VOLUNTEER PERU

Assist our lowland Amazon rain forest bird research team as a volunteer or intern and experience life as an avifauna conservation biologist in the humid tropics. Learn field techniques for surveying forest understory bird diversity, population abundance, and community assemblage. These techniques include mist netting, bird banding and ringing, unbounded point counts, mixed-species flock follows, and much more. Volunteers will learn the basic techniques from our international team of avifauna experts. Intern candidates will learn in much more detail all aspects of the field techniques used, including the important molt cycle analysis process for ageing birds, as well as special visual and auditory techniques for species identification, data processing and analysis, and mapping. Interns also have the chance to lead their own personal research project on birds, for dissertation, thesis or independent publication purposes.

Assist our lowland rainforest Herpetofauna Research Team and live the life of an amphibian and reptile biologist in the humid tropics. Learn field techniques for studying rain forest amphibian and reptile diversity, population dynamics, and community assemblage, such as line transects in forest habitats, quadrant or plot counts, pit fall traps with drift fences, river and lake-side counts from boats, mark-release-recapture methods based on Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) systems, and intensive searches of micro-habitats, including of course grimy swamps and log jammed streams. Volunteers will learn the basic survey techniques from our team of herpetology specialists. Successful intern candidates will learn in much more detail all aspects of the field research we undertake, including intensive training in proper snake, caiman, and amphibian handling techniques (venomous snakes however are not handled by non-specialists), snake identification via scale counts and colour patterns, amphibian identification via calls, using PIT systems to determine movement patterns of reptiles, and data processing, analysis and mapping. Interns also have the chance to lead their own research project on amphibians and reptiles, for dissertation, thesis or personal publication purposes.

As a volunteer or intern, you will assist our team in the Quellomayo area of the Vilcanota River valley, located in the Cusco region within the Buffer Zone of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary, with a broad mix of research activities relating to birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects and plants. You will need to be fit and energetic to make the most of assisting this team, as the terrain is hilly and even mountainous in places, requiring the team to climb up and down steep slopes and through cold mountain streams as they sample wildlife using transects, plots, mist-nets, and so forth. Field work takes place at altitudes ranging from 1,300 to 3,000 metres above sea level.

During your internship as an amateur or professional photographer; you will visit some of the most remote, fascinating and largely unspoiled parts of the Peruvian Amazon rain forest. Photography has now become an important component in many of our projects, as a way for us to answer certain biological questions, to better communicate what our field teams are trying so hard to achieve, as well as to illustrate our research, education, community development, and ultimately our biodiversity conservation outcomes for the benefit of policy makers, our donors, and our followers. With field leadership from professional photographers we can provide the necessary skills training for those people who may be unfamiliar with the photography techniques that work ideally in this challenging environment. In parallel to providing our field teams in the Amazon with the imagery that they require, photography interns are free to collect imagery for their own portfolios.

This program is based in the Peruvian Amazon, uses high-definition imagery and video to support biological research, species identification, and rainforest conservation. By inviting amateur photographers to work alongside professionals and biologists, the program will focuses on the following objectives:

The team aims to solve the problem of inadequate field guides by documenting the vast diversity of colour morphs and body shapes in the region. Using macro photography and controlled lighting (white/black boxes), volunteers capture detailed images of amphibians, reptiles, and insects to help taxonomists accurately identify species. Technology is used to gather data that human observation alone might which can include:

• Population Studies: Using camera traps to identify individual jaguars and estimate home ranges.

• Ecological Interactions: Documenting specific instances of predation, herbivory, and pollination.

• Behavioural Studies: Recording how birds and mammals react to their own reflections in mirrors.

As a volunteer on this program, you will get an opportunity to become an "embedded journalist" and be able to work for other local research teams. Volunteers will follow field biologists into the forest to capture their activities, record interviews, and document new biological discoveries for educational and promotional use.

A typical day spans from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm, involving up to 10 km of hiking through the rainforest. While no two days are identical, the work is intensive. The team remains active unless there is heavy rain or they are stationed in a "blind" waiting for elusive wildlife.

