2018-04-15T14:55:38+00:00

Empowering Youth to Grow Food: Teens for Food Justice

April 15, 2018April 15, 2018/Matthew Horgan, NYC/Leave a comment

I’m humbled to be volunteering as a mentor to teens at Clinton DeWitt High School in the Bronx with a non-profit organization called Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ). The mission of TFFJ is to create a realistic solution to food insecurity, or lack of access to healthy and nutritious food, by empowering youth to build and maintain sustainable food systems in their community.

Lettuce growing at Dewitt Clinton High School in Bronx, NYC. @matt_horgan

TFFJ leads a team to train students in Title I schools in the unique craft of urban farming through the “building and maintaining of indoor farms that yield more than 22, 000 lbs. of fresh produce annually at each location” in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx (http://www.teensforfoodjustice.org/).

Cucumbers and a variety of leafy greens and herbs growing hydroponically by students at Dewitt Clinton High School in Bronx, NYC. @matt_horgan

Additionally, these youth-run urban farms are feeding students nutritious and fresh meals in their cafeteria, as well as increasing the food security of the area by distributing fresh produce people in the surrounding local community. There is also a focus on teaching students about advocating for policy on the local, state, and federal levels of government to ensure that funding and other resources are given to increase people’s access to healthy food options.

@matt_horgan

Moreover, the mentorship program I am participating in has been really rewarding. I help facilitate a wide range of activities aimed at teaching the students about creating and sustaining hydroponic systems, advocating for food justice in the policy setting, cooking healthy and nutritious meals.

Students participate in a cooking challenge to create a veggie burger, chocolate avocado pudding, and pasta salad. (Secret ingredient: parsley grown in the schools hydroponic farm) @matt_horgan

Finally, the students put on a Leadership Conference at Agritecture Consulting where students presented data they collected from surveys they designed and conducted in the community around their school to see what fresh, healthy food was available to stores and restaurants.

See more about becoming a mentor here: http://www.teensforfoodjustice.org/be-a-mentor-2/

If you would like to support Teens for Food Justice, see the links below!

http://www.teensforfoodjustice.org/donate

Instagram: @TeensforFoodJustice

Written by:

Matthew Horgan
MHorgan279@gmail.com
@matt_horgan @sustaineveryone
@hydroponics_nyc
SustainEveryone.com

Making Connections: Repost from @TresPiedrasEcolodge

March 18, 2018March 23, 2019/Matthew Horgan, NYC/Leave a comment

Original Post by me on TPEcolodge.wordpress.com

Often I am renewed with a sense of tranquility and serenity when spending extended periods of time in nature. Recently, I was lucky to return to my friends Maricel, Marconey, and Gretel’s property in the rural community of Tres Piedras in remote southwestern Costa Rica, currently known as Tres Piedras Ecolodge. I lived here 2 years earlier, with two of my friends Tessa and Victor, for 5 months while doing field research on carbon storage, and I was returning to visit friends and enjoy the solitude of being so close to the natural world.

I was also excited to introduce Marcel and Marconey to Jack Ewing, owner and founder of Hacienda Baru National Wildlife Refuge and Lodge and author of Monkeys are Made of Chocolate. I had the opportunity to meet Jack during a class trip in 2012 with SUNY Binghamton University Professor Dick Andrus. On the class trip, Jack explained to students how he started his ecotourism business and, in the process, how he preserved a substantial swath of land containing ecologically sensitive mangrove forests and other tropical ecosystems.

During this most recent trip to Costa Rica, Maricel, Marconey, and I took a drive about 40 minutes outside of Tres Piedras to meet Jack at Hacienda Baru, located on the West coast of Costa Rica, just north of Dominical Beach.

I had reconnected with Jack online when Tessa, Victor and I lived in Tres Piedras in 2016 and were brainstorming ways for Maricel and her family to build their ecotourism business when we lived in Tres Piedras for 5 months. It wasn’t until recently that we were able to all come together and meet on March 9th, 2018. Hacienda Baru has been in operation for over 30 years, so we were extremely grateful to be making connections someone as experienced as Jack.

