The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

Clean Water Systems. Over a billionpeople on the planet still do not haveaccess to the most basic element neededto support life: safe drinking water. Everyyear, 1.7 million deaths – mainly among children under the age offive – result from diarrhea caused by polluted water. The UNMillennium Development Goal for Indonesia calls for halving thepopulation without access to safe drinking water by 2015.Recent years have seen increased flooding in the Seruyan Riverwatershed, and Project Zone communities have had troublegaining access to clean water resources. Based on communitysurveys intended to help project proponents prioritize socialprograms, the first phase of programs aimed at creating a socialbuffer will include Potters for Peace, an organization that trainslocal communities to make and sell inexpensive ceramic waterfiltration devices.Since 1998, Potters for Peace has facilitated the worldwideproduction of low-­‐tech, low-­‐cost, colloidal silver-­‐enhancedceramic water purifiers (CWP). Field experience and clinical testresults have shown that this filter is effective in eliminatingapproximately 99.88% of water-­‐borne disease agents.Potters for Peace, a member of the World Health Organization’sInternational Network to Promote Household Water Treatmentand Safe Storage, will provide a five-­‐week training workshop to acommunity selected on the basis of indicated desire toparticipate, livelihood needs, and proximity to the requirednatural resources for production. Water filters will be madeavailable to all communities in the Project Zone and sold tocommunities beyond.This program will improve the livelihoods of all communitymembers, reduce the resources expended on medical treatment,and indirectly remove some of the economic pressure drivingdeforestation in the Project Area.Examples of ceramic water filtration systems from Potters for PeaceFuel-­‐Efficient Stoves. More than three billionpeople, or half the world's population, cook in theirhomes using traditional fire and stoves, burningbiomass fuels like wood, dung, and crop waste. Forhours at a time every day, families breathe in lethal fumes fromthese cooking fires. Indoor air pollution (IAP) currently claims thelives of 1.5 million people worldwide every year, which isequivalent to one person every 20 seconds. Women and childrenmake up the vast majority of these deaths due to their increasedexposure in the home. Nearly all community members in theProject Zone use wood and other biomass for their cooking fuel.This practice creates a number of problems, including IAP, longsearch times for fuel, and pressure on nearby forests.139