Conservation in Peru with Projects Abroad

  Peru

• All Other Areas in Peru: 
Puerto Maldonado

Durations of Program: 2-4 weeks, 5-8 weeks, 9-12 weeks, 3-6 months and 7-12 months
Typical Duration of Program: 5-8 weeks
Dates: All Year Round

Description: The Peruvian Government has promised to respect native peoples rights and preserve the environmental and cultural heritage of this South American country. However, it is difficult to retain the beauties and treasures of Peru and still make good progress with economic reforms. Deforestation, desertification, air, river and coastal pollution, over-fishing and soil erosion are major issues facing Peru. Its people have also suffered at the hands of under-funded or unscrupulous redevelopment projects.

On the positive side, there are now many successful conservation projects taking place in Peru, including the Conservation and Environment Project run by Projects Abroad.

We manage a 476 hectare reserve (Reserva Ecologicà Taricaya), based in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, alongside the famous Madre de Dios River. The Madre de Dios is the focal point for many Peruvian industries, from gold mining to mango farming. However, its also the route by which deforesters transport logs, and its a place where much of the once-fertile land is being over-farmed. Both logging and over-farming are creating serious problems.

The Conservation in Peru placement is a project for the more adventurous. Access to the lodge is a two hour boat journey from the town of Puerto Maldonado. The Taricaya Lodge is our own research center and your home for the duration of your stay, where you will be living with up to thirty other volunteers. The lodge is basic, but clean and comfortable, and everyone helps with its upkeep.

Volunteering on a Conservation Placement in Peru: Rainforest Conservation

The information we gather from observations taken from our canopy platforms, blinds and walks is crucial for these reports. While we know that the area is recovering well, we need concrete evidence to satisfy the relevant authorities and hence maintain the concession for the reserve that has been awarded to us.
Volunteer Conservation Wildlife Projects in Peru

Overseas voluntary work opportunities with Projects Abroad in the Peruvian rainforest also offer the chance for you to become involved in wildlife projects such as animal-release programs and turtle monitoring.

The concept of releasing captive animals (such as exotic pets) into safe environments is popular within conservation groups worldwide. Although it is not yet an idea that has taken off in Peru, our site at Taricaya is in line to be appointed the first Animal Release Center in this part of South America. We are pioneering this concept amidst an ongoing battle for rights to sanction the release of confiscated animals back into their natural habitats. Only then can we help with the enormous problem of illegal exotic pets.

Animal enclosures are being constructed at the Taricaya Reserve. These will enable us to move ever-closer to our goal of finally being able to take mistreated animals out of Puerto Maldonado (the nearest major town on the Madre de Dios River) and re-locate them back to their rainforest homes.

At Taricaya we are also undertaking a long-term conservation project involving side-necked turtles (Podocnemsis unifilis). Population numbers have declined for decades, due to the high commercial value of their eggs. Locals can raise large amounts of money, relatively speaking, by selling turtle eggs in Peruvian markets. In Puerto Maldonado the problem is particularly severe local communities have relied on this income for several generations.

At Taricaya we have successfully liaised with government authorities and enlisted the help of residents from the area - the indigenous Ese'eja people - to help collect the turtle nests. We pay them the same amount that they would receive from the sale of stolen eggs.

Each year, in conjunction with the local community, we successfully raise and release over 500 young turtles back into the wild. We engrave the young turtles with a code on their shells, which means that future recapture will associate the individuals with our project at Taricaya. This project is temporal between the months of July and September, with the eventual release of turtles from our artificial beach in December.

Taricaya is also involved with many other projects that operate on smaller timescales. A wide variety of creatures can be part of such investigations, including birds, reptiles, amphibians and medicinal plants.

Your time at Taricaya will help us achieve many short and long-term goals. Whether you are with us for a week or for several months you can rest assured that we are achieving our goals of conservation in the area. Without your help our work would not be possible.

Volunteer Sustainability Projects in Peru: Pilot Farm

Traditionally, there were few farming communities around Puerto Maldonado primary occupations were gold mining, rubber tapping and the collection of Brazil nuts. Although Puerto Maldonado was a boom town just twenty years ago, many of those who flocked to the Madre de Dios are now suffering. With limited farming skills, people have found it difficult to make the most of the meager plots of land awarded to them by the government.

