Abstract:
In the Cape Flats townships, Cape Town, South Africa, there are more than 250 working cart
horses. They serve the community with scrap metal and garden refuse removal, human
transport and the selling of goods. A questionnaire was undertaken to understand the social
and economic impacts of a horse and cart in the Cape Flats on individual owners and/or
drivers, their households and the community. A mixture of classical quantitative questions
combined with qualitative participatory technique questions were used. A total of
100 participants took part in the questionnaire, who cart with 163 horses between them. The
majority (89%) identified the cart horse income as their primary income source. Apart from the
participants, an additional 716 people were supported financially through this income, where
the mean number of children supported was 2.9 (95% confidence interval [CI]: ±0.42) per
interviewed participant. Scrap metal transportation was the most common work and the
season (winter) had a negative impact on their ability to work. The spatial extent to which a
cart horses work was determined and related back to the impact on the horse and participant
of the survey. It was demonstrated that the cart horse industry had an impact not only on those
who worked in the industry, but also on the surrounding residents, either through their work
or through supporting others with their income. This study revealed that the concepts of ‘One
Health’ and ‘Health in Social-Ecological Systems’, in action as horse and human health within
the Cape Flats are closely intertwined.
