Wood Burning Stoves

Clean Air :

Nearly three billion people on the planet use biomass fire or crudely constructed stoves for cooking and heat, causing chronically poor indoor air quality. Women and children run the greatest risk of exposure to toxic contaminants the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

Economics :

Some household barter or sell limited food to obtain fuel. The stoves cost $20 to build and save a wood buying family as much as $1500 during their five year life cycle.

Safety :

An average Darfuri womans walk sevens hours a day, several times a week, to find enough wood for cooking often in violent places away from safety of camps and villages. By reducing the fuel load by half, the Berkelay - Darfur stoves lower the number of wood gathering trips and womens risk of assault.

Environment :

An efficient stoves can conserve almost one tone of fire wood a year, reducing deforestation pressure and shrinking a traditional stoves carbon footprint by 1.5 tons of CO2 anually.