Eco-Tourism Cooperative Created by Local Farmers Going out of Business due to Influx of Foreign-owned tourism businesses, Costa Rica

One of the reasons why Instituto Conexiones started looking at the issue of sustainable travel was because one of our founders was down in Costa Rica helping support local farmers in their efforts to convert from unsustainable cattle ranching practices to something that would not harm the fragile rainforest they live in. Many of them were open to eco-tourism as an alternative form of making money. However, they were unable to make a living from it after many years of investment of time and money because of the foreign owned "eco-tourism" lodges going up all around them. Ironically, most of the farmers are now logging and ranching again.