Moreover, Jack was extremely warm and welcoming when we visited a couple of weeks ago. He sat down with us and talked about the challenges of running an ecotourism business, and he also had some helpful suggestions as to how to differentiate the business of Maricel and her family from the already existing ecotourism businesses flourishing in Costa Rica. Being so rural, Tres Piedras Ecolodge offers a unique experience to appreciate an authentic Costa Rican rural community, where traditions are still celebrated by the people who call Tres Piedras home.

Additionally, Jack also introduced us to Juan Carlos who works for Hacienda Baru as a tour guide. He and another tour guide (who showed us the medical plant garden! see below) were interested in hearing Maricel and Marconey describe their ecotourism ideas, and in doing so gave more clarity and direction as to what type of operation could be possible at Tres Piedras Ecolodge in the future for Maricel, Gretel, Marconey and their family.

The next steps are more clear, as funds are needed for repairs to the cabins to make them more appealing to visitors, and one way of accomplishing this is to use government subsidies for conservation to fund the business’ upfront costs. Although the woman in charge of this paperwork was ill while I was visiting Hacienda Baru, Maricel and Marconey intend to visit her when she is recovered and well.

Finally, I am humbled to have had this experience to go to Hacienda Baru with my friends Maricel and Marconey. Check out a picture below of our walk on the trails together after meeting with Jack and his employees! 🙂

A Shirf Towards Ecological Agriculture

February 20, 2018February 21, 2018/Matthew Horgan, NYC/Leave a comment

The way we view the world is often a reflection of the paradigm of the day, that is the deepest set of beliefs and assumptions a culture has about any given topic at any moment in time. Needless to say, paradigms do shift over time to create the unique circumstance we see on a daily basis, and sometimes this happens rather quickly.

The new shift in thinking seems to be towards sustainable urban food production. Photo taken at AgTechX @matt_horgan

Paradigm shifts: Thinking in cycles not lines

One paradigm of today seems to be the perception of our lives as a series of linear processes. We seem to idolize cause and effect relationships whenever possible in daily life and tend to view most of our experiences through this narrow lens without analyzing the entire picture.

However, thinking of systems in terms of lines tends to be characteristically more predictable and simpler, while systems as cycles are naturally more complex.

Nature’s Cycle by Virginia Lee 2001

Shift towards interconnectedness

A personal shift in assumptions I experienced was while I was taking an ecological agriculture class during my time at SUNY Binghamton. My perception of self shifted from the individual, separate self to a more interconnected sense of identity.

Ecological Agriculture: Nature as model

Ecological agriculture is a term used to describe a type of farming that raised food without any chemical or synthetic fertilizers, to create an agricultural system that mimicked ecological systems that sustain in nature.

By: permacultureprinciples.com

The general trend in agriculture since 1950 has been towards large-scale industrial farms that use synthetic fertilizers and chemical fertilizers, but a recent surge in interest in local, organic produce by consumers is causing a paradigm shift in the way we consume and produce food.

Ecological agriculture can be seen in the increased interest in urban farming in recent years. By incorporating sustainable food systems into the built environment, we can improve food security in urban environments.

Sky Vegetables February 2018 By @matt_horgan

We can also use underutilized spaces, like basements, to produce food on land to support the health and to educate our local communities
An example of a hydroponic food system, and what my neighbor calls a “permaponic system”, is seen below (Top: after 6 weeks/Bottom: the before picture).

By @matt_horgan

The potential for ecological agriculture to foster a more harmonious coexistence between human beings and the earth, as well as the practical implications for food security and positive impact on local economies leads me to think that this will become ever more present in our city in the near future.

By @matt_horgan While walking to class at CUNY Brooklyn College, I saw this incredible urban food garden someone created on their front lawn 🙂

I look forward exploring ecological agriculture more on this blog in the future 🙂

A Collaborative Space for Urban Farming

February 4, 2018February 18, 2018/Matthew Horgan, NYC/2 Comments

The key to success is collaboration: an idea so simple that it is often dismissed by introverts, like myself. It is easier to stay in my comfort zone than to venture out into new environments.

