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Tanzania African Wildlife Conservation Adventure
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Volunteer in Tanzania in your gap year, year out or career break
Located between the world famous Selous Game Reserve and the wilds of the Udzungwa Mountain Range, the Kilombero Valley is home to a wide array of African wildlife. From the open savanna of the Kilombero flood plains to the forest and mountain peaks on either side of the valley, the area provides a rich mosaic of landscapes which offer a wealth of undisturbed habitats for spectacular wildlife including elephant, hippo, leopard, lion and buffalo. Rural tribal communities celebrate their roots with traditional, festivals, music, food and exuberant celebrations.
Populations of Africa's large mammals are in decline. As part of your project work you will survey and monitor threatened communities, such as elephant, buffalo and many species of antelopes. You will discover how to interpret wildlife tracks and signs in the lush vegetation of the Miombo woodland, and bringing the plight of this region to the attention of the international scientific and conservation community.
Project Dates & Contribution
- Departs: Monthly (Jan, Feb, Apr, May, Jul, Aug, Oct & Nov)/first Monday of month
- Duration: 3, 4, 5 and 6 weeks (Jan, Feb, Apr, May, Jul, Aug, Oct & Nov) 8, 10, and 20 weeks (Jan, Apr, Jul & Oct)
- Cost: 3 weeks £1395, 4 weeks £1595, 5 weeks £1695, 6 weeks £1895, 8 weeks £2095, 10 weeks £2395, 20 weeks £3395
Before you go: Extensive pre-departure support, travel & medical advice and documentation, equipment advice, discounted medical kits, free Frontier T-shirt, UK residential briefing weekend.
In-country: Accommodation, food. Airport pickup, internal ground transfers to project site and in transit accommodation for volunteers joining on the first Monday of the designated months. Return from the project site to airport and any in transit accommodation on this journey is included for 10 & 20 week volunteers only. Local orientation and comprehensive project training, project equipment and materials, 24 hour in-country and international HQ emergency support and backup.
Vocational qualification diploma or certificate in Tropical Habitat Conservation available.
Free park and reserve entrance fees & research permits if applicable.
Free game drive & safari (for those staying for 10 weeks or longer)
Project Details
Transportation
You will fly into Dar es Salaam for the first Monday of the month (Jan,Feb,Apr,May,July,Aug,Oct,Nov), where you'll be met at the airport by your Frontier representative. You will probably spend a night or two in Dar to recover from your flight before deployment to the Tanzania Savanna camp. Your journey to camp will be by road through Mikumi National Park where previous volunteers have seen lots of spectacular wildlife from the bus window. The Savanna staff team collect volunteers from the regional town of Ifakara once a month (Jan,Feb,Apr,May,July,Aug,Oct,Nov), usually on the first Wednesday or Thursday. The final leg of the journey to camp is on a rough, partly made road, past shambas and villages, plantations and miombo woodland, across the wide Kilombero River by ferry and down to your new home in the Kilombero Valley.
Accommodation
During the project you’ll live on a remote African bush-camp in Tanzania's Kilombero Valley alongside other Frontier volunteers and project staff. We aim to provide you with a unique and memorable living experience. The camp is situated in a clearing in the miombo woodland and blends harmoniously with the natural landscape. Camp life is simple, unsophisticated and great fun. You will be staying in a large communal 'banda' sleeping on a raised bamboo bed constructed from sustainably harvested local materials and enjoy the novel experience of showering using a bucket, so you will learn to survive without hot baths and power showers. You will become accustomed to the simple pleasures of living out doors in harmony with the natural environment in a simple tented and shamba-style camp.
When the project work takes you further afield you may stay in a 'satellite camp'. Here you will make a temporary shelter and build a good campfire. As well as the daily treks to research sites and field surveys you will help process the scientific data and assist with daily camp maintenance duties, taking turns to collect fire wood, prime hurricane lamps, collect water and support the staff in a multitude of camp tasks.
Food
Camp food is simple, wholesome and nutritious and consists largely of rice, vegetables, beans and fruit, all of which are purchased locally in order to help support the local economy. Luxuries such as chocolate, peanut butter and drinking chocolate have to be carried down from Dar es Salaam, so make sure you stock up before heading to the field! An important part of your role on camp will be to help with the cooking, so get your cookbooks out now and start practicing!
Work
The Frontier Tanzania Savannah Project is run in association with the University of Dar Es Salaam (with whom Frontier has been in partnership for twenty years). This research and conservation project aims to provide local community stakeholders and government bodies with the accurate and scientifically valid information they need to produce and implement wildlife and habitat conservation plans and community development strategies to facilitate the future protection of this important ecosystem.
