About two Kilometer south of Dharan Bazaar, there is a settlement of about 540 household with mixed ethnicity having very small landholding. Their source of livelihoods is mostly derived from livestock farming such as cattle, buffalos, goats, swine, poultry etc and the natural resources from the community forestry they have protected. They have formed a Community Forest Users Group in BS 2059 namely Langhali Community Forest User Group (LCFUG) to manage and make sustainable use of the forest resources.

The community also formed a group of women and started bio-briquette making as a community enterprise. Though the group is led by Mr. Dhana Bahadur Magar as chairman, majority of the members are women (23 women, 2 men) in the group.

Since their livelihoods is directly or indirectly dependent on forest resource, the LCFUG members extensively discussed on how best the natural resources can be utilized for raising the community income without any harm on the community forest. As MEDEP is working in Sunsari district and the LCFUG belong to this district, it has extended support to provide resource based entrepreneurship and skill enhancement training to the members of the bio-briquette community enterprise. After the training, they identified bio-briquette making as an appropriate enterprise for the community to undertake. But they were unaware of the technical know-how of making bio-briquette. To equip the them with the technical know-how of bio-briquette making, MEDEP, in collaboration with the local engineer Mr. Durga Dhan Rai, organized a briquette making technical training to the members of the briquette enterprise. Once they are equipped with the technical skills of bio-briquette making, MEDEP provided them with grinding machine and briquette press, the basic machines required for the enterprise. The encouraged community members with the training and machinery support expanded bio-briquette making as their community enterprise. Now they produce and market briquette and earn regular income for the community.

According to Menaka Tamang, one of the members of the enterprise , now they produce 100 to 150 briquette a day and sell at Rs. 8 per briquette. "Some times people come to buy from here and some time we take our product to near by bazaar ? Dharan, Itahari, Biratnagar", Menaka said. Occasionally, there is demand for briquette from Kathmandu and Darzaling market also, she said. They are also planning to open up a retail shop in Dharan Bazaar once they are capable of producing in bulk and supplying the quantity of briquette demanded by the market.

Now the 25 members of the enterprise are splited into four small group of 5 to 6 members and each group operates the enterprise in its respective turn on rotation basis. In order to look after the regular operation and management of the enterprise, four women are employed as fulltime employees. Thus the enterprise is providing employment, directly or indirectly to about 30 persons, mostly the women.

Scope of bio-briquette

Though about 370 hectares of the community forest is under their command and control, they can not cut-down even a single standing tree for fuel wood or any other purpose as per their community forestry norm. Since the price of cooking fuel the kerosene and cooking gas has gone up and almost become unaffordable for the poor community, the situation forced them to find alternative source of energy for cooking their meal. Indeed, the rising price of the cooking fuel/gas has been one of the underlying factors inspiring the community for the initiation of bio-briquette enterprise. The great advantage they can get from the community forest is the raw materials for the bio-briquette enterprise. According to them the fallen leaves, twigs, bushes, grasses and clay are the primary raw materials used for briquette making which are abundantly available in the community forest. The community members do not have to pay for the raw materials but they have to collect from the community forest in their respective turn. The bio-materials collected from the community forest is half burnt in a pit made on the ground, grinded with the help of grinding machine (provided by MEDEP) and store in a form of powder as secondary raw materials before making bio-briquette through briquette pressing machine (provided by MEDEP). About 20 percent clay dust is mixed with the grinded powder, moist it with little water and pressed with the help of Briquette Press. The briquette is then dried at least for five days depending on the weather condition before using it as cooking fuel. According to them a briquette of about 700 gms. the community enterprise is producing currently can burn continuously for 180 minutes which is sufficient to cook a meal for a family of 5 to 7 members. Though they have not calculated the exact cost benefit and difference of the cost of briquette in comparison with kerosene and cooking gas, their general experience is that bio-briquette is cheaper and safer to family health since it does not produce any smoke. One interesting point the briquette users made is that the food cooked in briquette heat is tastier than the food cooked in kerosene and cooking gas. However they do not know the exact reason for this.

The community is planning to further improve and expand enterprise since there is a growing demand for bio-briquette. There experience says that demand for briquette goes up during winter season because people use briquette for heating their room to keep themselves warm in the cold winter. The briquette enterprise has also designed and produced an appropriate briquette stove, made up of clay as well as metal. They sell a clay stove for Rs. 60 and a metal stove for Rs. 175.

Thus the women of Langhali Community in Sunsari District going entrepreneurial making the sustainable use of the locally available renewable resources. Such resource based entrepreneurial activities of the poor community is more likely to bring about change not only in the income and livelihoods of rural poor but also the positive impact in the environment.

Problems and constraints

Like other enterprise, bio-briquette enterprise is also not free from the problems. According to them, the main problems they are facing currently are:

• Coal making from raw materials: Raw materials collected from the community forest is half-burnt in sallow pit made on the ground. While doing so it produces thick smoke which may cause negative impact in the environment.
• Briquette drying: In natural drying, it take at least five days. In rainy seasons, it takes still longer time. To address this problem, they are seeking for an appropriate technology for drying briquette.
• Storage: Bio-briquettes are soft and more likely to be damaged if not stored properly. Therefore, currently they are facing the lack of proper storage facilities.
• Market and transportation: The market demand that determines the production capacity for bio-briquette has not yet been created sufficiently. Similarly, transportation is difficult due to high risk of damaging the briquettes.