Clean cook stoves promote sustainability of local resources

By Emma Diab, Media Global, The voice of the Global South

20 July 2011 – Clean cook stoves are helping to decrease the use of fuel wood and promote the sustainability of local resources. These stoves use 50 to 70 percent less fuel, usually in the form of wood or charcoal, the primary sources of energy for many impoverished people in the world.

With almost half of all deforestation caused by subsistence agriculture, the portion dedicated to wood fuel collection—5 percent—seems negligible in comparison. But, using wood for cooking or heating in an area with a lack of trees exacerbates local resources, and hampers the sustainability of these local environments.

Cook stove projects are implemented throughout the developing world, primarily to assuage the health perils of indoor air pollution, which leads to 1.6 million deaths annually. Cooking on an open fire inside the home, using traditional methods such as the three stone stove, causes indoor air pollution. In this system, a pot is balanced on three stones of similar height while a fire burns underneath. The smoke given off is trapped within the home, triggering health problems for a household. And, because heat escapes into the open air, this form of cooking requires more fuel.

“Many people believe that wood energy is a main driver for deforestation, though deforestation and forest degradation at a global level is rather a consequence of conversion of the forests for agricultural purposes such as large scale productions for pasture, oil palms, soy beans, or for subsistence production,” Florian Steierer, forestry officer of wood energy at the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, told MediaGlobal News.

Steierer explained, “Clean cook stoves are part of a solution towards sustainable use of the natural resources for domestic heating and cooking.”

Sustainable harvesting allowed for 3.4 billion cubic meters of wood removals in 2005 alone, 40 percent of which was wood fuel removals. When properly sourced, there is little danger of forest degradation because foresters harvest less than or as much as regrows over the same period of time.

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