It is no secret that conservation work around the world is drastically underfunded. Although the sector is growing, many organisations working to conserve or sustainably develop natural resources are stuck in the vicious cycle of battling for short-term philanthropic or government funding in order to hire skilled staff and conduct their activities.
We know it can take years, even decades to drive a culture of sustainability – to leverage political will and inspire behaviour change - across generations in communities relying on those precious resources. Unfortunately, most conservation grants are limited to one, or two year projects with no assurance of continuity. Often this leads to irregular or intermittent projects, leading to distrust from communities or even the perception of failure of an organisation and its efforts or methods of conservation.
Furthermore, grants often do not cover salaries, and conservation organisations find themselves understaffed and lacking the human resources to carry out their work. For many, taking on paying volunteers solves both issues; bringing in steady funding and getting more manpower to have more conservation impact. The model is so successful that you can find a huge variety of projects around the world in both marine and terrestrial conservation looking for volunteers.
Sadly, not all projects are practicing effective conservation and some simply exist as a volunteer ‘business’. With such a huge variety of opportunities out there, it is easy for those of us who are interested and willing to donate their time and resources to conservation to get lost in choice. However, there are a few factors that you can bear in mind to navigate this sector and ensure that your time and money are really having an impact.
What’s the goal?
Good, effective, conservation is based on sound science, and for that you need data. There are numerous opportunities to get involved in monitoring, or conducting surveys. Heading to a remote location, learning to dive and spending your days with transects and fish counts can be idyllic but ask yourself what is that data, and your effort, going towards? What is being done with that data? And do any of the local stakeholders – community, or government – actually want or need that work done?
If the project is really there to have an impact, you should be able to be told a very clear objective.
Who are they working with?
They say no man is an island, and the same is true for conservation work. An organisation can come in and do the work, but if they aren’t building capacity, or ability, of the local government or local community, the long-term impact is minimal. Ask how closely the organisation is working with the government; what kind of ties they have to the community and how they are communicating their data or activities?
Every situation is different, so there’s no right way to go about this but you want to see that your volunteer work doesn’t exist in isolation, and that the organisation is operating in an open and collaborative manner with its local stakeholders.
What are you getting out of it?
If you’re volunteering to get experience in marine conservation for your career, these type of programmes are a great stepping stone. It’s good to keep in mind that it takes time for you to build up the skills to be effective and therefore ‘useful’ to the project. In many cases it can take up to six weeks to learn survey techniques, or the systems and processes a project has for community work. Volunteering for less than a month doesn’t really give you, or the conservation much benefit.
Remember that doing this kind of experience isn’t unique to pool of budding marine conservationists. If your CV simply states that you volunteered for six weeks, it doesn’t set you apart from the pack. Try to identify what skills you have taken away from it beyond data collection, for example. Were you a particularly fast learner? Were you given a position of responsibility ahead of your peers? Did you help solve a conflict or come up with a new, more efficient system?
At the end of the day, it’s up to you to make the most out of a volunteer experience but aligning yourself with an effective, well-managed organisation means you can gain higher quality experience whilst having a positive impact on the world. If you are ever in doubt, ask yourself – is the conservation there for the volunteers, or are the volunteers there for conservation? If it’s the latter, dive in and have fun!
Sam is the Senior Programmes Officer for Zoox, which runs bespoke professional development experience programmes for early-career marine conservationists. Working closely with the UNEP initiative Green Fins, Zoox gives volunteers a chance to dive into hands-on practical skill development and drive a more sustainable marine tourism industry in SE Asia.
The value of volunteering for meaningful conservation programmes.
Samantha Craven
December 2016 - Sustainable Travel
SEVENSEAS - 31