[Stoves] Charcoal from wastes in Haiti v. regional charcoal markets

[Traveller]

I found an interesting news item on charcoal from wastes - In Haiti,
Success Isn't Enough to Keep Innovative Energy Program Alive
<http://www.pri.org/stories/2012-11-02/haiti-success-isnt-enough-keep-innovative-energy-program-alive>
PRI
2 November 2012.

I leave you to judge what it says about UNDP, Haiti, Port-au-Prince, the
neighborhood, or the former environment minister who advocated a tax on
charcoal. (I would've preferred a subsidy to the waste-to-charcoal
operation, in lieu of the cost of managing that paper waste.

What it says about Bill Clinton is another story. I hope to post some news
about a Clinton Global Initiative - and GACC - partner's cookstove project
in Haiti.

In the meantime, a documentary is likely to hit US markets soon - Death by
a Thousand Cuts <http://deathbyathousandcutsfilm.com/>. (Was shown in
Washington, DC at the IADB on 27 July).

See on GACC website -Death by a Thousand Cuts: Charcoal and Deforestation
Threaten Hispaniola
<http://cleancookstoves.org/about/news/08-23-2016-death-by-a-thousand-cuts-charcoal-and-deforestation-threaten-hispaniola.html>
August
2016, where the filmmakers say

"While it is still not too late to save important habitats across the
island, it will require a long-term, comprehensive approach be put in
place. As long as the demand for charcoal is so vast and the poverty of
rural populations on both sides of the island so pervasive, stricter
enforcement of forestry laws and “ecological” charcoal substitutes alone
are not enough to address the escalating deforestation."


And How the Caribbean's charred forests end up firing America's barbecues
<http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060039364> EnergyWire 24 June 2016. Says,

"Mexico is far and away the largest source of foreign wood charcoal,
supplying more than half the value of total U.S. imports in 2014 and 2015.
But Dominican charcoal imports rose rapidly from nothing to levels
comparable to imports from much larger nations such as Canada, Brazil and
Argentina."


Is there a prayer for "more efficient" charcoal stoves to reverse
deforestation in Haiti and Dominican Republic?

What are "clean cookstoves" people in Washington, DC or NY (UNDP
<http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/blog/2015/12/11/heres-to-being-called-ms-cookstove-for-years-to-come.html>
with
its CO2 reductions from stoves in Ethiopia, Environmental Defense
<https://www.edf.org/card/10-climate-solutions-big-impact> with its Card 8
for stove soot) smoking and not inhaling?

A "biomass energy strategy" is perhaps unfeasible in the face of
globalization of forest products trade. "Better charcoal stoves" may well
have consumer benefits, but to fantasize local or global environmental
benefits, women's empowerment.. Time to give up dreaming.


Nikhil
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