Zimbabwe wildlife conservation holiday

Hwange National Park and its surrounding area is a wide, grassy expanse with dense vegetation and vast open plains. An abundance of wildlife roams freely in the Game Reserve, making this a perfect location for spectacular animal sightings. Help to protect and conserve one of Africa's few remaining wildlife sanctuaries by taking part in the Hwange Research Project. You will have access to the most remote areas of one of Africa's premier game reserves and its surrounding areas, where there are huge herds of elephant, buffalo, plains-game, lion and leopard.

Yours duties will be fairly varied and you will be expected to turn your hands to whatever is required at the time you're there. Generally, the objectives of the volunteer programme, and hence your work, should include some or all of the following:

• Monitoring elephant damage to vegetation 
• Small carnivore research
• Analysing data that has already been collected
• Maintenance of park infrastructure
• Mitigating the impact of the Bush meat trade on wildlife populations in HNP
• Counting wildlife
• White rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum monitoring
• Snare collection
• Removal of snares from animals
• Spoor transect & boundary patrol
• Road maintenance

Based at Miombo, a comfortable 1½ hour drive from the Victoria Falls, the project is uniquely situated on the edge of a vast 14,600sq km wildlife refuge known as Hwange National Park in North Western Zimbabwe. Here you are ideally situated to provide valuable wildlife support and community assistance where it is desperately needed.

Hwange is Zimbabwe’s largest National Park and with over 400 species of bird and 107 animal species recorded, it is a wildlife enthusiast’s paradise. The Park has close associations with the National Park Authorities, local wildlife researchers and the local rural community, who have all revealed many areas where support and assistance is required. The volunteer program was established by the Hwange team to meet these needs and will subsequently provide interested volunteers with an intensely rewarding and comprehensive insight into practical wildlife research and conservation in Hwange.Your schedule can operate at any time during the day or night. Obviously you are not expected to be actively involved for 18 hours a day and this may mean that you will not have a working structure during the day if you have worked throughout the night. The project will be structured so that volunteers will normally rotate in groups between activities on a diurnal or a nocturnal basis.

You will work 6 days a week with Sunday being more of a rest period, unless an emergency callout occurs. However, it must be clearly pointed out that Jerry Matsika and his team do reserve the right to adjust and alter the program as they see fit depending on season and circumstances. For example volunteers may be restricted from going out on snare sweeps at certain times of year because the bush and grass is too thick and there is the likelihood of an uncomfortably close encounter with elephant and buffalo. Your safety on this project is a priority and you will be given training and safety drills on all aspects of your work. You will be working in close proximity to areas where wild animals roam freely. You will be based at a beautiful camp which is conveniently situated literally a stone's throw from Hwange National Park and a 10km drive from the entrance gate to Main Camp. The accommodation for volunteers at Miombo has only recently been constructed so you have the benefit of new facilities. You'll share a room with a maximum of four other volunteers or young staff members. Boys’ dormitories One and Two share a common ablution block whilst the girls have their own en suite bathroom facilities. The volunteers have their own dining room and recreation room where DSTV, a library and various interactive games are available. The camp itself has tree and ground lodges which are occupied by photographic tourists and all are set beneath a towering canopy of magnificent Mukwa and Msasa trees. Use of the lodge swimming pool is extended to the volunteers.

At Miombo it is not uncommon for elephants and other animal species to make very close approaches as they come to drink at a waterhole provided for their use. These animals are wild and it is stressed that volunteers, should at all times, adhere to the safety advice given by Miombo staff. A night guard does patrol the property. At times you may stay within the park and tented accommodation will be provided for this. However, this will be occasionally and decided by Paul depending on the situation and reason. This project will definitely enable you to see and feel real Africa!

Food: Miombo is quite a busy camp and is a popular stopover for overland groups as well as the more up-market client. The constant flow of tourist traffic will give you good opportunities to interact with visitors from other parts of the world. You'll be eating the same food that is prepared for the tourists, so the quality and standard is very good. You will be provided with 3 meals a day and food is prepared and served by the cooks, again under an attractive open-sided thatched roof. There is a wide variety of meals and usually a choice of 2 or 3 for main meals. Breakfast also offers a choice of cereals and cooked meals. Fruit is not abundant owing to scarcity and cost, but this is more than compensated for by the general variety of your meals.