[Stoves] News Haiti a/c to GACC study - The "apocalypse" has yet to materialize

[Nikhil Desai]

Notwithstanding UNF's tweets about gloom and doom, this is what I see in a
recent report to GACC by SEI Geospatial Mapping of Charcoal and Fuelwood
Renewability in Haiti and Potential Environmental Benefits from a
Nationwide Cookstove Program
<http://cleancookstoves.org/resources/524.html> August
1, 2017 (Rob Bailis, Adrian Ghilardi, Andrew Tarter)

"*Current State of Forests in Haiti*
Despite the loss of much of the country’s original forest cover, Haitians
continue to meet their wood and charcoal demand. The earliest comprehensive
survey of charcoal production in Haiti was administered in the mid-80s, and
estimated that the Northwestern area of Haiti was supplying 34% of charcoal
consumed in the capital; La Gônave supplied 7%; the central plateau area
supplied 13%; the Southeast supplied 10%; and the southern peninsula 36%
(Grosenick and McGowan 1986). Thus, Voltaire’s predictions about the
geographic shift in charcoal production held true; however, the
“apocalypse” has yet to materialize."

I thought some World Bank studies had established this repeatedly over the
last 20 years, though  this geospatial mapping may be the first. They are
just asking for more studies, but I doubt more such fNRB studies serve any
purpose for stove design and promotion. Haven't in the last 20 years in
many parts of the world I have seen satellite land cover data.

It's just Haiti, a half-island. The economics of wood, charcoal production
and delivery compared to imported fuels are somewhat different for island
countries. However, it is useful to remember that without roads, isolated
villages or districts are also islands and that roads and commerce build
markets for charcoal. (Very interesting history of US occupation of Haiti
and building of roads and bridges in this report.)

It does not matter if there is local deforestation, and certainly not from
the so-called "climate" perspective. A tree sequesters CO2 that comes from
a coal-fired power plant 5,000 miles away or from a woodstove 5 feet away.
"More efficient" woodstoves haven't saved any particular forest yet in Asia
or Sub-Saharan Africa and protected forests need not be the only source of
charcoal.

This study's authors present this is a more precise language, "Note, the
spatial distribution of NRB may differ from that of fNRB because each has a
different relationship with biomass productivity. Productivity is spatially
heterogeneous so, if wood extraction in areas with low productivity exceeds
sustainable supplies by a small quantity, it may result in high fNRB though
overall NRB may be low. In areas of high productivity, the opposite may
occur."

Biomass productivity and land, water, labor opportunity costs are at issue,
not "renewability", "sustainability" and all such bean-counting by
physik-ists.

History, geography, and politics matter: "After a lengthy revolutionary
period that culminated in independence in 1804, deforestation in Haiti was
driven by two primary forces: (1) a negotiated war indemnity with France,
funded through vast timber concessions to private, foreign entities; and
(2) settlement by hundreds-of-thousands of Haitian families as they fanned
out across the countryside to establish smallholder farms as an alternative
to the colonial-era plantation model that early revolutionary leaders
sought to perpetuate."

There are umpteen stories of this kind around the world. "Scientists"
politicized by some fancy of environmental protection and environmental
health have time and again demonstrated utter ignorance of history and
geography. Just look at timber industry of Asia, Africa, and mining
concessions in forested areas.

What would we do when we figure out what problem we want to solve?

Nikhil
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