Protect Vital Forests, Air, Health for Hondurans

Our model at Trees, Water & People is built on the belief that lasting solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges come from the people who know those challenges best.

We were founded by two foresters, but having worked closely with local communities for decades, we understand that reforestation is much more complex than planting trees (though we love to do this too!). The challenges communities face are intertwined, and the solutions must look beyond one thread.

Globally, more than half the world’s population cooks every meal over an open fire. In addition to putting pressure on dwindling forest resources, smoke inhalation from indoor open-fire cooking contributes to serious health impacts, most often amongst women and girls.

Since 1998, we’ve worked with our community-based partner, AHDESA, in Honduras to design a clean cookstoves program that attends to health impacts, reduces demand for fuels, and benefits local economies. Our stove design significantly lowers indoor air pollution by funneling smoke out of the home and requires 50-70 percent less firewood than open-fire cooking, significantly reducing carbon emissions. In 2024, ADHESA supported the construction of 1,900 cookstoves, generating a carbon emission reduction of approximately 5500 metric tons. The use of less wood also means less pressure on local forests and less labor for families. 

Within the program, all stoves are designed, produced, and distributed locally, creating economic benefit within the region, and locals are equipped to build and repair them. Last year, AHDESA recruited and trained 30 additional stove builders through their Maestros Fogoneros program The majority of these builders are women, providing an important source of income in an environment where economic opportunity for women is low. 

In attending to local economies, environmental sustainability, health impacts, and leadership of women, our clean cookstoves program keeps a holistic view of the communities with whom we partner. 

Our approach to clean cookstoves, and all of our work, mirrors what we’ve learned from planting trees. We don’t just plant trees and leave. Instead, we work with communities to understand conditions in which those trees will thrive, help develop the economic stability they’ll need to care for them, and grow local capacity to plant more going forward.

We don’t just plant trees or make stoves – with your support, we build holistic systems that will last.

Links:

• Trees, Water & People
• Community-led projects in Honduras
• AHDESA Spotlight

People who learn about Trees, Water & People’s (TWP) clean cookstove program that we started with our community partner, ADHESA, more than two decades ago may not understand why we call our flagship technology the Justa stove. Put simply, the stove is named after its inventor….one very remarkable woman. 

The woman who led the development of the Justa stove technology is one of the rare ones. Fed up with respiratory issues that plagued her and others in her community, she launched a women-led initiative to get smoke out of people’s kitchens. Driven by a vision of better health and a cleaner environment, this woman got the attention of organizations through her local church, who set out to design a better wood-burning cookstove in her village.

This small group tried several designs throughout the early 1990s with mixed success, until one group of cookstove designers from Aprovecho Research Center, working with TWP and AHDESA, arrived in the Aldea de Suyapa after Hurricane Mitch. The team wanted to address the challenge of firewood scarcity, and accepted the woman’s advice of what design features were indispensable for a Honduran cook like herself. The result was the Justa cookstove — named after her, in honor of her leadership and counsel during the design process. Since then, this stove has helped reduce deforestation and improve the respiratory health of millions of women, children and families across Central America.

To date in 2024, TWP and AHDESA have commissioned more than 25 new men and women stove builders (14 women and 11 men) to install 150 Justa stoves through the “Maestros Fogoneros” program throughout Honduras. We expect to complete our goal of 3,000 stoves by the end of the year. In addition, AHDESA has signed an additional 600 new stoves through the “Paraiso Verde” Project in collaboration with another counterpart that will continue into 2025.

It’s only because of the commitment from supporters such as GlobalGiving donors that we are able to change health and air quality overnight, reduce deforestation by allowing households to use less wood, promote more gender equity and inclusion opportunities for women and younger generations, and providing an economic alternative to families, one stove at a time.

Thank you for your commitment to keeping alive the legacy of the Justa stove and one woman’s groundbreaking vision for protecting the families and forests of Honduras.

Links:

• Trees, Water & People home page
• Community-led innovation in Honduras
• AHDESA Spotlight