the Pefias Blancas Campaign as its contribution to the
swap (W. Haber, pers. comm.). This swap provided
MCL with $200,000 plus interest over five years (1988-
1993) to be used for land purchase, administration,
and environmental and protection programs (MCL
Tapir Tracks, vol. 3, no. 1, 1988).
Another debt swap in 1991 funded MCL's purchase
of land in the San Gerardo area (see Boll, "San
Gerardo," pp. 380-381) and salaries for guards to pro-
tect MCL's land. Most of the money for this swap
came from the U.S.-based Rainforest Alliance, which
organized a radiothon that raised $292,000; TNG
contributed $15,000, and MCL put up $53,000. These
funds were used to buy $600,000 of discounted debt
from the Central American Bank for Economic Inte-
gration (CABEI), yielding $540,000 in Costa Rican
bonds and interest. This was Costa Rica's sixth debt
swap and was the first with a private Central Ameri-
can development bank rather than a public national
central bank (Rainforest Alliance 1991; see Burlin-
game, "Debt-for-Nature Swaps," p. 377).
When settlers and squatters in Penas Blancas
learned that MCL was buying land and claims, they
lined up outside the Pension Quetzal, whose co-
owner handled MCL's financial records. Problems
surfaced immediately; few people had legal papers
for their claims, and some claims overlapped others
(B. Law, pers. comm.). Once people had been paid for
their claims, MCL had to work through the Costa Rican
bureaucracy to get legal title to untitled land. Land
also had to be protected from new squatters who,
under Costa Rican law, could easily establish claims
to it. The MCL and the MCFP hired forest guards to
make regular patrols in the Penas Blancas valley. The
guards were unarmed, which was perceived as a
"good neighbor" approach. When they intercepted
hunters or squatters, their primary goal was to inform
Figure 10.9. Entrance sign to the
Monteverde Conservation League
office and information center in
Cerro Piano. Photograph by Leslie
Burlingame.and educate. A verbal warning would be given, and
with repeat offenses, violators would be subjected to
a legal claim ("denuncia") in the local courts (J. Crisp,
pers. comm.).
The BEN has become MCL's central focus (Fig. 1.5).
In 1987, Sharon Kinsman, a U.S. biologist who had
lived in Monteverde during research visits, traveled
to Sweden. A Swedish teacher, Eha Kern, invited
Kinsman to give a slide presentation at her school. The
students came up with the idea of raising money to
save rain forests, and Kinsman put them in touch with
MCL. The children raised money to purchase 6 ha of
cloud forest near the MCFP (Kinsman 1991). Kern and
her husband Bernd formed the Swedish nonprofit
Barnens Regnskog (Children's Rainforest) to raise and
channel funds for MCL's Penas Blancas Campaign (B.
Kern and S. Kinsman, pers. comm.). When the targeted
land was purchased, MCL bought additional land that
they called Bosque Eterno de los Nifios to honor the
Quaker settlers who had established Bosqueterno and
the children who contributed (Patent 1996).
Barnens Regnskog expanded its support for BEN.
Between 1988 and 1992, they raised $2 million for land
purchases and obtained grants from the Swedish Inter-
national Development Agency (SIDA) (B. Kern, pers.
comm.). In 1988, SIDA made an $80,000 grant to sup-
port reforestation, environmental education, and guards
(MCL Tapir Tracks, vol. 4, no. 1,1989). They also pur-
chased equipment for guards and funded construc-
tion of a hydroelectric project for the El Buen Amigo
project in San Luis (see Vargas, "El Buen Amigo,"
p. 379). By 1992, SIDA had provided $350,000 in grants
to Monteverde Zone projects (B. Kern, pers. comm.).
In 1988, Kinsman established a nonprofit organi-
zation, The Children's Rainforest U.S., to formalize
fund-raising for BEN. As of 1997, the group had raised
almost $500,000 for BEN, contributing to land pur-363 Conservation in the Monteverde Zone