Earlier this year, MCL asked the study abroad program at CIEE if they could find us an intern to help improve the signage for Bajo del Tigre. The idea is for Bajo del Tigre to be easier to find, attracting more visitors and making things easier for those who do visit. This complements beautification work done by previous CIEE interns and other volunteers.

Lyndsay Gordon took up the change and in August she worked with MCL staff to redesign and rebuild the signs. One of the aims was to reuse materials as much as possible and to make them reusable again in the future. So the existing signs were taken apart and rebuilt using screws and the backs of the signs. The big signs at the entrances from the road used banners to enable more information to be displayed.

Lyndsay feels she learnt a lot from the project about how to work across language and cultural barriers to produce a high quality finished product.

So now Bajo del Tigre has eye-catching, attractive and informative signage, we should start seeing more visitors coming through, just in time for high season. Now we just need to monitor the results.

Dear Friends,

Imagine standing at the highest point of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest in Costa Rica and witnessing one of nature’s most breathtaking and elegant spectacles as butterflies paint the sky with a splendid palette of colors during their annual mass migration from the Pacific to the Atlantic side of the mountains.

This timeless movement of wildlife remains possible today because conservationists like you have supported the protection of the rainforest habitat that provides the necessary windbreak and shelter to these delicate, migrating creatures.

Will you join in helping MCLUS protect this precious resource? One of you has already made a $20,000 matching gift, so every dollar that you give provides $2.00 to the rainforest. Donating today will double the positive impact of your gift!

And, if your corporation offers a matching gift program, your donation can make an even greater impact. Please click on the “Donate Now” button if you would like to make an on-line donation. Or, if you would prefer sending a check, please use the address at the bottom of this letter.

The Children’s Eternal Rainforest is home to over 700 species of butterflies—an astonishing 3.5% of all those found on the planet—and their continued survival is dependent on the presence of this critical rainforest habitat. Recognizing the urgent need to protect this region and these creatures, Dwight and Rachel Crandell created the Monteverde Conservation League U.S. (MCLUS) nine years ago and we continue to honor their legacy and vision by working to preserve and protect the forest.

But we cannot do it without you! MCLUS urgently needs your care, your protection, and your funding to remain a force for good in the ecological fight to preserve the earth’s rainforests and its spectacular diversity of inhabitants.

Contributions make an enormous difference and MCLUS has accomplished so much this year.

We contributed $67,450 to the purchase of the “Pipe Cruz” land—helping to protect 250 acres of endangered Bell-bird habitat. We paid $26,000 towards the salaries of two guards (one third of the forest’s greatly understaffed protection force) necessary to prevent poaching and habitat destruction. And we contributed $6,510 to the endowment fund that permanently protects the forest. You’ve also helped us work on finding ways to use carbon credits to reforest adjacent areas and increase ecological awareness by leading four successful eco-trips to the forest in 2011.

The Children’s Eternal Rainforest preserves tropical biodiversity, protects a watershed that benefits wildlife and hundreds of downstream communities, and helps to clean and renew the air that we all breathe. But the threats are great, our guards are few, and we must continually work to protect against increased poaching and habitat loss in adjacent areas. For that we need funding from you. We receive no state or federal funds and rely 100 percent on your private contributions.

To help us build a base of operational funding, one of our supporters has stepped forward and will match the first $20,000 we are able to raise by December 31. Each dollar you are able to give will be matched 1:1. MCLUS needs your gift now to preserve this rainforest resource for the future. Can you help us: 1) pay for a wildlife guard’s salary ($15,000 per year); 2) fund an environmental educator ($20,000 per year); and 3) buy crucial habitat like the Pipe Cruz land you helped to save?

Please give a gift today! 100% of MCLUS’ 14 board members support the Children’s Eternal Rainforest by volunteering their time and money. They ask you to join them in protecting the rainforest and the Crandells’ legacy.

Your partner for the forest,

Laurie Waller, President
Monteverde Conservation League U. S., Inc.

P.S. We have much more to share with you! Please see our website, www.mclus.org for more information about our upcoming trips and MCL’s wish list. You’ll also find messages from two of the greatest planetary biologists of our time, Dr. Peter Raven and Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy – both MCLUS board members.

Photos Credits: Maggie Eisenberger and Dr. Julia Matamoros

Monteverde Conservation League US, Inc.
242 Old Sulphur Spring Road
Manchester, MO 63021

Ornate hawk eagle in Bajo del Tigre

Back in August Jamie Codd visited Bajo del Tigre and got up close to a perched ornate hawk eagle. He just sent us the pictures.

It’s pretty lucky to see an ornate hawk eagle perched like that in Bajo del Tigre. They are rare in this area and if they are seen at all they are more likely to be soaring high in the sky and be identified by their call. If you’re really lucky you might see their spectacular courtship in which the male climbs and dives in the air occasionally looping or touching talons with the female.

If any of you have interesting pictures from you visit to The Children’s Eternal Rainforest, we’d love to see them and do a story on them in this blog.

Laurie Waller met with Dr. Peter H. Raven, Presient Emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden and member of the MCLUS board. He speaks here of the tremendous value of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. You can learn more about Dr. Raven and his career at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_H._Raven.

If you have seen the film Stranded you will know how vulnerable the life is in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. It is like an island of forest in a sea of pastures. Some of the iconic species of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest need to migrate seasonally down the slope to the pacific to follow the ripening fruit. But many of the patches of forest are too far apart for them to make it and each year fewer and fewer bellbirds and quetzals return from their migration.

