The Fund for Costa Rica at ExpoVerde

As I mentioned previously, the Fund for Costa Rica participated in ExpoVerde last week.  ExpoVerde was a tourism tradeshow related to environmental protection and ecological products which ran at the same hotel where Costa Rica's largest tourism tradeshow, ExpoTur, was being held.  It must be said that visitation to ExpoVerde by tourism wholesalers and operators was weak.  However, the Fund for Costa Rica was lucky to have the support of two students and a teacher from Quepos High Shool.  All three, Kenneth (teacher), Kenneth (student), and Vanessa did a great job passing out literature and informing ExpoTur participants about the serious threat environmental destruction is posing to the tourism industry.  As a result of their hard work we were able to make contacts with a number of business owners in Osa and Monteverde who want to explore establishing environmental defense patrols in these important destinations.

In addition to supporting us at ExpoVerde, the Quepos High delegation were also able to enter ExpoTur and see first hand how destinations like Quepos/Manuel Antonio are marketed.

Here's a picture of Kenneth (teacher) at our table in ExpoVerde:

And here is a picture of me, Kenneth (student), and Vanessa at the FCR table.

Kenneth and I are holding up stickers FCR produced for the event.  Here's one of the them:

The stickers and our table were a big hit and a lot of folks were very happy to see us at ExpoTur warning about the very serious threat being posed by uncontrolled development.  Thanks to all of you who visited our table and thanks for your words of encouragement.  I hope we will be working together with you soon to help stop illegal deforestation in Costa Rica.

-Matt