The riches of the area soon dried up, leaving fortune-seekers high and dry without local knowledge and sufficient means to make them capable farmers. Hunting, fishing, timber extraction, charcoal burning and palm-leaf collection are time-consuming, labor-intensive activities which they would gladly rescind, given the opportunity.

At Taricaya we are sympathetic to the daily problems facing local Peruvian farmers. We have developed a Pilot Farm project to help local people make the most, year after year, of the land and resources available to them.

The pilot farm concept aims to help local people to manage their land efficiently and hence reduce their impact on the surrounding forest. At Taricaya we can perform various experiments with crops and productivity on behalf of the local farmers, which they themselves dont have time or the facilities to test.

Although the pilot farm has enabled us to create a self-sufficient module for local families to follow, there is a problem. Various international charities have worked in the area before, bringing concepts designed to revolutionize the lifestyles of the local communities. However, having brought the locals around to their way of thinking the money has always, up until now, dried up and the locals have been left with nothing.

This has resulted justifiably so in general mistrust of outside people trying to help. Fortunately after several years of experimentation we are now able to help local communities without having to ask them for an initial financial investment. When people come to us for aid we know that they are receptive to our ideas. The passive approach that we have adopted over recent years is finally proving productive.

Sustainability Projects in Peru: Innovative Mahogany Plantations

This is one of Project Abroad's most exciting and promising overseas voluntary work projects to date. We are investigating potential market value of wood from young mahogany trees within a few years of planting. Traditionally farmers have waited the standard period of forty years before the trees are felled. There is little mahogany left in the Amazon due to its high commercial value. Logging techniques involve huge destruction just to reach the trees of value. Then the extraction process creates even more damage.

We have produced an information booklet describing our investigations into growing mahogany in small parcels of land. Our aim is to undertake selective logging in the area over a total period of ten to twenty years.

The University of Agriculture in Lima has analyzed the properties of the young mahogany wood. Signs are encouraging for this project which ultimately will create large financial gains for the locals. This work will also give them the chance to greatly reduce their impact on the remaining rainforest.

The fundamental idea behind the project is allowing the locals to harvest the trees at an early age, which makes the idea of long-term plantations redundant. Young mahogany trees have a market value as the wood is negotiable for small-scale business after just five years; hence plantations become viable much earlier than previously thought.

Mahogany isnt the only feasible resource. Weve also proved that other plants such as coffee can be grown in the same area. This gives the locals short-term gain while they wait for the larger profitability of adult mahogany trees.

Volunteer Trail Maintenance in Peru

Patrolling our reserve is crucial, as poachers have been known to enter illegally to hunt. Constant monitoring of the area is therefore necessary and, due to the hard work of more than five hundred volunteers who have visited the Reserva Ecologicà Taricaya over the past few years, we now have a 50km trail network that makes this possible.

This project is also available as a two-week summer special for high school students between the ages of 16 and 19.

Highlights: Conservation in Peru is a project for the more adventurous. Access to the lodge is a two-hour river-boat journey from the town of Puerto Maldonado. You will be living with up to thirty other volunteers and a resident spider monkey! Taricaya lodge is basic, but clean and comfortable, and everyone helps with its upkeep.

Peru is a country of contrasts, a place of extremes: desert and jungle, snow-peaks and sand dunes, great wealth and grinding poverty. We are based in the state of Cusco. The city of Cusco (the state capital) is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the Americas and was known to the Incas as the navel of the earth!

This project offers you the opportunity to become fully immersed in the culture in a manner which even the most hardened of backpackers could never hope to do.

Qualifications: Volunteers must be 16 years old and submit 1 letter of recommendation.

Cost in US$: From US$3,195 up

Experience Required: no

Typical Volunteer: Anyone with an open mind and a desire to travel

Age Range: 16-80

This Program is open to World Wide Participants. This Program is also open to Families, Couples and Individuals

Participants Travel to Peru Independently

Typically Participants Work in Groups

Application Process Involves:

• Letters of Reference
• Written Application

Post Services Include:

• Exit DebriefingAbroad
• Re-Entry Debriefing at Home

Projects Abroad's Mission Statement: As part of the global economy, Projects Abroad helps create local employment wherever we send volunteers. Employing local staff overseas and using their talents and knowledge is important to us. This local knowledge and support enables the organization to channel the skills of the volunteers from more affluent countries to regions around the world where they are needed. Volunteers also learn from their placements and the people they meet, and they gain experience in a chosen field. In the 21st century, we believe this mutual respect is what cultural exchange is all about.

Year Founded: 1992