PANGEA and Project Gaia, Inc.: Ethanol cookstoves reduce deforestation and protect women and children from sexual assault

Partners for Euro-African Green Energy (PANGEA) and Project Gaia, Inc., will organise the event Clearing the Smoke: Promotion of CleanCook Ethanol Fuel Stoves in Developing Countries, as part of EU Sustainable Energy Week on Thursday, 14 April 2011 from 18:00-20:30 in the Members Salon of the European Parliament. The event is hosted by MEP Christofer Fjellner (EPP/Sweden) and will include presentations from the Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI), Project Gaia, Inc., and stove manufacturer, Dometic AB.

Women and girls in poor, rural areas in the developing world, especially in conflict zones, are at risk of sexual assault each day as they collect the fuel needed to feed their families. In highly deforested areas, women and children face a dangerous and laborious task walking up to 5km each day to find fuelwood for cooking.

Women and children suffer the health risks of inhaling black carbon and other particulates produced by cooking with these traditional fuels in poorly ventilated houses. As many as 1.96 million people die per year due to illnesses caused by smoke inhalation related to cooking. Every twenty seconds someone, usually a child, dies from illnesses caused by kitchen smoke.

Forests, too, are in danger due to overharvesting of woodfuel for cooking.

But this needn’t be the case. With modern, affordable cooking technology and small-scale ethanol production, women and children can live healthier, safer lives while reducing negative impacts on the environment.

Project Gaia and its sister organisation, Ethiopian NGO Gaia Association, are working with UNHCR to distribute clean ethanol fuel and stoves to more than 2,500 refugee families in some of the most remote areas of Ethiopia. Gaia is also working to commercialise the CleanCook stove and ethanol fuel, and is currently working to install efficient microdistilleries across Ethiopia. These sustainable units are community owned and operated. They are versatile, running on a variety of underutilised or waste feedstocks.

MEP Christofer Fjellner said: “Everyone must have clean air to breathe and access to safe energy. We must stop assuming that ethanol is just about replacing fuel in our cars and reducing our own carbon emissions. We must see how ethanol stoves in developing countries can save millions of lives and significantly contribute to improving the quality of life in these regions.”

PANGEA Secretary General, Meghan Sapp said: “Ethanol stoves offer women and children freedom from sexual assault when collecting firewood and protect them from respiratory disease. The stoves save lives and protect the environment.”

Project Gaia, Inc. Executive Director, Harry Stokes said: “There is an urgent need for clean cooking fuels in more than a billion homes across the developing world. Using ethanol for cooking will:  (1) dramatically reduce disease and mortality in women and children, (2) reduce deforestation, and (3) substantially reduce the developing world’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and black carbon. It will stimulate local agriculture, create rural jobs and help poorer nations to reinvigorate their agricultural sector and produce for themselves.”

PANGEA is an international non-profit membership association based in Brussels that promotes sustainable African bioenergy investment, production and policies.

Project Gaia and Gaia Association are non-profit, non-governmental organisations working to provide modern stoves and clean alcohol fuels to families. Both have been members of PANGEA since December 2009.