Environmental research

The project aims to build capacity of the three community primary schools, built by the commnunities themselves by installation of fuel wood efficient stoves who has the capacity of feeding with 72, 70 and 24 students in all. These schools are from the remote areas of the District. As in most parts of rural Bhutan, the local people are poor farmers who are mostly dependent on the natural resources around them. Due to this human and cattle encroachment on local biological resources, forest is depleting due to consumption of firewood and felling of forest trees for various other purposes. The World Food Programme (WFP) provides day meal for all the students of these schools, hence large amount of fire wood is consumed by cooking. Parents of the students are given the task of collecting firewood which has to be fectched from afar. Therefore, to prevent the forest from further degradation, the three community schools` management have taken the steps to adopt measures to reduce consumption of fuelwood starting with the school kitchens. They aim to achieve the following objectives: 1. Install improved stoves in Pangthang, Wama and Udaric Community Primary Schools; 2. Save local forest from the deforestation by replacing traditional inefficient open stoves with fuel efficient stoves. 3. Create awareness among local people and students on importance of conservation of natural resources. Activities completed: 1. Installed improved stoves in Pangthang, Wama and Udaric Community Primary Schools; 2. Respective cooks of the schools have been trained as care-taker of the stoves; 3. Environmental Education Workshop conducted.

Bhutan