Recurrent forest fires spread by pine leaf-litter (commonly known as pine needles) – consequent loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services for which rural communities depend on forests – have inspired us to find a solution to the forest fires by using pine needles for an economic activity. The natural response was harnessing of this energy for household use and we developed production systems for generation of electricity – to be fed in the grid, and biochar fuel briquettes – to be used by village households.

However, the inability of the grid to uptake generated electricity during frequent grid failures have created problems with this business model of depending on revenue from sale of electricity. This combined with perception of free fuelwood – in spite of substantial unmonetized labor inputs in its collection – being available from the forests have rendered the business model completely unviable.