Top 5 countries to take your conservation students in 2022
Author: Ian Taylor, Father, husband and conservationist
Read time: 6 minutes
Flooglebinder are travel experts and a certified B Corporation with tour experience in over 75 countries. We curate sustainable bespoke adventures that incorporate sustainability, conservation and wellness. As a BCorp organisation we use business as a force for good, meet the highest standards of verified performance, accountability and transparency, whilst tracking and monitoring our social and environmental impact.
It’s so exciting to think, ‘where can we go next?’ And romanticize about blindly putting your finger on a map and saying ‘here’. But, the truth is it actually requires a lot of time, planning and consideration when choosing your next field trip/study tour. So here’s our ‘Top 5’ to give you a road map to work from.
With 195 countries available, choosing the right destination can be daunting. It wasn't easy but here are our top 5 countries to take your conservation students...
Turtle conservation in Greece
Tracking and field guiding in South Africa
Wildlife expedition in Peru
Conservation and sustainability in Wales
Marine Conservation in Thailand
But, first and foremost you have to consider safety, what is the company's record, are they protected and are they BS8848 approved? Then there are other factors to consider, such as…..
How much is it going to cost?
Has the school/college been before?
Will it be another safari trip or will they actually immerse themselves in nature?
What's the purpose of this conservation project?
What are the career opportunities following the programme?
When it comes to conservation we need to be inspired...
‘We want more than just a nice experience, we want it to be challenging. It has to matter. It has to be real!"
Every destination has something unique and will focus on a particular topic, you just need to decide which one best aligns with your career path, and interests. A good place to start is understanding what type of conservation work you want to focus on, terrestrial or marine or a blend of the two?
It goes without saying that these top 5 destinations all offer hands on experience but it goes further than that, it's about getting up at 4am or staying up all night discussing conservation legislation around the campfire. It’s about being in the company of awe inspiring individuals, seeing and hearing animals in-situ, tracking and identifying, seeing threats to biodiversity, cold showers, learning a new language, getting your head around taxonomy and walking, lots of walking :)
With all that in mind our top 5 places to take your conservation students are…
At number 5 is our marine conservation project in Thailand. This magical land, although well travelled still exudes originality and is one of the greatest places to see variety and positive change. Be that through the elephant conservation work or the main attraction the marine conservation project. Here you get to combine diving qualifications with bio rocking, coral identification, nudibranchs, turtles, black tip reef sharks, rays, giant clams, seahorses and of course true thai living.
At number 4 is Wales. You don’t always have to travel abroad guys. The beautiful thing about Wales is that it's on our doorstep. Sometimes overlooked as just being Wales, this stunning project is located on the cliffs in St Davids giving us access to both marine and coastal ecology, boat safaris, coasteering, coastal craft conservation and sustainability workshops, yoga and building fires.
At number 3 we have the Amazon, Peru. Travelling a little bit further than Wales this project combines cloud forests and bio reserves with regenerating forests and terrestrial conservation experience like no other. It’s the Amazon! Looking into SDG’s 11, 13 and 15 in more detail helps to broaden our horizons of seeing sustainability in action. Working with local communities and running biodiversity assessments 6 days a week is the perfect opportunity to push yourself and learn from field experts.
In at number 2 is South Africa. This is terrestrial conservation at it’s best. It’s not like what you might think, jeep safaris are a thing for tourists, sorry…but if you want to learn about nature you have to immerse yourself within it. This project focuses on being present and in-situ without the jeep, living in the bush with little to no connection to the outside world and learning first hand about wild animal behaviour patterns and communication.
At number one has to be our turtle conservation project in Greece. It’s the perfect project for that first conservation experience but blends amazingly well with the seasoned traveller. It's hard work, late nights, early mornings and long days but you get full exposure to Loggerhead turtle conservation with an insight into the history of this mythical landscape. 10 days in Greece will catapult your field experience giving you the direction and focus that employers are looking for.
We are all very excited to be getting back to our field work responsibilities and sharing these conservation experiences with you. So get in touch and let us know which one you prefer? With the road map to having the restrictions lifted, now is the perfect time to book your 2022 study tour. .
