need training and materials, which have come pri-
marily from the environmental education programs
at the MCFP and MCL (M. Diaz, pers. comm.).
There are three private schools in the area. The
oldest school, the Monteverde Friends School (MFS),
was established when the Quakers settled in Monte-
verde to provide an education based on Quaker val-
ues. The school shares facilities with the meeting
house (Mendenhall 1995). The MFS has a kinder-
garten and grades 1-12, with instruction primarily in
English and a high teacher-to-student ratio (Stuckey
1992). In 1998, the MFS had 67 students, many of
whom were on scholarships (T. Curtis, pers. comm.).
The school works toward being accredited in Costa
Rica, which involves developing a more formal cur-
riculum, including an environmental component that
fits with the Quaker values of living in harmony with
nature (K. VanDusen, pers. comm.). Environmental
awareness has been important since the MFS began,
when students were affected by the example of their
parents' protection of their watershed. Many helped
clear its boundaries (L. Guindon, pers. comm.). By the
mid-1990s, most science presented was ecologically
or environmentally oriented. For example, classes
have visited reforestation projects and tree nurseries,
been involved in organic gardening projects, and cre-
ated interpretative nature trails. Resident and visit-
ing biological researchers give school presentations.
MFS students regularly visit the MCFP and partici-
pate in its EEP (T. Curtis, pers. comm.).
The bilingual Seventh Day Adventist School was
founded in 1991. The Adventist founders of the
school felt that there was a need for another Christian
bilingual school since the growth of ecotourism was
creating job opportunities. They used the skeleton of
MEP's curriculum and adapted it to bilingual and
Adventist religious instruction. In 1998, the school
had 38 students in kindergarten through ninth grade.
The school is interested in teaching conservation
awareness and participates in the MCFP's EEP. Teach-
ers emphasize the importance of vegetarianism from
the perspectives of ecology and world hunger, ethics
and religion, and health. Reflecting local Adventist
values, the school stresses responsibility for the stew-
ardship of the earth and the necessity of sustainable
living (L. Guindon, pers. comm.).
The Centre de Educacion Creativa (CEC) represents
two firsts for conservation in Costa Rica: it is the first
school with a curriculum focused around environmen-
tal education, and the land for the school has been pro-
tected by one of the country's first conservation ease-
ments (CEC Bulletin, Aug. 1991, Apr. 1992; M. Wallace,
pers. comm.). By 1992, the group established legal sta-
tus as a non-profit association in Costa Rica and de-
veloped a fund-raising document (CEC 1992b).
The CEC was founded to respond to the special
educational needs of Monteverde, Costa Rica.
This community is surrounded by rare and en-
dangered Cloud Forest. We believe the survival
of our forest requires a new generation of eco-
logically aware, bilingual residents to respond
to increasing pressures of tourism and develop-
ment. The CEC promises its students academic
excellence from Kindergarten through High
School in an interdisciplinary curriculum cen-
tered around environmental education. (CEC
Bulletin, Mar. 1994)The CEC participated in a loan fund established
by TNG. Their Latin American Program worked with
the Costa Rican environmental law group, Centro de
Derecho Ambiental y de los Recursos Naturales
(CEDARENA), to protect privately owned forests in
Costa Rica (R. Wells, pers. comm.). Costa Rican law
has recognized one type of deed restriction on private
property: rights-of-way (easements) for certain pur-
poses. Lawyers at CED ARENA argued that endangered
species could be given rights-of-way for critical food
and breeding sites between protected areas (parks,
biological reserves) and residual forest patches on
private property. These rights would be similar to
those traditionally granted for cattle that require ac-
cess to water, thus justifying conservation corridors
and the conservation of forest fragments on private
property in the vicinity of protected areas (Atmetlla
1995).
The Nature Conservancy purchased a 42-ha farm
that was partially forested. George Powell wrote an
ecological justification for its purchase based on his
radiotelemetry studies of Resplendent Quetzals. He
concluded that the "wide strips of forest... provide
a bridge for migrating quetzals and a critical source
of food in this altitudinal zone" (G. Powell, pers.
comm.). The CEC negotiated an option to buy the
property with TNG. A conservation easement, held by
MCFP's owner TSC, was added to the deed. In 1993,
CEC established a U.S.-based non-profit organization,
Cloud Forest School Foundation, which raises funds,
recruits staff, and organizes the transport of supplies
from the U.S. (CEC Bulletin, Mar. 1994).
Volunteers assist teachers in the classrooms, or-
ganize the library, work in an organic garden at the
school, and develop curriculum. Staff, board mem-
bers, consultants, and parents developed a curricu-
lum that makes bilingual environmental education
a unifying theme across all academic subjects and
school activities. Students visit the MCFP, the Bajo
del Tigre sector of BEN, and SER. The CEC is work-
ing toward being accredited in Costa Rica and hav-
ing its curriculum recognized as a model for environ-
mental education. By 1998, the school went through371 Conservation in the Monteverde Zone