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MONG Riththy Group (a privately held local agro-industrial company) is preparing to put “cleaner” charcoal on the domestic market after a US$10 million investment, its president told the Phnom Penh Post Tuesday. In the coming two weeks, the company is set to introduce between 250 and 1,000 tonnes of Acacia charcoal on the domestic market each month at a price of 1,200 riels (US$0.30) per kilogram, said Mong Riththy. The special charcoal is thought to be cleaner than the domestic charcoal used normally, as it burns at a high heat and does not produce as much smoke as other varieties.

Seventy-one percent of all fuel consumed in Haiti is wood or charcoal, according to the US Agency for International Development. Every year, the country’s 9 million (and growing) inhabitants burn a quantity of wood and charcoal equal to 30 million trees, according to this essay. That’s 20 million more trees than Haiti grows yearly.

In the past decade 150 rangers from the Congolese national wildlife service have been killed in eastern Congo’s five reserves.

Three rangers were wounded in gun battles last summer, but the search and destroy operation dismantled 1,000 kilns — piles of earth and wood as tall as a man in which branches are burnt for days at high heat and pressure to make charcoal. The charcoal produced by each kiln is worth about £600.