What you will need

- 36 Solar Cells
- 60ft. of Tabbing Wire
- 15ft. of Bus Wire
- Rosin Flux Pen
- Tube/Roll of Solder
- Good Soldering Iron
- 2×4 Pressure Treated Plywood or Marine Grade Plywood
- 2×4 Plexiglass
- 2×4 Pegboard
- (two) 1×2x10 Pressure Treated Plywood or Marine Grade Plywood
- Sander and Sand paper
- Staple Gun or Stapler
- UV Protector Sealant
- Paint Brush or Roller
- Transparent Silicone
- Caulk Gun
- Digital Multimeter
- Crimping Pliers
- 2 Wiremold Strips
- 20 Gauge Copper Wire (Red and Black) – Large Roll
- Tile Spacers
- Mending Plates
- Power Drill
- Drill Bit
- Vapor Barrier – Ex. Slygard 184 or EVA

A rocket stove achieves efficient combustion of the fuel at a high temperature by ensuring that there is a good air draft into the fire, controlled use of fuel, complete combustion of volatiles, and efficient use of the resultant heat.

A rocket stove’s main components are:

- Fuel magazine: Into which the unburned fuel is placed and from where it feeds into the combustion chamber

- Combustion chamber: At the end of the fuel magazine where the wood is burned

- Chimney: A vertical chimney above the combustion chamber to provide the updraft needed to maintain the fire

- Heat exchanger: To transfer the heat to where it is needed, i.e. the cooking pot.

The fuel magazine can be horizontal where additional fuel will be added manually or vertically for automatic feeding of fuel. As the fuel burns within the combustion chamber convection draws new air into the combustion chamber from below ensuring that any smoke from smoldering wood near to the fire is also drawn into the fire and up the chimney. The chimney should be insulated to maximize the temperature and improve combustion. From the chimney the heat passed into a suitable heat exchanger to ensure the efficient use of the generated heat.

For cooking purposes the design keeps the cooking vessel in contact with the fire over the largest possible surface area by use of a pot skirt to create a narrow channel which forces hot air and gas to flow along the bottom and sides of the cooking vessel. Optionally baffles guide hot air and flame up the sides of the pot. For space heating purposes the heat is transferred to a heat store which can in some cases be part of the structure of the house itself. The exhaust gasses then pass out of the building via the chimney.

The design of stove means that it can operate on about half as much fuel as a traditional open fire and can use smaller diameter wood. They are insulated and raised from the floor which reduces the danger of children burning themselves. Some more recent designs are self feeding using gravity to add fuel to the fire as required.

Information from Wikipedia

Please note: The diagrams and technical information presented here is the work of the NGO Practical Action. For more information on clay pot refrigerators and many more innovative appropriate technologies visit Practical Answers.












Click here to see the clay pot refrigerator technical diagram

Step-by-step instructions:

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Hard to find aren’t they?
If you have been lucky enough to find one, then join Much Better Adventures as they build a word of mouth travel guide for the adventure community.

This open-to-all guide is designed to unearth the independent, individual local gems you otherwise never hear about, support local businesses and reward ethical practices.

‘It’s our own little fight against the impersonal, mass produced and green washed ‘adventure’ packages that are forever being thrown at us, like there is no alternative. Well there are plenty out there’, said Alex in his call to arms email to followers on Friday.

You can add your suggestion to the site here: www.muchbetteradventures.com/joinus

In return for sharing your tip, you will enter the draw to win one of a number of adventure holidays with site members, ice climbing lessons at London and Manchester Vertical Chill centres, and t-shirts provided by Picture, a new organic clothing brand.

Much Better Adventures will check all suggestions and add them to the site, so others can get straight in touch. As a social enterprise, they reward the most ethical (or ‘muchbetter’) with featured profiles. They also offer a sustainability consultancy designed to help others start on the road to muchbetter-hood.

As well as your suggestions, the travel guides are being put together by a collection of voluntary ‘ambassadors’ – skiers, surfers, climbers, cyclists, trekkers, divers and locals in adventure hot spots around the world. Know an area well? You can become a muchbetter ambassdor. Help create the full muchbetter guide, get featured and earn money.

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International Day of Climate Change was celebrated in Booni, Chitral, Pakistan, through the facilitation of Destination Management Organization (DMO) Chitral and 350.org. The theme of the day was ‘Breaking of Booni Glacier, Its Relation to Climate Change’. As many as 500 people from different walks of life participated.
The day has had significance for the people of Booni as they have recently witnessed a flood destroying their valuable property and causing them major health problems, psychological twists and infrastructure disruption.

