The people living in rural areas surrounding the forests are not the major threat to the forest – mostly they do survive off the dead wood that has fallen, and they understand pretty deeply how much their survival generally depends on the forest – both in terms of fuel, construction materials, and for water.

The major problem is actually the demand from towns like Eldoret for charcoal and firewood (for cooking). Gas cookers may be the solution but nobody has looked at the carbon impact of gas cookers vs. charcoal – and somehow everyone seems to overlook the fact that it's the rapid urbanization, combined with poverty, that is leading the destruction of what is left of the forests. And did you know about the international market for charcoal? Tons of it (literally) gets exported to the Middle East every day – smuggled out, along with our ivory, rhino horn, and indigenous wood used for pretty carvings to decorate rich peoples homes.

I support initiatives like the Carbon Zero stoves (I'm actually the one who helped bring them to this region). If nothing else, the initiative raises a lot of awareness amongst local communities about the need to conserve wood, to protect their health, and to find innovative ways to do both. I agree we still have a long way to go. Through several barazas that we held prior to the stove project implementation, community members made numerous suggestions about how to improve the design from the user point of view – the problem, because the engineers did try, is that modifications such as making the stove bigger, or having two elements, is that you immediately lose the carbon reduction – rendering the stove useless from the perspective of reducing the carbon footprint.

The other major, related problems (ok there are several), are things like insufficient support for the Kenya Forest Service for the purposes of patrolling remaining forests; the insidious corruption among the police who more or less facilitate the destruction of the forest; a lack of education and awareness among the people about the value of old-growth forests; lack of investments from local, national, and international bodies in replanting indigenous forests and, even more importantly, preserving remaining ones. For now, you can't even get carbon credits for protecting existing forests – but you can get them for planting new ones (that will take hundreds of years to mature). And the community can profit from the forests – it just takes some creative investments.

So you're right, there is a long way to go. And you're also right, that our collective survival depends on being able to save those forests that remain. Have you ever been to Rwanda? It's basically one big clear-cut. Kenya is close on its heels – but it's not too late yet for her few remaining stands of old-growth trees – and the animals and people who depend on them. The forest around which we are building the Carbon Zero stoves is the major watershed for Eldoret. Time is running out…. let's do what we can to turn the trend around and support the local communities to utilize the rich natural resources remaining for collective – and individual – benefit in the short- and long-term.

Thanks for thinking about it.

Paula Braitstein