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 has been done over the past 10 years to develop fuel-efficient stoves, and some of these new models use 30-50 per cent less fuel. These, as well as aluminium cooking pots and pressure cookers that also use much less fuel, should be made more widely available in urban areas.

69. Charcoal is a more convenient, cleaner fuel than wood, and its smoke causes less eye irritation and respiratory trouble than wood smoke. But the usual methods for making it waste tremendous quantities of wood. Deforestation rates around cities could be greatly reduced if more efficient charcoal-making techniques, such as brick or metal kilns, were introduced.

70. Commercial forestry operations are rarely effective in providing fuelwood in rural areas, but they help to meet urban and industrial needs. Commercial farm forestry, or, on a larger scale, dedicated energy plantations, can be viable enterprises. Green belts round large urban areas can also provide wood fuel for the urban consumers, and such an urban green zone brings other environmental amenities. Some iron and steel industries in developing countries are based on charcoal produced from wood in such dedicated energy plantations. Unfortunately. most still draw their wood supplies from native forests, without reforestation. Often, especially in the initial stages, fiscal and tax incentives are necessary to get planting projects going. Later these can be tied to success rates for tree growth, and can eventually be phased out. In urban areas, there are also good prospects for increasing the supplies of alternative energy sources, such as electricity, liquid propane gas, kerosene, and coal.

71. These strategies, however, will not be able to help most rural people, particularly the poor, who collect their wood. For them wood is a 'free good' until the last available tree is cut down. Rural areas require totally different strategies. Given /…