The objective was to join the worldwide communities in highlighting climate problems—breaking of the glacier, untimely melting of snow, frequent floods and unpredictable climate conditions—in the Hindu Kush Mountains.
To begin with, speeches highlighting the prospects of climate change in the Hindu Kush Mountains were delivered. Mr Sadruddin, the principal of Orion School of Learning (OSL) impressed upon the participants to save the Booni village by protecting the natural environment. This challenge could be successfully tackled by offering environmentally-friendly education/values to children within the family right from their childhood. In turn, this will make the task easier for teachers, once they are admitted to schools. He also said that ecology/ natural biodiversity had to be included into the curriculum of government/ private schools as a compulsory subject from class 1st. Meanwhile, teachers need better capacity training regarding the natural environment.

Mr Shams Uddin, the Coordinator of DMO Chitral and the key organizer of the event, upheld that nature has the characteristics quite like those of a loving mother. Nonetheless, the difference is that ‘mother’ along with her children is dependant on ‘mother nature’ for healthy life. Nature feeds us with a variety of cereals, fruits and vegetables. It provides us with oxygen and clean water to mention a few. Bearing this in mind, we have to take great care of nature, the manifestation of which could be the adoption of environmental-friendly manners and values by the entire society.

Mr Uddin maintained that the natural beauty of Chitral is an asset, which we can market to attract more tourists. Unfortunately, climate change/ global warming is going to erode the base natural resources and environment. From the tourism standpoint, climate change that destroys the surrounding natural environment—a valuable tourism product— is even a greater loss.

Advocate Amir Akber Khan, himself a social worker, said that we did not have to lose time waiting for another catastrophe to happen. We have to stand united to tackle the future floods in the following ways: First, proper canalization of the stream bed is greatly important; Second, ‘as charity begins at home’, there has to be a coordinated fundraising campaign in the Booni village. “In order to save the village from further destruction, we have to contribute a sizable amount of funds so we can canalize the stream bed and construct protective walls along the stream line”, he said. Meanwhile, grazing on the Booni Gol rangeland needs to be restricted forever. These problems must be dealt with by the local community, we should not expect government and NGOs to play a role in this regard. He concluded that the breaking of the Booni glacier was something that people would never forget, and which would serve as an ‘eye-opener’ for the local communities.

The students arranged a theatrical performance centering on the Booni flood and its aftermath. The play they enacted depicted social, political and cultural complexities in times of crisis and highlighted the helpfulness of modern technology. For instance, mobile phones were used as an instrument of an Early Warning System (EWS) by volunteers high up in the Booni stream. Similarly, they highlighted how some individuals had remained oblivious towards the enormity of natural disasters and their impacts. Likewise lack of medical care and the non-existence of portable water that led to widespread water-born diseases, was effectively highlighted. Further, women’s drudgery of fetching water from long distances for cattle and their households constituted an interesting component of the play.

The students sang songs of nature and the serene beauty of the Chitral valley, its lakes, snow-capped peaks, forest, alpine meadows, flowers, medicinal herbs, fruits and crops, all of which sustain our livelihoods in a suitable climate range. The singers mourned the loss of valuable bird species from the ecological chain. Such birds used to live when most of the participants were young people. It was indicated that climate change has been responsible for the migration and extinction of the bird species.

‘Don’t turn my heaven into hell’ was the theme of a poetic session. The student poets creatively couched the issues of climate change into poetic language. They appealed to the sentiments of the audience to keep the natural environment from being degraded into a sort of ‘hell’ by becoming unbearably hot. Further, funny anecdotes related to nature were shared with the participants. Pieces of engaging wit were skillfully blended into making the cause of climate change more motivating. It must be noted that Khowar poetic sessions have been used as an effective campaign tool to critically analyse local politics, poverty, corruption and forced marriage.

A placard bearing group of parents and students walked through the Booni village spreading the message of International Day of Climate Change amongst the villagers.

The participants of IDCC in Booni, Chitral, northern Pakistan, put forward the following recommendations:

• That there has to be an effective fund raising campaign by the local communities to save Booni from the catastrophe of natural calamities in the future. To this end, every household has to contribute a sizeable amount even if they have to sell some of their livestock.

• The environmental-unfriendly practice of over-grazing on Booni Gol rangeland by the nomads with as many as 6000 goats and sheep has to be halted forthwith.

