Over wood as cooking fuel

Biofuels can trigger climate change, claims study; Indian scientists sceptical

The introduction of improved cookstoves is a means to reduce the consumption of cooking energy and, in the case this energy is consumed in the form of wood or charcoal, to reduce or slow down deforestation. Before introducing improved stoves data should be available concerning the fuel savings that can be expected from the improved stoves compared to the traditional cookstoves. March 2005

The authors analyzed the dynamics of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from household fuel use in sub-Saharan Africa from 2000 to 2050. The scenarios included a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, in which fuel consumption and tree-harvesting practices change little except through population growth and urbanization, and large-scale shifts to charcoal- and petroleum-based fossil fuels.

Conflicts over natural resource access goes back a long way in history ever since national parks became the best insitu method of protecting endangered biodiversity and received legal sanction all over the globe.

Root to Canopy: regenerating forests though community-state partnerships provides comprehensive coverage of the changes made in the Indian forestry sector during the last decade with respect to Joint Forest Management. The book covers the evolution of JFM in India, the experience of each state, and emerging issues.

Under the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme in south-western West Bengal, regenerating deciduous forests are being managed for the extraction of numerous plant products, both for commercial benefits and subsistence-level use, on a large scale.

Nitin Shethi learns more than he had reckoned, from local wisdom

Indoor air pollution is potentially a very serious environmental and public health problem in India. In poor communities, with the continuing trend in biofuel combustion coupled with deteriorating housing conditions, the problem will remain for some time to come.

Headloaders collectors of fuelwood in India's woodlands. On the one hand, seen as forest destroyers, on the other, they are the sole support of a multi billion dollar market. RICHARD MAHAPATRA follows one of them from dawn to dusk to learn about the str

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