QCOSTARICA (BBC ) On the way to Monteverde, Costa Rica, a mountain town nestled in a cloud forest like something out of another world, El Sol restaurant sits on the edge of a cliff. It’s the last stop before a steep uphill drive of misty views and hairpin turns.
It looks like a traditional “soda”, a roadside restaurant that serves “casado” (rice, beans and meat) and fresh juices. Except it also has a silver cylinder with green lettering in the parking lot – the first electric vehicle (EV) charging terminal in the area.
“It’s like with smartphones,” says Minor Oliverio, owner of El Sol. “Eventually, everyone will have chargers and vehicles. But someone has to be first.”
The station is part of the Ruta Eléctrica Monteverde (Monteverde Electric Route), the only charger network in Latin America created to avoid the anxiety that electric car drivers feel about not having enough charge to reach their destination.
Until before the pandemic, Monteverde received more than 200,000 visitors per year, most of them traveling in large vans that created traffic jams in the commercial corridor.
“We are not waiting for the government to install chargers,” says Katy Van Dusen, a Monteverde neighbor and founder of the Monteverde Commission for Climate Change Resilience (Corclima), which devised the Electric Route.
While installing it is expensive for most rural businesses, Van Dusen and his team involve hotel and restaurant owners, coffee shops, tour operators and nature reserves to offer free chargers to customers.
At the Hotel Belmar, the free charging offer has attracted electric vehicle drivers. “In rural areas like Monteverde, people are more environmentally conscious,” says Richard Garro, the hotel’s sustainability manager. “It’s part of the reason people come here.”
“We want companies to spend as little as possible [on recharging people’s vehicles],” says Daniel Castillo, technical advisor for Ruta Eléctrica and founder of Energías Limpias de Costa Rica (Elco), a Costa Rican recharging company.
Castillo is now focused on selling portable chargers to car dealerships to include them in electric vehicle sales. “All a local business has to do is install connection points.”
Milena Ramírez, the current coordinator of the Monteverde Electric Route and director of the city’s tourism board, recently borrowed Van Dusen’s electric car to visit all of Monteverde’s charging points to ensure functionality.
“More communities are needed to build freight corridors. It is not just one company offering this service. We all benefit when there are many companies involved.”
In addition to its ambitious decarbonization plan, in which almost 100% of its electricity is generated from renewable sources, deforestation was banned in 1996 and a moratorium on oil and gas production could become law later this year. anus.
The city established the largest private reserve in the country, the Children’s Eternal Forest, which includes 230 square kilometers of protected land. The area acts as a vital watershed for surrounding communities, farms, and hydroelectric projects that produce more than a third of Costa Rica’s electricity.
“Monteverde is a pioneer. Sustainable tourism models for the country come from the work that people were doing there,” says Mónica Araya, an advocate for electric mobility.
Araya witnessed the development of the Electric Route idea during a talk she gave in Monteverde in 2017 on the community’s natural role as a pioneer in electric mobility. “I have never seen people organize so quickly. For Monday, Corclima started with a plan.”
“Our commitment to the natural world is part of our identity,” says Araya. “Instead of criticizing ourselves for not being green in certain areas, we should build on what we have done so far.”
But first lady Claudia Dobles says that a cultural change will not come about through politics alone. For her, the Electric Route opens the way for change: “Our work around sustainability comes from the community and rises. Without citizen participation, there is no decarbonization plan.”
It has already expanded to La Fortuna, an ecotourism center in the north, and will launch in Nosara, a beach community on the Pacific. By the end of 2022, it hopes to reach 14 cities.
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