At Expert Africa, our whole team is passionate about the power of responsible tourism to encourage conservation and improve community development.

Every now and again we come across a standout community project that we really want to champion. Simple in concept, widespread in its positive effects and driven by a sharp, dedicated team. Project Luangwa’s Eco-Stoveinitiative is all of these things. In fact, it is quite brilliant.

From curbing deforestation to encouraging female empowerment and improving health and living conditions, there are myriad benefits to this neat stove-in-a-box. Replacing traditional, open-fire cooking with these ingenious, brick-mounted, flat-pack metal Eco-Stoves has the power to make an immense difference to both the environment and individuals, especially women, who use them.

The key is fuel-efficiency: these stoves use much less wood than an open fire and cook well with relatively small twigs. Hence, it’s estimated that each Eco-Stove stops between two and four tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year. 

It also saves the women of the household (it’s invariably the women!) hours of hard, daily wood-collection and the time waiting for inefficient, open fires to build up, thus affording them valuable extra time to embark on other projects, or education. 

The handmade mud-brick surround, which contributes to the Eco-Stove’s efficiency, also reduces the risk of fire injuries, whilst the small, contained twigs produces less smoke, and so reduce the incidence of smoke-induced respiratory diseases, from pneumonia to lung cancer, which are all too common here.

When we saw these Eco-Stoves in action in August 2022, we were so taken by their ability to effect real and immediate change that Expert Africa has pledged to buy an Eco-Stove for a Zambian family for every online review that one of our travellers writes about Expert Africa.  

We’d also encourage anyone who’s enjoyed the wonder of safari to join us in supporting this fantastic project by donating here. It only costs £10 to buy a family an Eco-Stove.

We want to gift as many of these stoves as possible, so please help us to help these communities!

Happy Cooking!

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