Recently, I couldn’t help but wonder, who else is asking similar questions as me in NYC?

Specifically, which organizations, if any, were already established in the realm of urban farming here. I searched the internet ambitiously looking for any NYC-based organizations related to this topic. To put it simply, urban farming is the growing of food within cities, usually incorporated into the built environment. (See below image of my neighbor’s hydroponic system in a basement in Queens, NYC).

Eventually, I came across a class titled ‘Building an Urban Farm Business Plan’ that is run by AgTechX. The founders of AgTechX, Ricky Stephens and Henry Gordon-Smith, are about connecting individuals looking for opportunities “at the intersection of urban agriculture, technology, and sustainability” (https://agtech-x.com/). The Co-lab they run in Brooklyn provides a space for those of us interested in getting involved in urban farming in NYC and holds classes in hydroponics and aquaponics. Members work to build a more sustainable food system right here in the dense urban jungle of NYC.

Finally, I imagine myself working somewhere at the intersection of sustainable food and education in the near future, and the team at AgTechX is a great place for me to meet people who could, at the very least, point me in the right direction.

See below a picture of hydroponic systems over at AgTecX’s Co-lab in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

After my trip over to Brooklyn this week, I’m inspired to see a group of dedicated and passionate young people interested in urban farming. In the coming weeks, I am going to explore the classes given by the team at AgTechX with the intention to learn more about the logistics of hydroponic and aquaponics systems in NYC. This will also be an ideal way to connect with like-minded individuals in this emerging field.

To learn more about the collaboration among the urban farming community in NYC visit:
Website: https://agtech-x.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/agtech-x
Instagram: @agtechx
MeetUp: https://www.meetup.com/AgTech-X-NYC-Meetups/

Follow my Instagram accounts for more urban farming/nature photos:
@matt_horgan @SustainEveryone @Hydroponics_NYC

Relaunch: New Blog Name “Sustain Everyone”

February 1, 2018July 12, 2020/Matthew Horgan, NYC/2 Comments

Hello there! I recently decided to change the name of this blog (Sustainable Future through Food) to Sustain Everyone with the intention to explore existing urban farming throughout NYC and to inspire people to become actively engaged in organic urban food production. I hope you will follow along with me on my journey as I discover the beauty of small-scale organic urban farming in New York City.

I’m an aspiring environmental writer, who was born and raised in Rockaway Beach, NYC and I’m passionate about finding a healthy way to live sustainably within the natural world. My studies in the environmental field brought me to Upstate New York, Texas, France, Vermont, and Costa Rica. During this time, I grew to see the potential for urban farms to increase people’s access to healthy and nutritious food within cities. More recently, I became fascinated by hydroponic systems and their ability to produce food quickly using no soil, little water, and marginal nutrient inputs. Urban agriculture is an ideal solution for the issue of food security in cities, which is why I see it as more crucial today.

Follow me on Instagram 🙂 @Matthew_Gerard_ @Hydroponics.NYC

Follow “Tres Piedras Ecolodge Reserve” Blog: Here’s Why

March 23, 2016January 31, 2018/Matthew Horgan, NYC/Leave a comment

Many consider writing to be one of life’s greatest forms of expression. It offers an outlet to portray one’s ideas clearly and effectively to the reader. For almost a year now, I have found pleasure in writing about various topics relating to food and the environment on this blog, Sustainable Future Through Food. I plan to continue doing this in the future, but for the moment I will be focusing my attention on starting and maintaining a new blog called Tres Piedras Ecolodge Reserve. As I am just three weeks into my 6 month long internship in Tres Piedras, Costa Rica, I am realizing the power of blog writing for the outreach goals I laid out in a previous post. Consequently, I will be writing on a new blog page (TPEcolodgeReserve.wordpress.com) to share my experiences living and researching in the wilderness of Tres Piedras, CR. The blog will also serve as a platform for raising awareness for the property where I am doing my research, and eventually it will be available for other researchers, students, professors, and ecotourists to express their feelings, adventures, and experiences here at the Tres Piedras Ecolodge Reserve (TPER).

