Mumbai: For the thousands of village women living near tiger habitats and are dependent on firewood collected from the forests daily to cook food, an improvised stoves promoted by a local NGO and support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) agency is working wonders.
A team from UNEP, led by its Executive Director Erik Solheim and Country Head, India, Atul Baggi, accompanied Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) head Vivek Menon to Gothangaon, a village in Maharashtra’s Umred Karhandla Wildlife Sanctuary in tiger land two days back and were shown the WTI’s Improved Cook Stove (ICS) used successfully by village women. Accompanying them was Bollywood actress Dia Mirza, WTI Brand Ambassador and UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador to the village where the local community is developing a conservancy.
Solheim said the initiative would serve as a bridge between the heavily polluting and less energy efficient cooking methods of the past and the highly energy efficient cooking mediums of the future.
“This is a really an important intervention given that we are so keen to improve our air quality as well as the health of our rural women,” said Dia Mirza, who took a hands-on approach by preparing a chapati or Indian bread on an ICS unit. “It allows these women to cook as they always have, yet with less fire-wood taken from the forests and without the problems associated with smoke inhalation.”
More than 250,000 rural women suffer from respiratory diseases associated with smoke emitted from traditional cooking methods, said UNEP’s Baggi, adding that when the team had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi he had asked UNEP to provide technological inputs on cheaper alternatives based on renewable energy.
The visitors were given chapatis along with ‘mahua’ pickle prepared by women Self Help Group members of Rampuri and Garada villages, which lie near the Nagzira-Nawagaon-Tadoba tiger corridor.
Under the ICS initiative, over 4,000 energy-efficient stoves have been installed in every household in 45 villages near the critical Nagzira-Nawegaon-Tadoba tiger corridor in the eastern Vidarbha Tiger landscape, said Anil Kumar, Project Head, Vidharbha Tiger Project, WTI.
The modified cook stoves serve a dual purpose: reduced emissions, improving air quality and therefore the health of women exposed to daily smoke and reduced fuelwood consumption, which mitigates anthropogenic (environmental pollution and pollutants) stress on nearby forests. He said WTI has partnered with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Maharashtra Forest Department in this endeavour, which forms part of its Vidarbha Tiger Project.
