Pervasive charcoal trade getting major rethink in Haiti

Pungent wood smoke wafts daily across the hinterlands of Haiti’s southern peninsula, where villagers stack smoldering wood beneath dirt mounds to make the charcoal that nearly all the urban households in the country use to cook every meal. For decades, authorities and development workers have denounced such rural charcoal makers for stripping the nation’s forests, sending topsoil to sea and helping make Haiti the poorest country in the Americas.