To gather the data required you will be conducting broad ranging biodiversity surveys in this little-studied area. You will produce plans showing habitat and wildlife distribution patterns, you'll record levels of human disturbance and gather information on species habitat preferences along with other important ecological data on altitude and aspect. To compile inventories you will carry out extensive surveys of large and small mammals, frogs and butterflies in the areas surrounding the camp and in the nearby forests and woodland refuges.
You will be involved in setting up several survey sites to collect species using a variety of scientific methods and techniques from bucket and canopy traps to leaf-litter searches, working both day and night. In addition you will help produce information for GIS maps showing human disturbance and resource-use in the area, these will help develop an understanding of how reliant local communities are on natural resources. For more information on the work you will be doing look at the publications section of the Frontier web site where you will also see the reports produced by previous groups of Frontier volunteers in the Kilombero Valley.
If this is your first time doing field research and conservation work, don't worry! It will only take a short while for you to feel totally at home on camp and confident with your grasp of the scientific techniques. The work is intense and challenging but you'll get immense satisfaction from having survived and from having made a valuable contribution to the conservation of this important ecosystem. You will return home with the new friends you have made and a wealth of incredible memories from this experience of a lifetime!
 | This is a Frontier Group Project |
Track Large Mammals
Trekking and camping alongside game guards and wildlife officers, you will collect data on biodiversity and natural resource use by local communities. With a focus on large mammal populations, you will use sand traps and visual observations to determine their movements and compile species inventories. A birding paradise, you will also record bird calls and learn to identify the many exotic and colourful species present.
Staff & Volunteers
You'll find your team to be a young, fun and dynamic comprising a mix of ages and experiences, with members who all share a passion about travelling in developing countries and saving endangered wildlife and habitats. Your staff will be young, friendly individuals who are highly experienced in their field and some may have volunteered with Frontier at the start of their careers.
Extras
The Frontier-Tanzania camp is great fun and in your spare time you’ll have opportunities to play football/netball, or relax as you sit around the campfire. Frontier camps integrate brilliantly with local communities and we are famous for fielding enthusiastic and energetic football and netball teams to take on the local sides.
All our campsites are very remote so you will enjoy making your own entertainment with card tournaments, chess matches, themed party nights and camp quizzes amongst other pursuits. At the end of a long hard day you will enjoy the simple pleasure of sitting beside a roaring campfire, beneath a tropical sky lit by millions of stars and filled with the calls of exotic wildlife.
Tanzania offers a wide range of adventure and cultural activities such as safaris, game drives, trips to games reserves and national parks, climbing Kilimanjaro, visiting Zanzibar, or taking PADI scuba diving courses. You can book these direct with local providers and help support the local economy.
We would like to say a big thank you to a local safari company who donated their tents to our Tanzania African Wildlife Conservation Adventure. So when you're snug in your tents getting a good night's sleep after a long days work!
Training & Qualifications
Participants on the Frontier-Tanzania African Wildlife Conservation Adventure Project can gain an internationally recognised BTEC Advanced Diploma (10 weeks or longer) or Advanced Certificate (4 weeks or longer) in Tropical Habitat Conservation.
The BTEC Advanced Diploma in Tropical Habitat Conservation incorporates the training and participatory learning already experienced by all volunteers on Frontier expeditions but adds depth to your experience by actively building your research and fieldwork skills under the close supervision of top field professionals. To complete the BTEC you'll fill in a daily work diary, one written submission based on data collected and one verbal presentation, among other things. The written report may be completed at home, but all other elements are completed in the field.
Learn more about the BTEC qualification!
Learn more about the CoPE Level 3 qualification
Read more about Tanzania here!
Alternatives
Why not have a look at our other projects in Africa? We have other projects in Tanzania and Madagascar!
What next?
If our Wildlife Conservation Adventure in Tanzania interest you, then request a callback from one of our travel advisers or use our online booking form to apply now and secure your adventure of a lifetime!
Frontier supported projects and Frontier group projects are run in partnership with in-country NGOs, small community based organisations, local research institutes, academic organisations and conservation agencies. Project descriptions and information are supplied directly by our partners or field staff and are accurate at time of publishing.
We aim to keep information up to date and accurate, however, the nature of our projects and in particular the fact that they are constantly evolving and developing in response to changing needs means that project activities, travel schedules, tour itineraries and daily timetables can change overnight and without notice.