Horse power, April 2014

Alternative Title

Caballo de fuerza

Creator

Jesseka McGee
Roberta Duarte

Files

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). Culture, Community, and Health [Monteverde Institute]. 117.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/community_health/117