COSTA RICA (1990) - Until the Arias administration, the Costa Rican government rewarded farmers who "improved" the land by deforesting it. As a consequence, 50,000-60,000 hectares were cleared annually, leaving only 30% of the remaining forests outside of Costa Rica's national parks and reserves. Conservationists fear that amount of protected forest is too small to protect the panoply of natural wildlife and foresee a time when only a chain of "island parks" will exist. Budgetary restraints and the awareness that wilderness cannot survive in the park system only has made conservationists approach conservation with an attitude of making the forest pay for itself.

In a study of Brazilian rainforest, naturalist Alwyn Gentry, estimates that 90 percent of the value of a rainforest would be found in forest products, including nuts, flowers, ornamental plants, and rubber. If economics is a valid means of evaluating the value of the forest, then it should also be considered that the rainforest can attract tourists, who will pay for the priviledge and education of wandering through a protected rain forest.

Tourism in Costa Rica is the country's third largest money earner of foreign exchange. According to the Economic Intelligence Unit, tourism earned $140 million in 1986, $175 million in 1988, and a projected $281 million in 1989. The environmental tourism business has likewise skyrocketed. The number of visitors to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve reflects a similar growth. It received 500 visitors in 1974, and a peak of 13,000 in 1988. There are several new tourist resorts being planned for the northwest part of the country. For example, a German foundation, Viva Verde Tropica has purchased 100 hectares of a reserve in Guanacaste for future development as a lodge within a projected 5,000 hectare, protected rainforest.

Ecotourism is a vague term for a wide field. According to Tamara Budowski, a co-owner of the Horizontes travel agency in downtown San Jose, ecotourism is a part of a field called nature-based tourism which includes five subsets:

1. Scientific tourism, in which researchers, scientists, and students perform their tasks in the field.
   
2. Ecotourism, in which travellers learn about the inter-relationships between living organisms in the different natural areas.
   
3. Soft natural history tours, in which a person who enjoys being outdoors but does not necessarily have a specific topic of interest.
   
4. Hard natural history tours, in which organizations such as bird watchers (birders) arrive for a formal, interest-specific tour.
   
5. Adventure travel, which includes rock climbing and kayaking. This is the fastest growing segment of the travel market in the world.
   

Costa Rica caters to all portions of this market. Budowski explained how the tourism industry has changed in the last few years:

People who have been involved in Costa Rica for many years still believe that Costa Rica is a beach destination so that we should build large resorts and so on and so forth and that the Caribbean and Mexico are our major competitors. The new generation, which I belong to, believes the opposite thing, no, we shouldn't at all imitate other places but that what we need to do is to tell people about our natural resources, which are quite unusual and a great attraction in themselves... Finally, the tourist board did finally three or four years ago all their informational materials with a slogan: Natural Costa Rica.

Ecotourism is an obvious success in Costa Rica. There are a multitude of tours, which offer bird watching, volcano climbing, river and ocean kayaking. In 1989, I visited two non-governmental reserves that depend on the tourist trade for their existence. Monteverde is the oldest, established in 1971.

Monteverde

In 1948 when the United States passed a universal military training act, four Alabama Quakers refused to register, were arrested, and put into prison. One of the four, Marvin Rockwell, recalled: "After we were released, we thought, maybe we ought to leave the United States." That same year Costa Rica abolished its national army, and the Quakers received a positive report on the possibility of relocating there. In 1951 a group of seven Quaker families moved to San Jose and with an agent from the Guacimal Land Company, began scouting various locations for settlement.

Finally, on a flight over the Continental Divide in northern Puntarenas Province, the Quakers decided to move to the verdant mountains near a small town named Santa Elena. With communal funds, they purchased the property and named their new home, Monteverde or "Green Mountain." Rockwell explained how they distributed their land:

When we came up here we bought a track of 3000 acres and set aside about 1000 acres at the headwaters of our little river here to be left permanently in forest to be a watershed and then divided the balance into farms and the farms were deeded to the individuals.

The Quakers supported themselves as farmers, an occupation most were accustomed to in the United States. Because of the distance between Monteverde and the nearby markets, the community decided to enter the cheese market, because the product would have a longer shelf life than milk or beef. This enterprise was such a resounding success that it began to incorporate Costa Rican farmers in the area, who began to sell their milk to the plant.

Monteverde remains physically isolated. It takes two hours from a turnoff on the Panamerican Highway to reach Monteverde. The gravel road has a gentle incline for the entire route; it overlooks mint green valleys and cattle pastures. Currently, there is discussion whether to pave that road, the settlers are debating the merits of increased tourism. In the thirty years since founding, Monteverde has attracted a larger citizenship, in part because of the founding of the Monteverde Biological Preserve.

In the 1960's George Powell came to Monteverde to research a unique species discovered in 1964. The male golden toad, colored a brilliant orange, lives only in the Monteverde cloud forest. Powell was so impressed by the Quaker's conservation of the watershed that he sought means to protect more of the surrounding forest . He contacted international conservation organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund, and Conservation International and the Costa Rican Tropical Science Center. Funds were procured, land purchased, and the preserve was formally leased to the Tropical Science Center. Then, in 1972 the reserve was given protected status by the government.