Here is the first post from the new blog site TPEcolodgeReserve.wordpress.com titled:

Jungle Internship: Tres Piedras Ecolodge Reserve
Often we find ourselves in situations where it is hard or impossible to predict what will be. This condition can easily promote anxiety about our future and what it will bring to us (or what we will bring to it). At the same time, circumstances like this can invoke curiosity and a sense of opportunity. While traveling to Tres Piedras, Costa Rica to complete my last semester research internship of Saint Edwards University’s Professional Science Master’s in Environmental Management and Sustainability, uncertainty and not knowing what to expect became quite familiar to me. Even though I had traveled to Tres Piedras in the past during my Bachelor’s degree (to study tropical ecology for the month of July in 2012, and to volunteer in reforestation efforts for the month July in 2013), I was now going back to the same site to carry out my own independent scientific research project for 6 months in a remote tropical ecosystem with one of my peers, Tessa Rager. The ambiguity of what we were getting ourselves into for the next half of a year was amplified by the fact that my undergraduate university has not traveled to the property for almost three years. Despite all of my uncertainties beforehand and on the journey here, I am extremely content and excited about the prospect of carrying out my research project, as well as helping the new property owner develop an organization that will conserve this (about 150 acre) slice of tropical forest in Tres Piedras, Costa Rica.
As I wrote in a previous post on my other blog site,(SustainableFutureThroughFood.wordpress.com), the property where Tessa and I are conducting our research has an interesting history of students, professors, and environmentalists all using this property over the last 20 years to teach ecology, initiate reforestation in the region, and conduct scientific research studies (among a variety of other projects). Now, a local resident, Maricel, is in charge of the property, and she wants to see this land conserved through the implementation of some sort of ecotourism on the site. This left a lot of room for Tessa and I to brainstorm during out first two weeks here about how to attract ecologically-minded people to this property, which consists of a secondary and primary tropical forest and four cabins on site.
During our first week, Maricel and her family were extremely welcoming and made sure we had everything we needed in the main cabin, which is fully equipped with a kitchen and bathroom. Maricel knew we have our own research projects to carry out and that we are willing to help her with outreach and development of some sort of conservation organization, but I sensed she did not know what to expect from us either. After a few days of adjusting, Maricel, Tessa, and I sat down to find out exactly what would be helpful from us to conserve this land, while at the same time produce some sort of a living to Maricel and her family. This revenue from the property has the potential to keep her, and possibly her family, from having to travel all the way to Dominical (located about 40 minutes by car from Tres Piedras) to clean tourists’ homes.
Thus far, Tessa and I have completed a variety of tasks for the goals we set forth for the property. Before anything, we had to make sure all the trails on the property were cleared of vegetation, as to allow us to move through the forest somewhat easily, to survey the property for ideal sites for our independent research projects, and simply to enjoy hiking in the jungle on our downtime. At the same time, we started a compost pile for our organic food scraps. Our hope is to start building a structure to provide shade for a vegetable and herb garden we would like to create on a part of the property where there is direct sunlight. It is too hot to grow vegetables without some sort of covering for shade, so we plan to use these metal poles that were left on the property by the previous owners and some screen we also found in the shed. Currently, we are working on developing an official website for the property, which we decided to call Tres Piedras Ecolodge Reserve (TPER). The goal is to get the name out there with the intention of providing a place for adventurous travelers to come and enjoy the natural beauty of the tropical forests here. The facilities are already in place, so raising awareness of this place as a spot for ecotourism and attracting people with an interest in this type of experience are our main goals.
One of the major points of interest on the property is the tropical secondary and primary growth forests, both of which are accessible by maintained trails. The forest has a tremendous amount of biodiversity, which makes it ideal for ecotourists, birdwatchers, ecologists, researchers, environmentalists, and anyone else interested in spending time the natural world away from the distractions of big cities. The surrounding village of Tres Piedras is mostly agricultural land, making the property we are living on even more special and more important ecologically. If we can bridge the gap between the current environmental benefits of the forested land at TPER and the potential for socioeconomic benefits to the local residents through ecotourism, there is a huge opportunity to conserve this ecologically sensitive ecosystem.
Moreover, getting here was quite hard without a car, as Tessa and I realized when we decided to venture into the nearest city of San Isidro en General. For this reason, Maricel’s brother offered to pick us up when we arrived on our first day with our heavy backpacking backpacks. To get to the city from Tres Piedras, we have to walk one hour catch the 6am bus at the closest community of San Juan de Dios. Then it is about a 45 minute bus ride until you arrive in the small city of San Isidro en General. Since the bus from San Juan de Dios to San Isidro en General only runs on Mondays and Fridays, we stayed overnight on a farm close to San Isidro to get some rest and visit Tessa’s boyfriend, Victor. He is working and learning about agriculture in the tropics at Finca Armata. The next morning we caught the bus to Platanillo, which is about a three hour walk to Tres Piedras (on a Tuesday when the bus does not run to San Juan de Dios). Luckily there were two people who drove us the majority of the way when they saw us walking along the dirt road. One fact about Costa Rica that becomes particularly noticeable when traveling by foot is that the land is rarely flat because the country is dominated by mountainous terrain. It may sound like a lot of work to get here without a car, but for me the cost in energy is rewarded ten-fold when I return to such a secluded and peaceful tropical environment (though it would be nice to have a car of some sort).
Despite the anxiety and uncertainty clouding my thinking on my journey here, the opportunities that are available to me here at Tres Piedras Ecolodge Reserve are more than enough to keep me busy for 6 months. In addition to quantifying and comparing the biomass (or trapped carbon) in the secondary and primary forests on the property, I will be working closely with Tessa and Maricel to attract visitors to the region through ecotourism in an attempt to conserve the land and create socioeconomic benefits for Maricel and her family.

