reduced by an average of 15.4 million hectares per year (0.8 percent annual rate of deforestation). The area of land cleared during the decade is equivalent to nearly three times the size of France. The phenomenon of deforestation is occurring globally, in different types of forests, and for different reasons.
At the end of 1990, Africa had an estimated 528 million hectares, or 30 percent of the world's tropical forests. In several Sub-Saharan African countries, the rate of deforestation exceeded the global annual average of 0.8 percent. While deforestation in other parts of the world is mainly caused by commercial logging or cattle ranching the leading causes in Africa are associated with human activity.
Developing countries rely heavily on wood fuel, the major energy source for cooking and heating. In Africa, the statistics are striking: an estimated 90 percent of the entire continent's population uses fuelwood for cooking, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, firewood and brush supply approximately 52 percent of all energy sources.
Land clearing by farmers may contribute as much as fuelwood gathering in the depletion of tree stocks. According to Porter and Brown, conversion of forests for subsistence and commercial agriculture may account for as much as 60 percent of world-wide deforestation. An estimated 20 to 25 percent of annual deforestation is thought to be due to commercial logging. The remaining 15 to 20 percent is attributed to other activities such as cattle ranching, cash crop plantations, and the construction of dams, roads, and mines. In Africa, governments invest substantially more in cash crops than in food crops as reflected in pricing and marketing policies. However, deforestation is primarily caused by the activities of the general population.