Eha Kern, a teacher in rural Sweden, and her 9-year-old student, Roland Tiensuu, started a children’s movement to raise millions of dollars to purchase and preserve rainforests.

In 1987, while teaching her students at the Fagerviks School in rural Sweden about the destruction of tropical rainforests, Eha Kern invited an American biologist to show slides and speak to the children about Costa Rica’s Monteverde Reserve. The spectacular Reserve—home to both cloud and rain forest and rare species such as the Resplendent Quetzal and the Golden Toad—made a deep impression on the children.

One of Kern’s students, 9-year-old Roland Tiensuu, was especially concerned about the future of the rainforest. Tiensuu suggested his classmates raise funds for the Monteverde Reserve’s land purchase program. The children’s first effort, a bake sale, raised enough money to help purchase four more hectares of rainforest for the reserve. The children went on to sell cards, paintings and handicrafts. Before long thousands of rainforest groups were forming in schools and churches around Sweden.

The children’s enthusiasm, together with Eha and her husband Bernd Kern’s vision, prompted the birth of Barnens Regnskog (Children’s Rainforest), a Swedish nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds for rainforest preservation.