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Costa Rica: Ecotourists Find a Paradise: Visitors Soak Up Nature, History in Monteverde

Posted on: Sunday, 26 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Vickie Kilgore, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

Mar. 26--MONTEVERDE, Costa Rica -- This cloud forest is relished for its biodiversity, home to more than 2,000 species of plants and trees, 100 species of mammals, 400 species of birds and 1,200 species of amphibians and reptiles. It's an internationally regarded center for researchers and ecotourists. But it largely is indebted for its health today to a group of 11 Quaker families who emigrated from Fairhope, Ala., in 1951, disenchanted with the United States and determined to establish a community where they could live in peace. Martha Campbell, 51, whose late father, John Campbell, was one of the founders of Monteverde, or "Green Mountain," said the group of 44 people chose Costa Rica because the country had abolished its army and there were more teachers than soldiers. Many of them had been drawn to Fairhope because of the School of Organic Education started in that town. It was based on a progressive educational philosophy that did not include examinations or homework. Standing in the yard of her hilltop farmhouse as the sun set over the Bay of Nicoya, Campbell recounted how the group pooled resources to buy about 3,400 Costa Rican acres almost at the continental divide and began the three-month journey by car, boat, train and, finally, ox cart to reach their new home. Today it's a four-hour drive to Monteverde from San Jose on extremely rough, pitted roads. Campbell was born three years later, but she knows the story well of those early days. The families helped each other build homes. There was no indoor plumbing. They cooked on wood stoves. It was six hours in good weather to the nearest hospital. The first electricity arrived in 1957, but telephone lines did not connect them to the outside world until 1985. "We didn't know what we were going to do to make a living," she said. "It was very much subsistence living in the beginning.'' What they did was open a cheese factory, using Quaker Oats cans as molds because cheese was a product that could be stored and transported to market without spoiling. But they learned the hard way the cows they'd acquired were better at supplying beef than cheese. They eventually bought a herd of Guernsey heifers, and the factory was on its way, generating 350 pounds of cheddar cheese each week. The cheese factory has since been sold, but it continues to operate. Not all of those 11 original families stayed, but those who did multiplied. There were 19 babies born the first 10 years of the settlement. The Quaker community now numbers between 60 and 70 families, Campbell said. Many of them married Costa Ricans, as did she. Though she has dual citizenship, she considers herself Costa Rican. Through the years, the Quaker families have hosted researchers from around the world who were attracted to the landscape and wildlife under this unique cloud canopy. The community joined forces with scientists in the early '70s to overcome local resistance and establish a wildlife sanctuary. Their efforts became the core of what is today the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve, a nature lover's paradise.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

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Source: The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

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