If you are interested in seeing photos of the site and learning more about us, like us on Facebook “Tres Piedras Ecolodge Reserve” and follow us on Instagram “Tres_Piedras_Ecolodge. Once the website is complete I will update this blog post. Also, follow my new blog page TPEcolodgeReserve.wordpress.com

Internship Goals in Tres Piedras, Costa Rica

March 15, 2016/Matthew Horgan, NYC/1 Comment

Often people are drawn to certain environments. Personally, I am drawn to the tropics, specifically the rainforest. For this reason, I chose to do my internship for the last semester as a graduate student in the Professional Science Master’s Program for Environmental Management and Sustainability Master’s degree program at St. Edwards University in Costa Rica. As I lay awake in bed on my first night in Tres Piedras, Costa Rica, excited for what lays ahead, I think about where I am, how I got to this place, and what my goals are here.

Tres Piedras is a rural village located about 40 minutes inland from west coast of Costa Rica if you drive. For about 60 years now, the main source of income for the residents has been cattle farming. In a rapidly changing global economy, however, the people here are being forced to look outside Tres Piedras for work to support themselves and their families. Unfortunately, opportunities are often lacking and hard to get to from this area of the country. People are having to travel to Dominical for work, which is the nearest costal village with some opportunities (typically cleaning and maintenance jobs). Also, people here are having fewer children and farming less because of how difficult it is to raise a family on cattle grazing and subsistence agriculture.

I first learned about Tres Piedras while getting my Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies at Binghamton University in New York. As summer approached during my sophomore year, I was looking for a way to escape the drudgery of waiting on tables at the local restaurant back home in Queens, New York, when I came across a flyer detailing a trip to Costa Rica. During the month of July, I would have the opportunity to take a tropical ecology class and receive internship credit for reforestation efforts and participating in sustainable development projects. I quickly contacted the professor directing the initiative, Dr. Richard Andrus, to secure a spot for myself in 2012. After having such an incredible time on the first trip, I decided to volunteer and go a second time for the month of July of 2013.