That’s why the Bellbird Biological Corridor has been set up to connect the cloud forest to the mangroves. It is a collaboration between 7 local reserves, universities and other organizations including ACM. FCC has been running a nursery and planting thousands of trees for years and ACM has helped local farmers plant windbreaks. But now the project has become more ambitious. It is part of  a national program to protect corridors throughout the country that connect Nicaragua to Panama. The Bellbird Corridor got a grant from GEF to do a strategic plan for the corridor and held five workshops with leaders throughout its proposed area. They will then help local communities find funding for their own projects that contribute to building the corridor.

Greetings Friends of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest!

Make your next vacation an Eco-Tour adventure to Costa Rica and the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. You will find our newly designed and exciting trips for 2012 posted on the Monteverde Conservation League U.S. website: http://mclus.org/eco-tourism/. Our many years of guiding experience in the rainforest and Costa Rica will give you a “never to be forgotten” trip. These educational and adventure-filled trips will take you to the gorgeous new Pocosol biological field station near the Arenal Volcano and La Fortuna and to the San Gerardo field station and Monteverde.

On the website you will find lower priced trips of shorter durations to more easily fit in with your available vacation time. For those who want to stay longer, several possible extensions can be arranged for you and your friends. You will also find a trip scheduled for March 2012, to fit in with your spring break plans.

Thank you for your long-standing support of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. Can you think of anyone who might be interested in a trip? Perhaps your dentist, lawyer, insurance agent, a teacher at your children’s school, relatives, or coworkers are looking for an adventure in Costa Rica. Please recommend they take a look at the new trips posted on our website at: www.mclus.org. MCLUS is grateful for your assistance in getting the word out about the 2012 trips to this unique and priceless rainforest!

Photos by Dr. Julia Matamoros

In July I wrote about a releasing rescued animals including five raccoons. Well those five were most likely brothers and sisters – a litter can have up to seven. Raccoons are probably familiar to North Americans, but in Costa Rica raccoons are smaller and less common. Once mum is pregnant she drives the male away – he might eat her cubs, so she raises them on her own, sometimes while her sisters or her mother raise their own litters nearby.

Mostly raccoons forage at night, but since their favourite foods are fish, frogs, worms, bird and turtle eggs and especially crabs, they will take advantage of the low tide and scour the beach at low tide – day or night. They also like fruit and nuts.

Some people keep raccoons as pets and they can live as long as 20 years, but in the wild they only survive for 5 years.

Last year MCL applied for a grant from Bosque Eterno to run an education program about water for local children.

Bosque Eterno is the original reserve set up by the Quaker settlers in Monteverde to protect their water supply. It now forms the core of the Monteverde Cloudforest Reserve. Each year they offer grants to the local community organisations to run projects mainly to do with water source protection and education.

So, MCL proposed to have 10-12 year olds from local schools come out to the Bajo del Tigre section of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest to learn about water. They got the grant ($1100) and classes from Los LLanos, San Luis and La Creativa came out to spent time on the program ‘Conservando agua, Conservando vida de la planeta’ – Conserving water we conserve life on the planet.

Before heading out on the trails they got together to hear about how to tell the physical, chemical and biological health of rivers. Such factors as temperature, pollutants and which invertebrates are in the water will all give clues to the water quality. They also learned about conserving water and the importance of leaving enough water in the rivers for nature.

Then they took to the trails to see for themselves the importance of water to life. Plants, animals and birds each have their own needs for water and their own ways of getting it. Then it was back to the Casita, the environmental education house, to think about ways of conserving water. That and ice-cream!

Wendy Brenes presented the project at annual general meeting of Bosque Eterno, and she has an application in to run it again this year with different schools. So, fingers crossed!

by Maggie Eisenberger – Travel and Science Coordinator and MCLUS Board member

2011 Pocosol Travelers

The new Pocosol trip itinerary was designed to meet several goals; an alternate itinerary for those who have already visited San Gerardo, a shorter trip for those with less time, a less physically challenging trip (although the challenges are there if you want them!), and the chance to experience more of the CER and its trails from the new lodge on the east side of the preserve.

A group of intrepid travelers, ages 13 to 80, were the first MCLUS group to experience the brand new lodge at the Pocosol field station this June.

Jane Cuba bringing in a bird in a mist net

Our travelers gave top marks to the beautiful building, the terrific food, the well-maintained trails to the bubbling mud pots and the waterfall, and the comfort of “porch birding” before breakfast. The group was most impressed by having a PhD naturalist accompany them on the trails, mist net for birds and bats with them, and answer all their questions about this incredible ecosystem. The group was also honored to plant trees from the vivero at Finca Esteller for an MCL reforestation project.

Other highlights included birding from the watch tower at Finca Luna Nueva, where we discovered a sloth at eye level in a nearby tree; enjoying the heated pool at Rancho Margot; taking the tour of the animal rescue center Proyecto Asis where we got great close-ups of many beautiful animals; making our own chocolate at Tirimbina Lodge; and climbing up the lava field at Arenal volcano.

Zofia Mathews making a donation to the CER of funds raised by her school, Laurelhurst School in Portland Oregon

We also enjoyed floating on the Sarapiquí River, with the howler monkeys and sloths overhead, herons and kingfishers all along the banks, and iguanas, basilisks, and crocodiles to spice things up. Experiencing the rainforest at canopy level on the Braulio Carrillo aerial tram was another highlight, as well as tasting the day-glow purple pitahaya ice cream!

Watch our website (mclus.org) for next summer’s trip dates to be announced soon, for your chance to plan your own visit to the Children’s Eternal Rainforest.