I got a chance to visit Viva Rio’s remarkable compound in Bel Air, a slum neighborhood in Port-au-Prince. Their space includes a biogas digester which recycles human waste collected in their public toilets, wetlands for purifying the waste water from the digester, tilapia ponds filled with the reclaimed water, rooftop gardening using recycled tires and organic residue from the biogas digester and more. They also run a youth Capoeira program, which was a treat to see in action.
In addition to efficient charcoal stoves like the “recho mirak” and the clay-insulated stove being made in Port-au-Prince, Haitian entrepreneurs are making liquid fuel stoves. Our stove test included footage of the kerosene stove made by Ecole Atelier in Camp Perrin.
I took that stove with me to Terrier Rouge on the opposite side of the country to test it with Biodiesel made at Jatropha Pepinye. It performed beautifully. I also got a chance to use another kerosene stove that is actually being produced in Terrier Rouge. See more pictures on Picasa.
It is estimated that Haiti is now left with less than half of its wood stock relative to 1982. If the status quo with respect to the state of energy use is maintained, it is not unreasonable to forecast the complete depletion of that resource in the very near future. Not many groups of people have successfully destroyed an entire resource, particularly one as valuable as trees, but it’s happened before, as recounted in my previous post on Easter Island.
While the cultures of Haiti and Easter Island are obviously different in many ways, the reasons for their environmental crises are strikingly similar. Both shared unsustainable agriculture and a devotion to wood as the chosen resource for a commonplace ritual – be it transporting stone statues or cooking meals.
Haiti must reduce its appetite for charcoal, which is currently used in ninety percent of households. This can be achieved by either switching to more efficient stoves, or by switching to stoves fueled by alternatives to wood charcoal.
The tragedy of these circumstances is that such stoves are inexpensive and are even being manufactured in small quantities by non- and for-profit ventures around the country. I have personally seen or used no fewer than five locally produced efficient or alternative fuel stove designs.
One of my favorites is made by a business owned by four brothers in Port-au-Prince. My affinity for their business extends past their mission and stove design. What I am most enthused about is their business model, which contrasts sharply with the way clean stove dissemination has been practiced in Haiti. Many NGOs and institutional programs have tried to increase the penetration of clean stoves through hyper-local micro-manufacturing. These programs do not have a good track record for sustainability. They collapse because they lack both the incentives and the resources to grow. To encourage adoption of clean stoves, we should adop business models engineered for success, not failure. Few manufacturers sell directly to the end-users of their products. Instead, they centralize their production facilities to achieve economies of scale and sell in bulk to distributors. This is precisely the approach being taken by the manufacturer in Port-au-Prince, and the one EarthSpark seeks to encourage by providing them with distribution channels.
Check out pictures of efficient stove manufacturing in Port-au-Prince.
Moai on Easter Island (Tomas Munita for The New York Times)
Let me tell you a story. It is one that is known to few, but to those who know it, has had a lasting impact on the way they think about society and the environment. It is the story of a long-forgotten civilization, which at its pinnacle was never known to the outside world. It is the story of the people of Easter Island – the Rapanui – who named their island Te Pito Te Henua – “the navel of the world.” That name implies a deep connection to life. It speaks to the lushness and diversity of the flora and fauna that the mythical first king, Hotu Matua, and his subjects discovered, like some providential land out of a dream.
The first Rapanui were blessed with abundant natural resources – porpoise, fish, birds and rat were primary foodstuffs, and some 21 species of now vanished plants and trees were used for canoes, rafts, rope, cloth, harpoons, firewood and construction. But Easter Island is not famous for its trees. It is known throughout the world for its monolithic statues, called moai, and the numinous intelligence they seem to project.
We know now that the moai were a manifestation of religious beliefs and peaceful competition amongst clans on the island, whose chiefs strove to outdo the grandeur of each other’s moai and ceremonies. While they realized that the resources of one clan were vital to the survival of the others (for example, one clan claimed the two best harbors in its territory, while another’s domain included the best stone quarry), they failed to appreciate the fragility of the island they called home.
Throughout much of the island, trees had been cleared for garden plots, which lead to less than ideal conditions for trees to re-grow. The trees were then being used for the transport of moai, and to cremate the bodies of the dead, a sacred tradition that had been practiced for centuries, and which consumed massive amounts of wood. As it became all to clear that their once bountiful island was moving inexorably towards desolation, the Rapanui urgently invoked their ancestors by devoting more and more resources to erect ever-larger moai.
Without the diverse and abundant source of trees and native plants they once enjoyed, the Rapanui were no longer able to make robust canoes and rafts capable of taking them far out into the ocean to hunt tuna and porpoise. Instead, they were forced to turn to small crustaceans and a limited population of birds. In a few generations, these food supplies dwindled as well, hurling the Rapanui into a civil war that overthrew the reigning chiefs and saw the tearing down of every last moai on the island.
The Easter Islanders had nowhere to go after it had become all too painfully obvious they had ruined themselves. Their descent into cannibalism shortly before the outbreak of civil war is a stark reminder of the vital connection between the environment and our humanity.
