Projektet tilbydes i samarbejde med organisationen GVI og nedenfor kan du læse deres beskrivelse af programmet:
This expedition is the essence of remote adventure. Work in the the jungle surrounded by the natural beauty of Cahuita National Park, lined with Carribean coast. Hike the jungle trails conducting biodiversity surveys, walk along the beach looking for evidence of sea turtles during turtle nesting season, check camera traps for footage of jaguars, and explore the rainforest canals noting important bird species.
Not only does this program offer you the opportunity to get involved in ongoing conservation efforts, but you will also be provided with the training and experience to grow professionally by mastering both transferable and technical skills. These include teamwork, intercultural communication, and best practices for recording biodiversity data.
Core Project Focuses:
Turtles
Cahuita National Park has two main beaches, Playa Blanca and Puerto Vargas, which are nesting sights for Hawksbill Turtles, Green Turtles, and Leatherback Turtles. The Turtles project monitors the success rate of these nests and records nesting activity between March and September during the nesting season of these amazing sea turtles. We have split project monitoring into two main parts, morning surveys and nighttime surveys.
You will also build a new hatchery for eggs that did not hatch naturally, and these will be monitored and released from the hatchery.
Incidental Project
The objective of the project is to gather a list of species that have been identified in the Cahuita National Park. To date no such list exists, therefore everything identified within this project will be important to the park authorities and rangers. Each day a list of species identified with their location will be recorded and this information will be catalogued digitally which can help in the management of the park. These sightings will include all surveys being conducted that day as well as what volunteers have seen during the day on base or during their downtime. By using data from all hours of the day we can gather a more accurate list of species in the area.
Forest Biodiversity
In addition to adding more species to the incidental project, the forest biodiversity project aims to go deeper into the understanding of species within Cahuita National Park by recording more data about each of the species seen along a predetermined transect in different zones of the park. To date the only trails that exist in the park are used by tourists during the hours of 08.00-15.00 and are concentrated around the north coastal areas of the park. The interior and southern end of the park are exclusion zones of the park where tourists and locals are not allowed to enter. By creating transects within the interior and southern end of the park we can get a better understanding of the species within the park and their preferred habitats.
Jaguar and camera trapping
Many larger mammals are difficult to study using in-person surveys as they will often detect people and move away from that area before the group knows they were there. They also cover larger territories so the chance of encountering these animals is reduced from the set times our other surveys are scheduled. To get a better understanding of the richness of species and their abundance we propose setting up camera traps around Cahuita National Park to have eyes in the forest when there are no researchers around. Sightings of ocelot, puma, and even jaguars have been seen within the park but to assess the suitability of these animals the camera trapping project will look at and identify prey species of these big cats
Birds
Cahuita is home to a wide array of birds, and due to the wide variety of habitats that Cahuita park encompasses (from shorelines to dry rainforest and an altitude change of more than 250m) it is likely that many of these species can be found throughout at the park at some point during the year. To attempt to assess what species utilise the park, we will undertake bird point counts.
Upon identification of an individual participants will record the species, time, date, location, and sex (if the species display sexual dimorphism). Additionally, we will opportunistically collect photos of birds to establish a more robust species list and preparation of training methods.
All conservation work is done at the invitation and in partnership with leading local and international conservation organisations like the Costa Rican Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications (MINAET), Panthera, Coastal Jaguar Conservation, and the Sea Turtle Conservancy.
HER kan du læse mere om ansøgningsprocessen, din interkulturelle forberedelse, hvilke kompetencer du får, rejsebreve fra vores deltagere, aktuelle tilbud, hvordan du mixer dit eget program og meget mere.
