In recent years, the Kenyan government clamped down on a law to ban the production and use of charcoal, due to its extreme damaging impact on Kenya's forests.

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However, the ban has encouraged the illegal smuggling and selling of charcoal throughout Kenya's slums and in the back alleys of markets. The ban, however, has encouraged a group of women two hours outside Nairobi to find an alternative fuel source. The women have turned to growing their own bamboo plantations, as bamboo grows quickly, has very little environmental degradation, and can be converted into a charcoal alternative.

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The women each have their own bamboo trees near their homes and farms, however they share a communal plantation where they rotate duties such planting and harvesting the bamboo, treating the bamboo with fire, and tending to chemical baths.

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Shot for The Nature Conservancy.