Moreover, I am extremely lucky to currently be back in Tres Piedras for my last semester internship of my Master’s degree program. The main purpose of the internship is to design and carry out a scientific research project for a company or organization anywhere in the world, which has the potential to lead to a job after graduation. Ever since my first trip to Tres Piedras in 2012, I fell in love with the place and its residents, and for this reason I had a strong urge to return here.

Although my undergraduate school no longer returns to Tres Piedras, I contacted the current owner of the property that I studied on in July of 2012 and 2013 to see if it was possible for me to carry out a research study there. Maricel, a lifetime resident of Tres Piedras and now owner of the 350 acre property, was happy to hear that I wanted to come back to the area and offered me and another classmate of mine a place to stay for the duration of our internship, which is recommended by our professors to be 6 months long. One of the reasons why I wanted to return to this location in particular is because there are both secondary and primary tropical forests on site. For my project I will be comparing the biomass of the trees and woody vines in the secondary forest to the biomass in the primary forest. The property is ideal for scientific research because of the two stages of forest growth, as well as for its the tremendous amount of biodiversity.

In addition to carrying out our own independent research projects, my classmate, Tessa, and I agreed to help Maricel figure out a way to attract people to this incredible property once again. For Tessa and I, this is crucial to our stay here. Without any incentive to keep this property intact with all its biodiversity, it is almost certain that the property will be developed to accommodate homes for more people. It makes no economic sense to keep this property as it is now because it is too large for Maricel and her family to manage while they spend most of their time working in Dominical, Costa Rica. The fact that it does not provide them with any revenue is a real problem, so Tessa and I have been thinking up ways to conserve the property while providing some economic benefit to Maricel and her family. Hence, ecotourism was an idea that we thought would be a great way to accomplish these objectives.

According to a paper written in 1965 by Hetzer, ecotourism has four main principles or pillars. The four principles “are minimizing environmental impacts, respecting host cultures, maximizing benefits to local people, and maximizing tourist satisfaction” (Buchsbaum 2004). Tessa and I proposed the idea of ecotourism to Maricel last week, and she was excited about the idea. We will be working to build a website for her to make the property known once again. Additionally, we are considering paying to put the property on a ‘work to stay’ type website like WorkAway.info or WWOOF.net (World Wide Opprotunities on Organic Farms) to recruit experienced people willing to help us start up some gardens and complete other maintenance tasks on the property.

Eventually, it would be great to form another connection with a university that is willing to send professors and students to carry out research, teach ecology, and complete internships here. This would provide Maricel with a steady stream of people coming to the property. Unlike ecotourism, this kind of partnership with a university has the potential provide long term stability to Maricel and the community of Tres Piedras.

The goals we set forth for ourselves seem overwhelming at times, but I have faith in our ability to convince the local and global community that tropical ecosystems, such as this one, can produce economic, social, and environmental benefits Tropical forests are in desperate need of conservation for a variety of reasons, and this property is the perfect place for us to start recognizing and realizing this essential truth. Personally, I have various things to consider before planning to live in Costa Rica long-term, but I am grateful and excited to just have the opportunity to help some amazing people here in Tres Piedras for the next 6 months.

Can traveling the globe ever be considered sustainable?

November 23, 2015November 23, 2015/Matthew Horgan, NYC/Leave a comment

Sometimes I grapple with finding a justification for traveling such long distances in relatively small periods of time for my education. As a graduate student in a program with international components and as an environmentalist, I cannot overlook the tremendous amount of energy it takes to travel to new places. Whether it be going on week long class trips or moving to a new city to study, the transportation environmental costs are tremendous. Despite the expenses associated with traveling, I tend to think it is worthwhile if your travels have a beneficial impact on your local community when you return to the place you call ‘home.’ Still, I ask myself, “Can any form of global travel be considered sustainable?”
For the first time in our species’s history, carbon dioxide has surpassed 350ppm. This greenhouse gas, along with methane and a few others, are contributing to a rapid increase in average global surface temperatures. The major implications associated with climate change are unpredictable weather patterns, increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, rising sea levels, more climate refugees, and species extinction on a scale humans have never before experienced in history. The wide ranging impacts of climate change are difficult to comprehend for many, and this is one of the causes of delayed action by politicians around the world. Knowing all of this and still traveling seems to be irresponsible for anyone trying to impact the environment in a positive way.

