Northern Thailand
Huay Pakoot Elephant, Gibbon & Forest Conservation
Community-based elephant, gibbon, and forest conservation in the mountain forests of the north.
Focus area
Conservation
Wildlife and habitat monitoring, reforestation, marine surveys and environmental education. Outdoors, early and hands-on, with data that outlives your stay.
The work
What the work involves
Conservation placements are fieldwork: walking and snorkel surveys, camera traps, species counts, mangrove restoration and reforestation, plus the data entry that turns a morning in the field into a record researchers can use. Several projects feed open citizen-science databases and university research, so the baselines you help set keep working after you leave.
Wildlife work is strictly observation only: no riding, no bathing, no touching, no selfies with sedated animals. If a project involves animals, you record behavior and welfare at a distance while trained local staff handle the rest.
Typical tasks
- Wildlife surveys: elephants, gibbons, cetaceans, birds, reptiles and more, always observation only
- Marine work: reef and seagrass surveys, clean-ups and microplastic sampling
- Reforestation, mangrove restoration and habitat maintenance
- Data entry into open databases and research datasets
- Environmental education with local schools and communities
Fit
Who it suits
- You like fieldwork and don’t mind dirt under your nails, early starts or steep trails.
- You are comfortable with routine: surveys repeat, and the repetition is what makes the data useful.
- You can stay a while. Longer stays shine here, because field training pays off over months, not days.
Projects
Where this work runs
Each destination offers only the areas that reflect its partner’s real, established work.
Costa Rica
Kéköldi Rainforest Project
Community-led rainforest and wildlife monitoring inside an Indigenous reserve on the Caribbean coast.
Madagascar
Nosy Be Island Conservation & Community
Forest and reef research beside a national park, on an island off the northwest coast.
Southern Thailand
Trang Coastal Conservation Hub
Seagrass, mangrove, and dugong-habitat conservation on the Andaman coast.
Canary Islands
Tenerife Cetacean Project
Whale and dolphin research in a protected Atlantic strait.
Mexico
Puerto Morelos Reef Project
Reef monitoring and marine conservation on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, mostly on scuba.
Before you go
Requirements
Confirmed step by step after you apply; nothing is due until your requirements are complete.
- A background check before placement: a criminal record check or a reference, depending on the project.
- Reasonable fitness for field days; marine projects also need confident swimming.
- Some marine projects involve diving, and dive work needs certification; what your project needs is confirmed at the screening call.
- Minimum age 18. There is no upper age limit.
- Travel insurance covering the whole placement. It is required and not included; GoAbroad insurance is an optional add-on, and your own policy is accepted with proof.
- Applications close 60 days before your start date.
- Visa eligibility is confirmed during qualification, before your application proceeds.
FAQ
Questions people ask
Will I get to handle wildlife?
No, and that is deliberate. Wildlife work on every project is observation only: you record behavior and welfare data at a distance while trained local staff work with the animals. Projects that let volunteers ride, bathe or pose with wildlife are exactly what we screen out.
Do I need a dive certification?
Only for projects with dive-based survey work, and your Placement Coordinator confirms what your project needs during screening. Plenty of marine work happens from shore, by kayak or on snorkel.
Why are longer stays encouraged for conservation?
Because the first weeks are training. Once you can run a survey protocol reliably, every extra week adds data a researcher can actually use, which is why 3 months or more is encouraged on most conservation projects.
Ready for conservation work?
Applying costs nothing and gets you a screening call that works both ways.