The Charcoal Project

Madagascar’s vanishing biodiversity: “We’re all in,” says USAID

Via Surfbirds News — Twenty-five years of environmental assistance in Madagascar by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has achieved major progress in the biologically spectacular nation, but the gains are at critical risk of being reversed – and will likely be lost all together – if the international community continues to punish its government for the ongoing political situation.

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Energy efficiency: what Coca Cola’s World Cup video can teach us

While we wait for Coca Cola to help us produce the perfect video that tells the story of energy-efficiency-technology-and-policies-solutions-to-energy-poverty, (they can help us find a better name, too!) we’ve compiled four slideshows recently published in the New York Times that we think help visualize the energy hunger/energy obesity world we live in.

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CONGO: End of armed conflict in 2003 signals wholesale devastation of forest in sout of Rep. of Congo

By Arsène Séverin KINKALA, Congo, Jun 22, 2010 (IPS) – The trees are falling in Pool, and there are plenty of people to hear the sound. In a painful irony, the end of armed conflict in 2003, has signaled the wholesale devastation of forests in this southern region of the Republic of Congo. All along the 75 kilometre road between the capital Brazzaville, and Kinkala, the southern region’s principal city, there are bundles of wood and sacks of charcoal stacked ready to be trucked to feed the household energy demands of the capital. Since the end of the civil wars Continue reading