Yet, I am currently on a bus for the next 6 hours with my fellow classmates from St. Edward’s University, traveling from Angers, France to the north of France to study marine biodiversity. My peers are also astonishingly environmentally aware people who make great strides to have positive impacts on the natural world. Additionally, the people in making decisions for this Master’s degree program in Environmental Management and Sustainability, I assume, are environmentally conscious individuals. So what benefit could be behind this trip to the north of France (and to Angers, France more broadly)?

The educational benefit could not be overlooked in this situation. We will be learning valuable information about ecosystems, sustainable development, environmental pollution monitoring, and more topics that will be applicable to our future goals to help the planet in the career paths we choose to take. Education is our most powerful tool against most of the challenges we face on a daily basis. No meaningful change can arise without knowledge of the right action to take. The objective to become an educated human being, however, is not sufficient to justify such extensive travel.

Furthermore, we must have an intention on taking what we learn from our traveling and applying it to a local community in need of support economically, socially, and/or environmentally. For me specifically, it is not enough for me to learn about ways to build more sustainably and live a lifestyle that benefits the planet. What I learn on my journey ought to be shared with others and put into practice if it has the potential for a great impact on society, the environment, and/or the local economy. This may start on a global scale when traveling to acquire knowledge and new perspectives on the world’s problems, but it should always end on a local scale where these new ways of thinking can be implemented to benefit society and the environment.

On the other hand, the way we travel today is unsustainable even if you have good motives, like environmental education. We require mammoth amounts of fossil fuels to transport ourselves to far away destinations across the globe. The production, maintenance, and use of vehicles and transportation related infrastructure is dependent on a fossil fuel economy. Until it becomes more convenient to travel in a way that does not threaten global health, we will continue to choose to travel via unsustainable means until we can no longer afford the environmental and economic consequences of such actions. There is promise for the future in the realm of renewable energies and sustainable development for travel to become more environmentally friendly, but we must move definitively faster than our current pace if we want to avoid a climate crisis by raising the average global surface temperature above 4 degrees Celsius.

So, can any form of global travel be considered sustainable? Despite being torn between the answer to this question, I would still answer yes. When you travel to another country and experience another culture, you gain a new perspective on everything you thought to be truth. It challenges your most inner convictions. If you have the opportunity to gain perspective on a social, economic, or environmental issue while traveling, this experience can help you in the future when you are trying to solve the complex problems facing the world today in your career. Individually, travel benefits are immediate, but for collective society the benefits might take longer to come to fruition. The act of traveling can induce a kind of expanded consciences, therefore the traveler has an obligation to share his or her experience with the local community to which they belong. The inspiration for beneficial changes may not always start at home, but ultimately and ideally the idea of beneficial change that was gained through international travel should inspire you to go out into your community and have a profoundly positive impact.

Future Plans for a Conservation and Environmental Education Project in Costa Rica

November 17, 2015March 20, 2018/Matthew Horgan, NYC/6 Comments

Often it is hard to focus on the present moment, and it is in our nature to think in terms of the past and the future. After studying tropical ecology for my Bachelor’s degree in Costa Rica for the months of July 2012 and July 2013, I have since been drawn to return to the country. Likewise, as I mentioned in a previous post, the Professional Science Master’s program in Environmental Management and Sustainability that I am currently pursuing requires for its last semester that each student complete a research internship project, related to sustainability, anywhere in the world. The requirements are broad, but this allows us to actually explore something we wish to pursue as a career. Despite having the opportunity to explore somewhere new to complete my last semester of , my classmate, Tessa, and I are choosing to return to the same small village where I learned and grew a tremendous amount during my undergraduate experience with SUNY Binghamton University in Tres Piedras, Costa Rica.