• Standard research work by reputed glaciologists and environmental scientists is what the participants recommended to properly evaluate, understand and establish authentic baseline data on the deteriorating condition of the natural environment in the mountains of Chitral.

• In order to protect Booni from the spillover of mud-flood in future, check dams need to be constructed in the side valleys high up in the Booni Gol rangeland.

• Protective walls have to be constructed at different points where the flood has already broken into villages. However, such protective walls have to be technically sound with their foundation deep into the ground.

• Deforestation of juniper, birch and shrubs in the Booni Gol rangeland has to be immediately stopped and plantation on a wide scale has to be undertaken by communities and students.

• The bed of the Booni stream needs to be canalized to provide permanent course for the water. This way materials that the flood deposited all along the stream bed, could be washed into the Mastuj River.

• There have to be awareness raising seminars, workshops and conferences on climate change and its impacts on the mountainous communities of Chitral.

• Last but not the least; the participants thanked the organizers of International Day of Climate Change, which the local community so urgently needed.

I have now been working with this community and the Kamak Maki project in some capacity for about a year and a half from Quito, and this past spring I spent 3 months living there and working full time in the promotion of the project. Kamak Maki is a family and community project that started about 10 years ago with the idea to develop an interactive center of the Kichwa culture with respect to its history, myths, beliefs, ancestral knowledge, and relation to the environment. In the past 3 years, it has grown drastically to include an extensive ethnocultural museum, medicinal plant garden, animals of the region in danger of extinction, restaurant of typical food, and small shop selling local crafts made by community members. Members of Kamak Maki believe that it is a space that promotes co-existence and co-living in the Amazon jungle through community based tourism, without altering social ties nor inherent value of the community and its practices. The hope is to demonstrate that the conservation of culture is not static and that with planning and adequate control, ancestral knowledge can be preserved in the long term. Its location about 15 minutes from the tourist port town of Misahualli has been a major reason for its success, allowing mostly Ecuadorian tourists from all over the country to take a canoe down river and have a one-hour tour of the site. However, Kamak Maki also now has cabins for tourists to stay overnight and can offer multiple-day tours that more thoroughly explore the Kichwa culture and various activities available in this beautiful region of Ecuador.

From spending time in the community and working with the members to promote the project, I’ve learned so much about the importance of preserving this valuable cultural knowledge. Whether it is speaking the Kichwa language, knowing what medicinal plant is used for stomach pain, moving the wooden bowl correctly when panning for gold on the river banks, or making the traditional chicha drink, it is a knowledge that connects the current community members to an ancestry and culture that goes back centuries. This type of knowledge isn’t learned in school, and in fact while there exists a small local school in each community in that area, pursuing a structured education is only more recently being seen as important. Most adult community members have only completed grade school, but they are encouraging their children to continue to high school and beyond because of the improved opportunities available to those with a formal education. However, apart from math and reading taught in school, all of the local children also know the Kichwa language, the uses of medicinal plants, and the typical dishes and how to cook them. It is something passed down in everyday life and not learned in a classroom; it is a familiarity with how things are done from the older generations.

Further, ancestral knowledge includes seeing how life in this region is so strongly connected to nature in various ways. For example, heavy rains up river can produce floods that affect agriculture or transportation, as using canoes to travel across and along the river is still a common form of getting around. Or, a few days of strong sun without rain can dry up a pond that is growing tilapia fish to eat and sell. In addition, ancestral beliefs dictate the future—hearing the singing of a particular bird means there will be visitors or tourists the following day, or seeing certain images in one’s dreams can predict good or bad outcomes in real life. While it sometimes seems that people in this community have drastically altered their way of life to incorporate modern influences, a deeper look shows that it is truly a mixture of old and new practices and beliefs, and not a complete taking over from outside pressure. It is true that most people in the community have cell phones, participate in a money-based economy and eat various foods not part of their traditional diet. However, it’s apparent that the ancestral connection to nature and utilizing what nature provides also so strongly dictates their way of life.

For many of us when we travel, we are looking for something different than what we know in our everyday lives; we are wanting an escape, a vacation, an adventure. We want to learn something about another culture and experience a different way of life than our own at home. And I think that is exactly what community tourism can offer. It provides an opportunity to not only visit another country, but it opens our eyes to another way of living. For those of us that live in urban areas such as bustling cities with a fast-pace lifestyle, community tourism sites like Kamak Maki bring us back to nature and remind us of its importance. The communal knowledge in Kamak Maki is something that can be lost if not preserved and taught to future generations, and educating tourists about these cultural practices is one way to keep it alive. The tourists who visit are not only contributing economically to support the community and its tourism project, but are learning about the inherent importance in a connection to nature and the cultural ancestral knowledge that lives on in current generations.

