EL Bosque Eterno de los Niños (BEN) was founded in 1988 by the Monteverde Conservation League (“the group”) in Monteverde, Costa Rica. There were countless numbers of people who became involved: League members and workers, teachers, schools, scores of volunteers, the Monteverde community, and thousands of children from more than 40 countries mobilized, united in the Dream of saving the forest.

A Brief History

In 1951, a group of North American Quakers settled near a beautiful, remote cloud forest to establish a non-violent community in a peaceful friendly country –Costa Rica. The area they settled in was called Monteverde.

Many years later, the communities around Monteverde had grown, and rainforest was being destroyed to make way for more farms.  The Monteverde Conservation League was formed in 1986 to protect the forest that, as the story tells, was “disappearing fast”.

In 1987, the children of the little Fagervik school in Sweden and their teacher Eha Kern contacted MCL board member Richard Laval wanting to help save the rainforest. (Bates College Biologist and MCL member Sharon Kinsman had given a talk to Eha’s class about Monteverde, and the forest that needed protection). In September 1988, with the promise of donations from the Swedish children, the MCL negotiated to buy a beautiful rainforest area of approx 1500 acres, to be named the Swedish Children’s Rainforest (Barnens Regnskog). A short time later, Tina Joliffe of the Children’s Tropical Forest, U.K. contacted us. In quick succession came Kazumi Fukunaga of the Japanese children’s rain forest group Nippon Kodomo no Jungle, and Sharon, who had founded a Children’s Rainforest US group to help. Bruce Calhoun and other science teachers of SAVE the Rainforest, Inc., Friends in Unity with Nature (Quakers), and Kinderregenwald Deutschland of Germany, also joined the movement.

Donations began coming in from as far afield as Peru, South Africa, Australia, France and Malaysia, and the Dream of one rainforest that belonged to all the world’s children --The First International Children’s Rainforest –was born.

Schools across the globe held bake sales, put on plays, and sold tickets to various events to raise money for the rainforest. In the end, children sent nearly 3 million dollars, and 64,000 acres of rainforest was saved and protected. (note: after some land swaps with the government and other rainforest conservation groups, the official total was reduced to 54,000 acres by 1995.) The project took 3 years ...a very short time to realize such a large dream.

I gave the rainforest its name Bosque Eterno de los Niños (BEN) for three reasons:

• 1) to honor Bosqueterno, SA --an association set up by the original Monteverde Quaker community to save their watershed.
• 2) to honor the thousands of remarkable children around the world who believed in the Dream. They cared about land, trees and wild creatures most of them had never seen, and they easily understood that the rainforest "was their home" too. They --and the children who are keeping the dream alive today-- are the eternal heroes of the story.
• 3) to emphasize an “eternal” commitment to future generations to guard our natural heritage.

Twenty years later, The Children’s Eternal Rainforest is still thriving and growing wild. This is made possible by the ongoing dedication of children, teachers, parents and rainforest organizations worldwide. Especially the sister network of MCLUS, Barnens Regnskog, Children's Tropical Forest UK, Nippon Kodomo no Jungle and Kinderregenwald Deutschland is pivotal in keeping the forest safe.

There are ongoing challenges in maintaining and protecting the forest. Please join in keeping the Dream alive,---and be part of the KIDS' BOOK PROJECT.

If you also wish to raise funds for the forest, send donations to/contact the MCL at:

The Monteverde Conservation League (MCL)
The Children’s Eternal Rain Forest
Apartado 124 – 5655 Monte Verde, Puntarenas
Costa Rica, America Central
www.acmcr.org

To make tax-deductible donations please contact the Monteverde Conservation League-US at www.mclus.org

The trees and wild forest creatures thank you.

Jim Crisp
MCL Director 1988 -1991