The Community Development and Engagement Team work with multiple native and Mestizo communities in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, that together manage more than 50,000 hectares of lowland tropical forest, helping community members implement their long-term development goals. These goals are laid out in community-specific development plans with five year implementation periods and cover themes such as education, health, management of natural resources, transport and communication, ecotourism, community decision-making processes, community infrastructure (e.g. piped water, electricity, building projects), and events.

As an intern or a volunteer, you will assist with community and green business development activities, including basic village infrastructure projects (schools, health post, clean water systems and waste management, signage, etc.), reviewing non-timber forest product extraction plans, agroforestry work, environmental education, market research, and so forth. This initiative is all about positive engagement with urban and rural communities in South Eastern Peru, bringing people and nature closer together, helping families appreciate the value of their community forests, inspiring teachers to inspire their students with inspiring wildlife rich educational opportunities, and encouraging the younger generation to think and act more sustainability. Our objectives are to maintain open door policies towards local people from urban and rural areas enabling them to explain the environmental and economic problems they face and to express their ideas for solving them and what kind of assistance they may require or need. Common ways we work closely with communities are environmental education programs in primary and secondary schools, planning assistance with respect to community based ecotourism projects, non-timber forest product development, finding appropriate donors for community led projects and general accompaniment for communities who are transitioning to more sustainable methods of land use. Volunteers and interns work closely with our community development coordinators undertaking numerous and varied activities, spending 80% of their time in one or more communities, with the remaining 20% of their time in Puerto Maldonado or one of our field training sites preparing material and planning for the community stays.

The team's activities, which are related to community development plans, are very varied and can include: Assisting with environmental education needs in the community school. mapping the population size and distribution of non-timber forest products and other natural resource assets, and monitoring change in these assets over time, as inputs into sustainable management plans and decision-making processes regarding economic activities within community forests. Joining families as they plan and subsequently undertake trips to harvest non-timber forest products from community forests, such as Brazil nuts, palm leaves for thatching, and medicinal plants, including monitoring the volume of harvested products from different areas of these forests. Accompanying families on short trips to gather agricultural crops from their personal plots near the central village, such as maize, bananas, papayas, cacao and so forth. Preparing interpretation material and trail signage for forest trails in those communities where ecotourism activities are common. Accompanying community monitoring officers as they interview community members and when they undertake periodic environmental monitoring trips around the borders of community lands. Assisting with updating community development plans, which will include helping to take notes during community meetings. Promoting transparent, gender-inclusive decision-making processes within communities, while also respecting cultural norms and valuing all opinions made. Identifying opportunities in terms of external funding for implementing components of community development plans, such as from Peruvian government agencies and non-profit organizations in Peru and abroad, as well as potential new, untapped markets for their sustainably-harvested forest products (Brazil nuts, cacao, coffee, etc.). Assist communities and families understand Peruvian law, so that they can best take advantage of opportunities without generating problems for themselves in the future as their set of activities grow. Helping the team coordinator prepare material for annual reports and presentations to be given to communities and project donors; to name but a few of the activities.

Accommodation at communities for the team are varied and include a combination of either home stays, tents placed in the community visitor building (maloca comunal), or bunk beds in bespoke ecotourism visitor centres that some of the communities have built. We provide all bedding, mosquito nets and tents where required. We either pay one or more families to help cook meals for the team, or if this is not possible then we hire a bespoke chef from Puerto Maldonado to accompany the team. When at a community, activities during weekdays invariably begin early in the morning with breakfast shortly after dawn at 6 am, followed by meeting up with community members to undertake one or other of the morning activities discussed with them the previous day, which end typically around 10 am or 11 am. There is then time to shower, relax, and have lunch at 1 pm. Around 3 pm, the afternoon activities begin. These finish around 6 pm but may extend into the night to around 8 pm if a lengthy community meeting is still underway. The team has dinner sometime between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm, before retiring for the night. During weekends, Saturday and Sunday, activities may be scaled back as families take time off to rest. However, sporting activities such as volleyball and football (soccer) are played in the afternoons on these days from 4 pm to 6 pm. Only about half of the communities have cell phone reception.

PLEASE NOTE: Having a strong knowledge of Spanish is HIGHLY recommended for volunteers and interns who assist this project, as this will allow them to communicate with and participate more freely during community activities.