Honduran Fishing Village Says Adios to Candles and Dirty Energy
Honduran Fishing Village Says Adios to Candles and Dirty Energy
By Thelma Mejía
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View from the Caribbean sea of the village of Plan Grande in the northern Honduran department of Colón. The isolated
fishing community, which can only be reached after a 20-minute motorboat ride, is a 10-hour drive on difficult roads away
from Tegucigalpa, and has become an example of sustainable energy management. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS
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PLAN GRANDE, Honduras, Oct 1 2015 (IPS) - A small fishing village on the Caribbean coast of Honduras has become an example to be followed in renewable energies, after replacing candles and dirty costly energy based on fossil fuels with hydropower from a mini-dam, while reforesting the river basin. They now have round-the-clock electric power, compared to just three hours a week in the past.
The community, Plan Grande, is in the municipality of Santa Fe in the northern department of Colón, and can only be reached by sea, after a 10-hour, 400-km drive from Tegucigalpa on difficult roads to the village of Río Coco on the Caribbean coast. From Río Coco you take a motorboat the next morning, which takes 20 minutes to reach Plan Grande.
It’s 6:00 AM and the sun has started to come up. The sea is calm and the conditions are good, say the motorboat operators, who add that manatees used to be found in these waters but have since disappeared, which they blame on the damage caused to the environment.
Plan Grande, a village of 500 people, is at the foot of steep slopes, along the Caribbean coast. On the boat ride to the village, seagulls can be seen flying in the distance as the fishermen return in their cayucos (dugout canoes) and small boats after fishing all night at sea. Others take jobs on larger fishing boats, which keeps them away from home for eight months at a stretch.
Fishing and farming are the only sources of work in the village, which makes electricity all the more important: in the past, because they couldn’t refrigerate their catch, they had to sell it quickly, at low prices.
More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/10/honduran-fishing-village-says-adios-to-candles-and-dirty-energy/
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