Internships in Sustainability and the Environment: "Bosque Eterno De Los Niños," Rosie Briggs

This October, I worked as an intern for the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, which is managed by the Monteverde Conservation League. This nonprofit organization works to “conserve, preserve, and rehabilitate tropical ecosystems and their biodiversity”, largely through their maintenance of the largest private reserve in the country (the Children’s Eternal Rainforest). This was a marketing internship, so all my efforts essentially went toward increasing the public awareness of the reserve. The BEN (the abbreviation for the Spanish name, el Bosque Eterno de los Niños) is a private reserve, which means that it depends heavily on public visitation to fund its conservation efforts.

To try to boost the public awareness (and the income, as a result) of this outstanding reserve, I produced several outreach-based projects. I first researched the BEN in every way I could. I read books, interviewed members of the MCL, watched a documentary, and gathered all the existing outreach material. Then I put together a script for the tour guides to use so that one cohesive, comprehensive story can be told (I also translated the script into Spanish). I put together a supplementary document with extra information for the guides to study so that they can choose to share extra facts or stories and answer questions easily. Lastly, I wrote the script and chose the photos for a new video to be played in the visitors’ center or be shared elsewhere.

Writing scripts for guide videos can be fun

I was personally very interested and invested in this particular internship because it encompassed so many of my passions and supported something I really care about. In the past month I got to learn about photography in the rainforest, interview a founder of the MCL, hike to the Continental Divide, and receive a lesson on being a naturalist guide during a night tour. All of these activities were a dream come true for me, as was writing all the material. I gained a lot of valuable experience in photography and video editing, which are two totally new skills for me. This was also my first time formally translating through writing, which is definitely a skill I’d like to develop and integrate into future jobs. I already had a fair amount of experience with environmental writing, but this internship has definitely sharpened my skills in that area and showed me that I still have a lot to learn!

I think the BEN has an amazing story to tell and people would love to visit and support it if they knew it was there. I think my biggest contribution to the organization has been my organization and consolidation of all the information, which hadn’t really previously been done but was very necessary for current and future outreach efforts. My greatest personal accomplishment was probably the translations, because it was a big first step for me as a bilingual person. Although this internship was short, I feel like I am leaving a tangible legacy behind and taking many new skills with me as I move forward!