Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
This operator is one of the most respected and effective environmental organisations working in the world today. This operator provides you with a unique opportunity to help conserve the environment whilst visiting some of the most beautiful and remote locations in the world, working as a volunteer on one of our conservation field research projects. Your contribution helps us to run the projects, on average, 57% goes directly to the scientist as a field grant, 27% towards project development, and 16% on volunteer recruitment.
The data from this project will be used to identify the serious threats that face the remaining lowland rainforests of South-East Asia. These include forest degradation caused by shifting cultivation and unsustainable timber harvesting practices, forest fragmentation and clearance to make way for agricultural plantations and, perhaps most serious of all, climatic change, particularly droughts and extreme weather conditions.
Environment
The project aims to:
- Establish how current and future climatic change, particularly the incidence of extreme rainstorms, may impact soil erosion in primary rainforest, forest degraded by logging and in areas under different land uses.
- Assess how the diversity of seedlings planted as part of a forest restoration/enrichment planting programme may influence associated biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
- Understand how forest restoration by enrichment planting may be affecting biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and to modify planting regimes in order that these may be optimized.
- As an environmental organisation, recognizing that our operations have an impact on the local, regional and global environment. As a consequence of this, we are committed to continuous improvements in our own environmental performance
- In the office and in publications, we monitor and minimise paper use and waste through reducing, reusing and recycling, as well as seeking to influence our suppliers to ensure they recognise and reduce the environmental impact of their products
- In the field we provide advice to volunteers on how to minimise negative environmental impacts and provide advice, where appropriate, on how to minimise water and energy use.
- Borneo is the third largest island in the world and the Yayasan Sabah Forest Management Area (YSFMA) covers a total area of over 1 million hectares, which by any measure- economic, biodiversity or overall ecosystem value, is one of the most important areas of contiguous forest remaining in South-East Asia.
Community
- Field assistants and support staff are recruited where possible from the host country. Our research projects aim to be of benefit to the host country and fieldwork should be conducted in conjunction with, and results shared with, local institutions. Supplies should be sourced locally and all project-related spending (such as hiring of vehicles and accommodation) should benefit the local economy.
- We require that a host country national is brought on as the second in command, and that this co-scientist participates in all field research as well as in proposed planning and development of the research project.
- Project leaders provide advice on how any purchase the volunteers wish to make can benefit the local economy.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
