I don't seem to have kept a reference to this either, but can add some
details. The charcoal-fuelled blast furnaces are located in the
north-eastern state of Minas Gerais, and became an issue when the World
Bank proposed to give Brazil a grant to greatly expand the program. Quite
understandably this upset environmentalists, as millions of hectares of
native flora would have had to be felled and then replaced with Eucalyptus
to sustain the industry. Under pressure, the World Bank cancelled the loan
and I have heard no more about it since.
As an aside, one of the professional hazards of working on historical iron
smelting in Africa is that one keeps getting pestering by the IK
(indigenous Knowledge) enthusiasts to lend support to schemes to revive
small-scale iron manufacture. When I point out the enormous appetite of
bloomery furnaces (especially natural draft furnaces) for charcoal, and
that most African nations outside the rain forest belt have chronic
fuelwood deficits, they give up on it pretty quickly!
----------------------
David Killick
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0030.
Phones: office (520)621-8685; laboratory 621-7986; fax 621-2088
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