More than 2 billion people across the globe burn dried animal dung for energy! It is a widely used fuel source, especially in impoverished or nomadic households in countries with not much forested land such as Mongolia, Tajikistan, Tibet, and Bangladesh.

              Kyrgyzstan, although a post-Soviet state, is filled with nomadic individuals that follow their ancestors’ traditions and relocate as the seasons change. Most families have one permanent area of residence for winters and school years, however in warmer seasons they pack up their food, supplies, yurts (traditional Central Asian tents for nomadic living) and children as they set off to find a nice place to live in for the coming few months.

              They pack their essentials usually either on pick-up trucks or they do it the traditional way of using horses and mules, especially when it comes to travelling across mountainous terrain at high altitudes. Horses have never stopped being efficient methods of transport for the Kyrgyz people. Due to the rugged and mountainous topography of their country, citizens that live in the countryside often must use old fashioned ways of transportation. Horses in Kyrgyzstan are of special, resilient, and enduring breeds that allow nomadic individuals to load them with massive weight and travel with them through the narrowest mountain edge roads at some impressively high altitudes.

              Some families rotate through the same places every year, allowing them to leave animals such as sheep and cattle and come back after the mating season to see that their livestock has doubled! This lifestyle has been kept up by the Kyrgyz people for hundreds of years and continues to run strongly today.

              By drying bricks of cow dung, the nomads are able to heat their yurts even in the coldest of conditions and restrict their use of petrol and gas. This not only saves money but is also better for the environment as whole. By living like this, the Kyrgyz people are truly free to roam and live in the mountains they so adore.

              An international fifth-former at Ardingly College, Isabelle Pitchler, commented “I think its an incredibly smart idea, and apparently it has very good qualities for burning, so why not? I can only see the benefits!”

              For thousands of years people all over the world have been using this method to keep warm in colder seasons. Traces of it go back to almost the beginning of the human civilization, and it is crucial to keep this tradition going to prevent the overuse and overextrapolation of oil from our planet. Maybe in the future this method of heating will become more technologically advanced and will tribute to the future generation’s efforts in fixing the mess that we made.