[Sodaware]

> But whatever method we chose, it should not ignore the actual people living there, their intelligence comparable to our own and their fight for survival.

A couple of years ago I attended a talk on lemur conservation, and this was one of the key points they brought up. Habitat loss from slash-and-burn agriculture is a huge problem for lemur populations, but from a conservation point it's not effective to visit Madagascar and tell people not to do it. To the Malagasy you're just a rich tourist telling them off for living without offering any help.

So instead they focus on education. Two of the initiatives they mentioned were teaching people more effective methods of cultivating food (such as setting up fisheries), and providing them with plans for more efficient wood-burning stoves.

[nwah1]

Good idea in general, but the details matter. Teaching people how to make efficient wood burning stoves could fall prey to the Jevons Paradox.

Ideally you would enable some other type of stove. They may lack the infrastructure for natural gas or propane, of course. But I'm sure heating can be accomplished without chopping down trees at all. Through solar, for instance.

[Sodaware]

> But I'm sure heating can be accomplished without chopping down trees at all. Through solar, for instance.

In a perfect world, yes.

But this is the problem with conservation work in poor countries. 1.7% of US energy generation comes from solar [1], so going to Madagascar and saying "hey, you should be using solar instead of chopping down trees" rings a little hollow.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

[wongarsu]

For cooking, parabolic mirrors might work quite well. A bit bulky and dependent on weather, but very powerful, low maintenance and cheap. You could still use the efficient wood stove in the rainy season.As long as you don't burn it faster than it regrows wood is a fantastic CO2-neutral fuel that they already have access to.

[zdragnar]

Rocket stoves can use pretty much any dry woody detritus, though not whole logs. They aren't useful for baking, but much nicer for boiling and pan frying.