WELCOME to the first E-Newsletter of the Monteverde Conservation League, U.S. (MCLUS), December, 2005

We at MCLUS have long wanted an inexpensive and paperless way to share with you in a timely fashion what our organization is doing in support of El Bosque Eterno de los Niños (BEN), the Children’s Eternal Rainforest in Monteverde, Costa Rica. We promise to make these newsletters informative and to the point.

Buying More Land for the BEN. The Land Purchase and Protection Campaign 20th Anniversary Campaign (LPPC) is our primary fundraising activity which is described on our website, www.mclus.org . As you know, we primarily support the Monteverde Conservation League (MCL) in Monteverde, Costa Rica which owns and manages the BEN.
MCL is actively negotiating with the Santamaria brothers for two parcels of
land that totals 224 hectares which border the BEN. Tourism developers are also very interested in the same parcels and are willing to pay more than MCL and we can afford. But the landowners seem willing to work with MCL as they prefer to keep the forest under MCL’s careful
protection. We don’t know the exact terms as yet, but the cost could run more than $1000/hectare with payments over just a few years.
A donor has offered us a $10,000 Matching 2/1 Grant to reach our short-term fundraising goal of $30,000 by December 31, most of which could be used for down payment on the Santamaria properties and some for ongoing BEN protection. We are very grateful for the already strong response to our November postal mail letter requesting donations.
If you haven’t contributed recently, please consider doing so now. If each of you who receives this e-mail gave even a small donation, our goal will surely be met. Thank you in advance for caring to help. Click here to donate. To receive our colorful brochure or our CD PowerPoint presentation, click here to request.

School Children Continue to Help the BEN. MCLUS took the 3 student ambassadors (from the 3 schools that raised and donated the most money for the LPPC last year) to Monteverde for a week in the BEN free in August. Jordan Jaco from St. Louis,MO, Anneli Karlsen from Brush Prairie, WA and Chloe Larson from New York, NY were thrilled with what they saw and learned in the Children’s Rainforest. Their dads and teachers came too, at their own expense. Among many other special events they got to watch a natural drama play out in the forest. A huge tarantula hunter wasp attacked and stung her prey (a big tarantula) and paralyzed it and then dragged it back to her hole. There she would lay her egg on the spider. When the wasp egg hatches, the larva will eat the tarantula as fresh meat since it is only paralyzed, not killed. It was so cool that the “ambassadors” got to witness the forest in action!
Each year the donation tally from all schools will be counted on Earth Day, April 22. We will notify the three winning schools that they have won the contest, and they will select their ambassadors for next summer’s free trip to the BEN. We hope that this incentive to actually GO to the rain forest will encourage more schools and home-school groups to participate in helping to save more of the invaluable forests around Monteverde.

Trips to the BEN. MCLUS’ two summer trips in 2006 will be June 19-July 2 and July 30-August 12. The cost is $2195 for two weeks including roundtrip airfare from Atlanta. There is considerable hiking. The altitude at 4,000′-5,000′ means pleasant daytime temperatures and cool nights. A passport is required, but no shots are necessary. Each trip has a maximum of 18 people. Our biologist guides are tops. Click here for more info, or email info@mclus.org. MCLUS also leads custom field trips for school groups to the BEN upon request!