And then there is Inez at El Porvenir who cooks lunches for our delegations when they go to El Porvenir, the organic coffee cooperative…On. A. Wood. Cook. Stove. And it is not some iron pot belly stove with an exhaust pipe that burns wood, no, Inez’s stove is some concrete and blocks thrown together to create a stove, and it sits in their house with no exhaust.
Wood burning cook stoves in Nicaragua are a problem that contributes to deforestation and to health issues. In this blog, we will discuss just the deforestation.
Our friend, Lillian, went to Cuba many years back. Lillian lived many years here in Nicaragua and she was telling us about her trip and her observations. One such observation was that when deforestation got to a critical level, the government started giving people electric stoves.
Gas (propane in Nicaragua) stoves are expensive for the poor… they are a large up-front cost. The small propane tank costs too much for the poor, but if they are ever able to get a stove and tank, the stoves are much cheaper to operate than buying wood (unless the family is like Inez’s family, who live midst acres and acres of trees where they can forage dead wood).
Solar stoves are not practical here, unless one lives on a huge plot of land with no shade, because the sun’s position in the sky, this near the equator, shifts so much. There are low-burning woodstoves, but most people do not have them. So, most people buy wood that is cut down by people in rural areas and brought into the urban areas on horse cart. Many spend up to 30% of their income on wood.
If Nicaragua had enough funding to give people stoves as Cuba does, if Nicaragua also had funding to research and produce biogas like Cuba is doing, and if Nicaragua had the funding to – at least – supply families with low-burning wood stoves, the forests might start growing back rapidly. It is amazing how easily plants grow in the tropics. It all comes down to the funding…
-Kathleen
