The Charcoal Project

Via Surfbirds News

With Madagascar’s priceless biodiversity on the line, a new report says “Go for it!” to USAID.

Twenty-five years of environmental assistance in Madagascar by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has achieved major progress in the biologically spectacular nation, but the gains are at critical risk of being reversed – and will likely be lost all together – if the international community continues to punish its government for the ongoing political situation.

That was the conclusion of a major new report which was commissioned by USAID’s Bureau for Africa, following the 2009 coup d’état in Madagascar and subsequent US suspension of environmental funding. The report, a comprehensive review of environmental assistance by the United States to Madagascar dating back to 1984, was produced by the International Resources Group (IRG), and launched at Conservation International’s (CI) global headquarters in Arlington this week.

Read the whole story.

This story was first reported on local ABC network in Los Angeles on July 19th, 2010.

By Francesca Rheannon, Green Right Now — …The problem stems not so much from the science as from the business model for biochar. Bringing biochar into the market for trading carbon credits – which is being considered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)  for inclusion in UN Certified Emission Reductions (CER) and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – would kickstart biochar production on an industrial scale. It would create a market for biochar carbon offsets that polluters would buy. That means biochar companies would need enough biomass to fuel their furnaces – and their bottom lines. That could mean more than a billion hectares worldwide devoted to biochar…. Read the full story.

(Hat-tip to Victoria Kamsler, Chair of the Biochar Offset Group in Toronto, Canada for bringing this to our attention.)

LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) – The Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM) may end from 2013 unless the world can agree and put into force a new round of carbon emissions targets before then, a U.N. paper has said.

The CDM enabled a $20.6 billion trade in carbon emissions rights between rich and poor countries in 2009, to help developed countries meet their carbon emissions caps under Kyoto from 2008-2012.

The world has so far failed to agree a new round of commitments, in faltering U.N. talks. Countries which are party to the Kyoto Protocol asked the U.N. climate change secretariat in June to report back on legal options to avoid a political vacuum, or gap, at the end of 2012. (More)

Africa's ubiquitous "jiko" stove

Nairobi, Kenya (Xinhua) – July 9, 2010

A recent report compiled by the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey reveals that a staggering 76.4 percent of households in the country’s rural population, rely predominantly on firewood and charcoal for cooking and heating the homes.

These households still cook using the traditional three-stone open fire hearths, which require huge loads of fire woods to function.

Apart from the wanton destruction of the forest cover, these energy sources also contribute significant pollutants harmful to the environment.

Alarmed by the building up disaster, the Kenyan government and some stakeholders have embarked on a project to mitigate the challenge.

The project, named Promotion of Private Sector Development in Agriculture (PSDA), is designed to disseminate energy saving technologies, geared to improve rural livelihoods.

Speaking to Xinhua in a recent interview on the measures the government has embarked on, Nancy Nguru, the project’s cluster manager for Central Kenya, explained that the core objective is to provide environmental-friendly technologies to improve cooking facilities, reduce fuel intake and pollution.

The first step will be the provision of user friendly technologies to develop energy saving stoves (jikos) for use in ordinary households, hotels and institutions.

The project, she told Xinhua, will be implemented by empowering people in the communities with knowledge, technology and skills on energy saving stoves making process. (Read more)

By Frederick Womakuyu, reported in The New Vision, and reprinted in allAfrica.com

7 July 2010

Kampala — Uganda’s population hit the 33 million mark in 2010. National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) warns that the country’s environment is in danger as much of its forest cover and wetlands could soon disappear.

The dramatic reduction of the forest cover in Kibaale district perhaps demonstrates the impact the high population is having on nature.

In 1990, Kibaale had about 114,000 hectares of forest cover with a population of about 220,300 people. But by 2005, its forest cover had fallen to about 58,300 hectares with a population of about 413,000 people due to migration.

The Uganda Bureau of Statistics warns that if the population growth of Kibaale remains unchecked in the next 10-15 years, the forest cover in Kibaale will be reduced to 2,433 hectares. Read more.