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Sea Turtle Conservation and Community Project

5.0
(25 reviews)25

The experience

Join a community-driven sea turtle conservation program where you’ll help monitor nesting beaches by patrolling the shoreline and assisting in the hatchery. You’ll collect data on nesting females and hatchlings—an ideal opportunity to gain hands-on experience in field research while connecting with the local community. All of this while staying in an incredible jungle camp in Playa Carate, just outside the Corcovado National Park.

What you offer

30 hours of help per week

Animal Care: Help look after and take care of animals.

Social Work: Help with volunteer work in local projects and communities.

Gardening: Help grow plants and cultivate gardens

Additional fee required

Amount: US$ 290 Per week

Fee pays for: Materials for volunteer activities and Donation to project

Description: Fee covers your food and accommodation and inclusion and training in project activities. Fee reduced for longer-term volunteers.

What you get

1 day off per week

Team Dorm: You will have a bed in a shared room, which means you will share the same room with other people.

Breakfast: You are entitled to a free breakfast, every day of your stay.

Lunch: You are entitled to a free lunch, every day of your stay.

Dinner: You are entitled to a free dinner, every day of your stay.

Use our equipped kitchen: Feel free to use our kitchen and make your own delicious food.

Certificate: Get a certificate of completion after you finish your experience.

Basic Internet Access: Basic speed internet for you to work remotely

Requirements

Intermediate Spanish or Intermediate English

Over 18 years old

Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers

What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa

Program Details

Our program is in the incredibly bio-diverse Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica's richest get away, hosting 2.5% of the worlds biodiversity. Our jungle camp is the base of our conservation and community work. Our focus is on the two species of turtle we have nesting on our beaches, collecting data all year round and directly protecting nests on the beach.

We also strive to be as sustainable as possible with our garden and our plastic up-cycling work. Our goal is to engage the community in everything we do and empower our small community to join us in protecting the local ecosystems.

Activities & Shift

Volunteers will be able to join our research team as we patrol the beaches to record valuable data on these turtle populations. Morning census involves walking along the beaches as the sun rises, recording any tracks from the night before. In the night we patrol the beaches in search of nesting mother turtles, allowing us to record biological data from the mothers.

Volunteers will learn all about turtle biology and conservation through workshops and being directly part of our field team. You will be a vital part of managing our turtle hatchery, where we protect nests from dogs on the beach, help us relocate nests and protect them until hatching.

Our camp is in the heart of the community, so you will have the chance to get to meet and work with locals. You will also be immersed in rich tropical forest, we will give the opportunity to explore and search for many animals.

Rules

Sea turtle monitoring can be quite physically demanding (lots of walking on soft sand), and in order for us to be able to collect the best data possible we are also mainly working during early mornings and late nights. This is awesome though, as the night sky is like no other, and we can never get tired of sunrises over pristine beaches...

We expect volunteers to support on the beaches as much as possible, and collaborate in other environmental activities that we may be conducting during the day. This is not a vacation location, it's a conservation station!!

We are also a POSITIVE VIBES ORGANIZATION :D which means that we expect everyone to bring the best version of themselves, and treat everyone on the project and in the community with love and respect.