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Curbing deforestation with gel
By
Raphael Mweninguwe - 15-08-2002 |
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As the country continues to experience environmental degradation, new efforts are being made aimed at reversing the trend.
A new company called D & S (Enterprises) Limited in Salima says it is working on a new project—Millennium Gel—whose aims, among others, are to reduce deforestation, soil erosion and pollution; give Malawians a more cost-effective energy source; and to work with the local communities to reduce the pressure on natural forests.
According to the company’s managing director Sandy Wynne-Jones the Millennium Gel is an energy alternative to fuelwood and charcoal and is made from Ethanol and hardening agents.
“It is a stable and safe form of energy, which can be used for cooking using simple stove with adjustable breather holes,” says Wynne-Jones.
Wynne-Jones claims that the millennium gel is “more efficient and convenient than charcoal, firewood or paraffin using less quantity to cook the same amount of food”.
The project gets some financial support from Danida for its outreach activities while the government of Malawi is expected to be responsible for tax waivers to make fuel gel cheaper and competitive with charcoal and paraffin, according to Wynne-Jones.
The project needs 10,000 starter packs for the pilot project at a unit cost of K500, but much money is needed to make the project launch viable.
Full production, says Wynne-Jones, is supposed to start next year.
The managing director says with the support from the public the project could go to the environment summit in Johannesburg this month end with Malawi as the “first African country that is making a positive step to finding a substitute for biomass fuels”.
Malawi leads the 14-Sadc nations in deforestation with 2.2 percent annually and poverty is one of the main architect of deforestation.
Whether this project would reduce deforestation, and let alone save the country from soil erosion remains to be seen. The sustainability of the project will depend on the support of 65 percent of the 11 million poor Malawians, most of whom use fuelwood as their main source of energy.
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