The ecotourism committee prepared a list of guide and transport services, complete with prices, and began building trails. Local women organized a cooperative to sell handicrafts. The Partnership helped villagers build a farm to grow crops of live butterflies for export to international zoos and exhibits. Unexpectedly, that year 430 persons from 28 countries heard about and visited the farm. Villagers and Peace Corps volunteers were quick to see the possibilities.
Villagers also provide visitors with housing, food and transportation.
Each year, as loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles return to the north coast to nest, villagers begin nightly patrols along an 8-kilometer stretch of beach. Upon finding a turtle nest, villagers carefully dig up the eggs and re-bury them in a protected enclosure. This protects the eggs from local poachers who have decimated the turtle populations. Now they search many nights just to find one. In 1997, villagers rescued 48 nests and released 1,152 hatchling turtles to the sea.