Ignacio (Nacho) Osorto, founder of our partner organization AHDESA in Honduras, likes to say that when he met Trees, Water & People (TWP) founder Stuart Conway in 1998, his nonprofit was little more than an idea in a briefcase. An agronomist by trade, Nacho Osorto was working to restore and reforest several watersheds in rural communities outside of the capital city, Tegucigalpa.  

When Hurricane Mitch hit in October 1998, firewood supply routes to the city were cut off for weeks, forcing firewood-dependent urban families to burn anything they could as cooking fuel. Firewood has always been an important driver of Honduran economy, and the city’s reliance on local forests was laid bare when they began to run out of wood fuel.

It was then that Nacho and Stuart made the connection between forest health and community health. Only by reducing demand on forest resources could they advance their reforestation and restoration goals. And to reduce demand on firewood, they had to improve the efficiency of the stoves people cooked with daily. 

Over the next two decades, TWP and AHDESA pioneered one of the longest-standing clean cooking campaigns in the region. The Justa stove we developed has been the subject of countless research studies that have demonstrated its high adoption rates, positive impacts on family health, and significant firewood use reductions. Today our stove projects provide much-needed work for more than 50 people across the country. 

In 2006, we helped launch a cookstove microenterprise called Ecofogón, to manufacture portable, metal bodied stoves for the urban market. They later became the manufacturing arm for the Justa stove project, welding between 2,000 - 3,000 steel griddle cooktops each year and employing some 10 people in the process. This year was Ecofogon’s biggest ever - the strides it has made as a small business is admirable. 

We’re proud of the legacy we’ve built with AHDESA and Ecofogón, now led by Nacho’s sons, Anibal and Iván. Millions of people have benefitted from the programs we’ve built together over the past 22 years, and we continue to serve thousands of families every year with this simple, effective, homegrown technology. 

Visit https://treeswaterpeople.org/cleancooking to learn more about our clean cooking program.