The best way to avoid that the inhabitants of the villages that surround the park continue to destroy the forest to have wood for coal is to give them alternatives, which allow them to have access of fire energy through other ways.

The project is supporting the first machines that crush garbage and recyclable material, which can be used as fuel and substitute the wood of the forest. Six machines will be installed in three different villages and each one generates fuel enough for fire to prepare food for 500 families per day.

Director of GAP Spain, Pedro Pozas Terrados, declared when the project, which finds a solution to substitue the vegetal coal produced in the deforestation, was launched: “Education based on information allows local communities to solve the problem and to protect their forests, which an alternative activity.”

The commitment of local population to this industrial alternative, which can also be a source of financial income, as long as the production can be sold for a reasonable price, is the best way to protect nature and environment at African countries, which suffer with the destruction of their forests and biodiversity.

The project is being coordinated locally by Virgínia Echevarria, a GAP member, who is in charge of training with the operation of the machines, and Serge Soiret, specialist in tropical ecology and correspondent of GAP Project at Ivory Coast.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International