Monteverde Institute: Culture, Community, and Health
Alternative Title
Caballo de fuerza
Files
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Publication Date
April 2014
Abstract
Horses pass through Monteverde every day, and while they are mostly for tourists, a few country folk still ride them around town. They are almost unknown across Monteverde these days; they are rare enough that children point and wave when a horse goes by. When we mentioned the possibility of using horses for a sustainable future in Monteverde, collegues and a few community members tended to burst into...well, horse laughter. That will never be necessary, they told us - we will just use bio-fuels as easily as we do petrol now, or create something new. This project proposes to offer Monteverde an alternative way of living sustainably. Although horses would be difficult to introduce into today's traffic in Monteverde, we decided to accomplish this goal. After working closely with El Refugio, a local horseback tour company, we concluded that the main difficulties are the courage of investing in a new project and time commitment. El Refugio staff mentioned that even though horses and nature are not always a good mix, turning out too many horses on small acreage results in demuded pastures (which is neither attractive nor environmentally friendly), horses have several obvious advantages over cars. Horses require no fossil fuel imports and contribute nothing to climate change. El Refugio staff stated that it is cheaper to maintain a horse than an automobile. Overall, horses are not the fastest transportation option, but neither are cars and huge bus tours in downtown Monteverde traffic - and in a crisis, slow movement is better than none. Together, we believe horsepower could continue to move tourists and community members in the area. This, then, is our modest proposal. We believe that fossil fuels are running short, and horsepower is the kind of transportation we would like to see the Monteverde community using in a few decades.
Keywords
Carbon dioxide mitigation, Climatic changes--Environmental aspects, Mount Holyoke and Goucher 2014
Palabras claves
Reducción del dióxido de carbono, Cambios climáticos--Aspectos ambientales
Extent
11 pages
Geographic Location
Monteverde (Puntarenas, Costa Rica)
Holding Location
Monteverde Institute
Language
English
Media Type
Articles
Format
Digital Only
Identifier
M39-00578
Creative Commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
McGee, Jesseka and Duarte, Roberta, "Horse power, April 2014" (2014). Monteverde Institute: Culture, Community, and Health. 117.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/community_health/117