Visit the Empowering Women of Nepal page in our directory to see photos and find out more details.

Community tourism has fantastic potentials, in that it can allow for income generation, as well as environmental and cultural conservation. However, tourism can also have negative impacts, as objects and ideas brought from the ‘outside’ create conflicts with traditional activities and beliefs. Of course, cultures are not stagnant, and change is natural, but tourism, if administered irresponsibly, can either speed up this process of change, or introduce negative elements into the otherwise natural process.

Remote communities, and those of us who wish to support them, are in a difficult position. While many of us will be inclined to want to ‘protect’ or ‘conserve’ these groups, leaving them ‘pristine’ without influence from the outside world, we really have no right to do so, unless it is what the group specifically wants. Of course, if a group wishes to be left alone, we should do everything we can to respect that. However, my experience is that once the concept of money is introduced, most groups will want to participate in the economy in some way or another. Community tourism is often perceived as a non-intrusive way to engage in the economy while still maintaining their traditional ways of life.

Unfortunately, change and outside influence is inevitable in most parts of the world, including the jungles of the Amazon and Borneo. Unless the world changes its ways drastically, there is little we can do to stop it. What we can do, however, it ensure that these people are prepared and equipped, thereby able to choose how they wish to engage in the economy (which is inevitably going to include them in one way or another) rather than be included in a way others choose, for example through logging or oil or gas exploration. This preparation can ensure that interactions with outside forces is done on their terms, and ensure that it brings benefits to the whole community, rather than just a few individuals.

For this reason, we have chosen to only promote those communities which are already receiving visitors in some capacity. For the visitor, this means that the community is able to offer a more predictable service, and have an understanding of what travellers may want. More importantly, it means that the community is already prepared for the influences of outside visitors, and has already chosen to engage in the formal economy.

Numerous small remote communities which have hardly ever received any visitors have in the past asked us to promote them as a community tourism destination. Each time, we have politely declined. While they are free to engage in whatever activity they choose, and while change and outside influence is likely inevitable, we at Grassroots Journeys do not wish to be personally responsible for these changes.

I wish some areas of the world were immune to change and outside influence, and that some groups, who are honestly some of the happiest people I have ever met, could just be left alone and continue living the way they always have. The pessimist in me sees the destruction of their way of life as inevitable, but I have chosen, through Grassroots Journey’s selection policy, to not personally contribute to that destruction.

Does that mean that I see community tourism as necessarily destructive? Not really. In many instances, I see it as a great opportunity for groups to showcase their natural and cultural heritage, learn from other cultures and gain an income through maintaining their traditions. I see it as the lesser of many potential evils, where if groups are going to be forced into engaging with the outside world and economy, community tourism is better than the alternatives, which often include logging and oil or gas exploration. These latter activities may bring an income in the short term, but irreversibly destroy the land that many traditional groups are inextricably linked to, and therefore destroys not only the environment, but also the culture and way of life of thousands of people. In these scenarios, community tourism is a relatively nonintrusive way to make the money that is now necessary for survival, but without destroying their surroundings and way of life.

Again, if communities are actively engaged in the development and administration of community tourism, they are able to engage in the economy on their own terms, and to the extent that they choose, rather than being taken advantage of by multinational oil companies (or large scale tourism operations, for that matter).

It’s important to remember that the impact (positive or negative) of community tourism depends as much on the visitor, as it does on the community itself. As a ‘community tourist’ you should do your best to minimise your impact by for example respecting local customs, limiting the amount of objects you bring with you, and leaving nothing behind.

If you, the visitors, do your utmost to be responsible, inquisitive and aware, you will help groups maximise the benefits of community tourism while minimising the potential ‘damage.’

My hope is that, through Grassroots Journeys, we can create an international community of informed and ethical travellers who will support the fantastic community tourism initiatives that are featured on this website, contributing to intercultural understanding, economic diversification and environmental and cultural sustainability. If we can remember to be aware of the issues that tourism can create, and remember what a privilege it is to visit some of these places, we can make community tourism a far greater economic, cultural and environmental force that will benefit communities and travellers alike.