Your Impact
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Leave no trace. But make your mark.
An ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ expedition isn’t just a fun travel adventure for nature lovers. It’s an investment in scientific progress—one that allows you to essentially double your donation to environmental conservation and make a lasting impact on our world.
Because while your volunteer contribution helps scientists pay for the permits, field equipment, laboratory space, support staff, accommodations, and other expenses that make their research possible, your hands-on field work is perhaps even more valuable.
Scientists and their field teams can only do so much by themselves. But ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ volunteers like you perform nearly 100,000 hours of scientific research every year, collecting the hard-won data needed to shape environmental policies, protect critically threatened species and habitats, and advance the scientific study of climate change.
Your physical presence working alongside scientists to perform research tasks—your gifts of time and energy—make it possible to collect far more data than scientists could do on their own or with hired staff. That multiplier effect has helped our researchers score major victories for conservation throughout ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳’s nearly 50-year history. Here are just a few recent examples:
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As a direct result of a decade’s worth of ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳-supported research, Belize in 2020 passed a comprehensive fisheries bill that protects all rays within 200 nautical miles of its coastline and allows for greater protections of endangered sharks. Not only that, by enlisting local shark fishers to tag and release their catches for pay as part of the project, the research team helped cut in half the total shark catch in Belize from 2018 to 2019.
From 2017 to 2019, ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ teams in Costa Rica helped more than 26,000 turtle hatchlings reach the ocean, ensuring their contribution to the recovery of endangered sea turtle populations in the East Pacific Ocean.
Last year in Cuba, ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ volunteers planted 1,050 native trees and built 20 artificial nests to help the endemic Cuban trogon, Cuban pygmy owl, and bare-legged owl.
Based on nearly two decades of data collected by ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ scientists and volunteers, South Africa in 2019 established a new 580 km2 Marine Protected Area around Robben Island to safeguard seabirds, including the endangered African penguin.