As I am finishing up my semester in Angers, France, I cannot help but think of the upcoming research opportunity that I am so fortunate to have available to me. In July 2012, I enrolled in a tropical ecology class through my university, SUNY Binghamton University, which was taught a class in tropical ecology in Tres Piedras de Baru, Costa Rica every July and Spring. The property in the village was referred to as the Tropical Forestry Initiative (TFI) at the time, which was owned by a small group of professors and environmentalists. The property was used by professors to teach students, conduct research projects, and carry out reforestation efforts in the region. Unfortunately, SUNY Binghamton no longer brings students to the area anymore, but the TFI property is now in the hands of a local resident who would like to continue using the property for conservation and educational projects. Although Tessa and I will be expected to design, complete, and present our own independent research projects for our degree, we intend to help the new owner of the property with outreach initiatives that could bring student groups back to the area to partake in similar sustainable development projects and in research opportunities to the activities that used to be done with TFI.

The plans for outreach are still in their preliminary stage, as we work with the owner of the property to develop a program. My hope is to provide a site that offers students the ability to conduct their own independent research projects on site, as well as have the opportunities to volunteer on sustainable development projects and provide support for outreach efforts relating to conservation of the property and surrounding ecosystems. Ideally, we could aim to attract graduate students who could perform their research studies on a topic related to the tropical forest on the property. These students would also be willing to learn about and participate in sustainable development projects on and off site relating to reforestation, sustainable food systems, and community outreach.

Although my plans are incomplete and lacking much detail, I have high hopes for what can be accomplished in Tres Piedras, CR. Tropical ecosystems are threatened around the globe, and we need people to start environmental conservation and educational initiatives like this one to mitigate the damage we are doing to our planet. Often there is so much that is presented to us in our lives that we do not make the most of for many reasons. Yet, there might still be great potential for having a profoundly positive impact in taking advantage of what life offers you.

Cattle during California drought (photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images theirturn.net)

Documentary Film Review- Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret

October 11, 2015October 11, 2015/Matthew Horgan, NYC/2 Comments

Few documentaries have the ability to make you question your fundamental morals and convictions. For me, Food Inc. was one of my favorite documentaries for this reason. There is, however, a new documentary on Netflix that does an equal or better job at doing this in my opinion. In Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, directors Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn are on a mission to expose the leading cause of environmental destruction, and in the process they reveal information about our food system that will have you asking yourself: “Can I really call myself an environmentalist and still eat meat?” The purpose of the film is to illustrate how there is one industry that out ranks any other in causing deforestation, climate change, species extinction, ocean dead zones, and water depletion, and how the top environmental organizations have focused their attention elsewhere when talking about how to mitigate these problems.

Throughout the documentary, Kip Anderson is on a quest to find out how to be more sustainable. He takes all the typical approaches of environmentalists, like recycling and taking shorter showers, but he is shocked when he finds out how many resources go into eating just one hamburger. He wonders why he was never aware of how intensive animal agriculture is in today’s world. It becomes clear that the top environmental organizations are not focusing on this issue when Kip does his research, so he becomes determined to find out why.

If you ask the average person what they think the single biggest contributor to environmental degradation is, they will probably tell you the fossil fuel industry. Shockingly, the leading environmental organizations like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, and Oceana (just to name a few) do not focus on animal agriculture as the number one cause of the destruction of the planet. The inability and unwillingness for these organizations to talk about the problems with animal agriculture was the most eye opening part of the documentary for me. You would expect for these organizations, who claim to be advocates for protecting our lands and oceans, to be speaking about the root cause of our most serious environmental harms.

What can you do if you truly want to make a positive difference for the planet? Recycling and taking shorter showers is not going to cut it, as you will see after you watch this documentary. The statistics given throughout this film are almost unbelievable. It is hard to comprehend why more people are not talking more about animal agriculture, but Kip explores the many possibilities for why this is the case. It is actually extremely difficult to justify eating meat at the rate we do today after watching Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret. If you want to be a well-informed person on the most important environmental issues of our time, then you must see this documentary. It will have you questioning something that is so fundamental to life culture, and being human: food.

Here is a link to the official trailer: https://vimeo.com/95436726