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Poverty drives forest loss in Malawi

Southern Africa's Malawi (yes, it's a country -- look it up) loses about 200 square miles of forest a year to illegal logging for firewood and charcoal; over a fifth of the nation's forests disappeared between 1990 and 2000. Twenty-three tree species are endangered, streams are drying up, air pollution is increasing, and some rivers get so clogged with silt that hydroelectric-power operations are impaired. Poverty and joblessness are the primary drivers -- about 8 million of the nation's 12 million people earn less than a dollar a day, far too little to buy stoves or devices needed to hook up to the electrical grid. "The problem is that we have nothing else to do," says one illegal logger. "We have no money ... So we have to cut the trees to feed our families." Studies suggest Malawians could prosper by using the forests sustainably -- selling honey from forest beehives, or botanicals for traditional medicines -- if they can just escape the daily struggle for survival.

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Seeking to capitalize on the potential of renewable energy sources, 10 African nations are collaborating to increase their combined geothermal power generation to 1,000 megawatts by 2020. Geothermal power yields electricity by trapping steam released by water reservoirs deep inside the Earth. It is a clean and reliable energy source, and the United National Environment Programme estimates that together, the 10 countries in question (Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) could produce up to 7,000 megawatts of electricity through geothermal power. To date, though, only Kenya produces geothermal energy -- and just 57 megawatts of it. The U.S. State Department, Trade and Development Agency, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation have pledged to help fund the cost of establishing a geothermal energy infrastructure in the African nations.

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