As a private organization, linked with the national research facility, Monteverde enjoys an internationally acclaimed reputation and the capacity to fund itself. Aspinall says that the preserve receives all its operating expenses from the admission fee. He also claims that Monteverde has been a model for conservationists from Colombia, Honduras and Peru, who see the autonomous structure of Monteverde as a financially solvent means of protecting rainforest. Admission fees do not finance land acquisition or improvements to the visitor's center. These are funded by contributions and grants. Thus, the preserve has grown from its original 4,000 acres to 50,000 acres in size. Likewise, the number of tourists has skyrocketed.

Tourists in Monteverde
Table 2.1:

Year	1980	1985	1987	1988
Number of Visitors	3172	6786	12,762	15,000

According to Mr. Rockwell, business has tripled in the last three years. He's even annexed his old house for additional room space. As more tourists arrive, entrepreneurs cater to their needs. New hotels have popped up, inside and outside the city's formal limits. Two new restaurants opened in 1989, one with a discotheque. And in the forest, there have also been changes. Aspinall recollected a more primitive time:

If you ever came to Monteverde over 10 years ago, the trails were all leaf-covered and litter-covered, and it was a very gratifying experience. With the increment of tourism our main trail systems have worsened, because of the type of soil and wet forests... you start walking in mud.

25,000 people were expected to visit Monteverde in 1989, and at the time of my visit the preserve had commissioned a carrying capacity report. Were too many people visiting Monteverde? If so, tourism leaders, such as Budowski, believe they have a responsibility in protecting Monteverde's wilderness from rapid growth. Budowski suggested:

If we know that Monteverde is close to the carrying capacity, stop promoting Monteverde and open a new area. And in this way, open new trails in the same reserves so the other trails are not affected by so much transient people.

As Monteverde has become increasingly popular, it also has new problems. Mr. Rockwell addressed the contradiction: "(When) you get too many people, the animals and birds avoid the trails, so you defeat what you're trying to do. And we don't want Monteverde to become a tourist attraction."

Yet Monteverde is a tourist attraction. Its guests are more often bird watchers than peace-seeking Quakers. And the culture gap has forever changed the Quaker community. Alcohol is not for sale in the community, but a hotel has opened immediately outside Monteverde with liquor concessions. Speculation of Holiday Inns and motels with golf courses haunts the native population and those who came to enjoy a more rustic life.

What Monteverde will be like in the year 2010 was the subject of a local symposium last summer. Maximiliano Kepfer, manager of the Hotel de Montařa Monteverde, suggested improvements such as a local airport, finer restaurants, and a canopy-level glass tunnel which could whist tourists through the upper levels of the rainforest.

The debate at Monteverde now centers on what kind of place its citizens would like it to be in the future. Considering how rapidly this community has changed, there are many options for its development. According to the preserve's director, William Aspinall, the emphasis now is not so much on land acquisition as it is on protection and education in the local schools. Increasingly, though, the area outside of Monteverde is losing its forest cover, and the conservationists are becoming teachers and sympathizers with the local populace, instead of trying to maintain their green island.

Rara Avis

The second resort is a struggling operation, named Rara Avis, located near the municipality of Las Horquetas de Sarapiqui. It encompasses over 3000 acres of primary and secondary rainforest, bordering Braulio Carrillo National Park and the Zona Protectora La Selva, a research station. The founder and president is Amos Bien, formerly a biologist who conducted his research at La Selva. Unlike other biologists who were concerned solely with the understanding of life within that reserve, Bien stepped outside the borders in order to understand why peasants were deforesting the neighboring land. His conversations presented him with a clear understanding of how the rainforest is unappreciated and is viewed as an economic obstacle. He asked them why they were cutting down the trees:

It was either to get title to the land so they could sell it or so they could make a living. When I asked them what they were planting, they were either planting corn, rice or beans, but eventually the goal was to plant pasture and raise cattle, almost always with unrealistic expectations of what the yield would be. And then people who actually had cattle, I asked what the yield was, how many animals they had, what the weight gain, what their costs were. And actually found out what the land was really producing, which none of my biologist colleagues had ever tried to do. And most of my biologist colleagues just sat there looking at their little projects and weren't terribly concerned that what they were studying was disappearing so fast that their study would just be a museum study.

In 1983 Bien established a Costa Rican corporation, taking the name Rara Avis, a Latin term meaning "rare bird" as appropriate nomenclature for a resort located in the middle of the rainforest. He financed this venture by selling stock; a share costs $1000 and entitles the holder to one free visit to Rara Avis every year. If Rara Avis becomes a profitable enterprise, stock holders can expect dividends.

The first visitors to Rara Avis stayed in a rustic building called "El Plastico" that housed prisoners during a unique experiment from 1963-1965. It was called "El Plastico" because the roofing was big, plastic tarps. Prisoners who were in the last two years of their term were offered a work release, whereby for every two days they spent cutting down virgin forests, they would get a day off their sentence. However, the complications involved in massive deforesting in the middle of the forest and the lack of potential buyers for the land cancelled the project after two years.

Twenty years later, in 1983, with the installation of plumbing and a new roof, Bien opened Rara Avis for tourism. Since then he has constructed a newer building, hewn with fallen trees and timber selected from various corners of the land. He still warns prospective tourists that primitive conditions prevail -- no electricity, simple meals, and occasional lack of transportation up the muddy 17 kilometer path, when heavy rains prevent the tractor from being able to ford the two streams that lie between Los Horquetes and Rara Avis.

Yet tourists arrive steadily throughout the year. Attracted by the parks three waterfalls, including one with a magnificent drop of 180 feet, and guided hikes with either Bien or native biologist Orlando Vargas, tourists have come in increasing numbers.