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Madagascar Wildlife Conservation Adventure
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Volunteer in Madagascar in your gap year, year out or career break
The magical Island of Madagascar is home to some of the world's most spectacular and least explored wildlife and ecosystems. Journey with us to northern Madagascar a mysterious land unlike anywhere else on earth. Places on this ancient, exotic island have vegetation and wildlife so strange that at times you'd even think that you were on another planet! Here you can find almost all of the world's 63 kinds of lemurs, dozens of species of chameleon including the world's smallest and largest, and strikingly beautiful wild cats called fossas. The landscape is full of stange and unusual plants including bulbous baobab trees, exotic orchids and cactus-like vegetation, interspersed with pockets of lush riverine tropical forests and all combining to a produce a dramatic wilderness landscape of steep cliffs and volcanic massifs. On the Frontier-Madagascar wildlife conservation project you’ll discover the huge variety of Madagascar's exotic species as you trek through remote regions of this hugely exciting island. Working alongside other dedicated volunteers, you’ll monitor the distribution and abundance of species, assessing their use of the wilderness habitats and ecosystem and evaluating the impact of human populations on the Wildlife.
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 £1195, 4 weeks £1495, 5 weeks £1595, 6 weeks £1795, 8 weeks £1995, 10 weeks £2395, 20 weeks £3695
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, internal ground transfers and in-transit accommodation, 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.
Project Details
Transportation
You will be welcomed by a Frontier representative at Diego airport. From here it’s a short minibus or truck ride from the airport to the town centre where you’ll be staying in hostels for a few days while we introduce you to the Frontier Madagascar programme. This will include meeting the staff, receiving some initial briefings, an introduction to the work programme and techniques used, as well as health and safety lectures, so make sure your medical kit is complete and start reading your Safety and Medical Guides now.
Upon deployment to the field, you take a two hour taxi-brousse ride to Tsarakibany. This is a great way to experience local life as you ride sitting next to chickens with local children sitting on your lap. We use zebu carts to help transport project equipment and bags to base camp. The last leg of the journey - a 5 hour, 20km hike with your packs - will give you a great opportunity to stretch your legs!
At the end of the ten weeks you will return to Diego, super fit, where you will rejoin the marine research team for a well earned party before heading back home or off on independent travels. If you are going on a four or eight week project, you will be returned to headquarters, from where you can continue your own independent travel or return to the UK.
Accommodation
During the project you'll live on a remote bush-camp alongside other Frontier volunteers and staff. We aim to provide you with a unique and memorable livin experience. The Frontier camps are designed to blend harmoniously with the surrounding natural environments. Camps consist of a collection of tents and and shelters sometimes incorporating simple local dwellings constructed by Frontier volunteers working with local staff, using traditional building techniques and locally sourced environmentally harvested materials. The camp is situated in a clearing in the local wilderness habitat and makes no permanent or intrusive impact on the environment. Life on camp is simple unsophisticated and fun. We believe that part of the excitement of journeying to a foreign country comes from immersing yourself with the local communities and living at one with nature. On your main base camp your 'shower' may consist of a waterfall, riverpool or even a jug or bucket of water and you will be cooking over an open fire: so prepare yourself for the simple, footprintless, unencumbered lifestyle! When you are trekking away from the base camp you will stay on a 'satellite camp' which may consist of a mosquito net pitched in a remote clearing. You will help run camp from day-to-day, taking turns to cook, collect firewood, purify water, and other essential camp maintenance duties.
Food
Camp food is basic and nutritious and consists largely of rice, vegetables, beans and noodles, all of which are purchased locally in order to help support the local economy. Luxuries such as chocolate, peanut butter and drinking chocolate must be imported from Diego, so make sure you stock up before heading to the field! Part of your role on camp will be to help with the cooking, so get your cookbooks out now and start practising! Also, with luck you'll be invited to local feasts and festivals - a great way to meet locals and enjoy local culture.
Work
The main aims of the programme are to assess the biodiversity in this little-studied area and compare different habitat types and altitudes Compiling a species inventory will involve carrying out extensive surveys of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians in the surrounding forests. This means setting up several trapsites to collect species in buckets, canopy traps and from leaf-litter extraction as well as surveys of lemurs and night walks. In addition we will also be doing mapping of vegetation, disturbance and resource-use in the area to build up a GIS map.
If this is your first time doing conservation work, don't worry! It will only take a short while for you to feel totally at home on camp and confident with the science work. Although the work is intense you'll find that living in such a beautiful and inaccessible environment alongside friends who share your passion for conservation will be the experience of a lifetime!
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Staff & Volunteers
You'll find your team to be a fun, dynamic mix of ages (usually between 18 and 25) and experiences, with members who all share a passion about travelling in developing countries and saving endangered life. Your staff will be young, friendly individuals who are highly experienced in their field and many may have volunteered on a Frontier project earlier in their career.
Extras
The Frontier-Madagascar camp is great fun and in your spare time you’ll have opportunities to swim in waterfalls, play football and beach / river volleyball against the mostly unbeatable local teams. You can socialise, sit around the campfire, enjoy a traditional Saturday night themed camp party, play chess, poker or backgammon or join in a camp quiz night. After a long hard day of trekking and working in the field you may wish to relax with a drink and sway in the camp hammock, if you've made one, chatting to your new friends under a tropical sky lit by a million twinkling stars, before drifting off to sleep to the exotic calls that fill a tropical night.
A range of adventure and cultural activities like visits to remote villages, dive trips, and river rafting are available. Talk to our local staff teams to fix these with local providers and tour operators.
Training & Qualifications
Participants on the Frontier-Madagascar Lemur & Forest Conservation 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!
Project aims
SPOT SPECIES FOUND NOWHERE ELSE ON EARTH
Madagascar has been isolated for over 165 million years, creating a biodiversity resource of global significance, with over 80% of species found nowhere else on earth, including leaping sifaka lemurs, lesser mouse lemurs or even the elusive fat-tailed dwarf lemur. Reptiles include tortoises, snakes, iguanas and a vast array of chameleons, including both the smallest and largest in the world. There is spectacular bird life, and over three-quarters of the flora is endemic, with palms and more orchids than in all of mainland Africa.
This incredible flora and fauna, unique in its ability to resist the region’s aridity, has led naturalists to describe Madagascar’s forests as ‘the eighth wonder of the world’.
DESERTIFICATION AND HUNTING
Madagascar’s human population has doubled since 1960, leading to increased deforestation and overgrazing, which in turn has caused massive soil erosion and desertification. Only one tenth of the original forests remain, and this situation is rapidly deteriorating.
EMPOWER MALAGASY COMMUNITIES
You will be surveying the flora and fauna of the region through biodiversity surveys of mammals, birds, butterflies, reptiles and amphibians. Madagascar is also one of the few places you can learn to handle snakes without fear of being bitten. You will learn about friendly Malagasy culture from working with local university students, and you will interact with communities to survey their resource use and conduct environmental education days. This will enable you to evaluate the impact of human populations on the wildlife, and help to develop areas where communities can lead sustainable lifestyles.
Read more about Madagascar here!
Alternatives
Take a look at the projects we offer in Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa or check out the other projects in Madagascar!
What next?
If you like the sound of a wildlife conservation adventure in Madagascar, 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.