Naucrates

Sea Turtles and Island Conservation Project, Koh Phra Thong Thailand


Activities at the project and volunteer involvement

You will follow a scientific and conservation research programme, coordinated by project staff. You will help in monitoring the beaches (15 km) on Phra Thong and Ra Islands during early morning and sometimes during the day. You will also conduct behavioural observation on turtles feeding in water during the day.

Additional activities may be planned for the period of your stay, for example, the reef survey, which consists of snorkelling along transects, taking care of gardens or restoring the Community Conservation Centre with a new coat of paint, beach cleaning, fund raising, planting etc..

You don’t need to have any experience of these activities, as training will be given to volunteers on their arrival.

The following description of a daily routine should be considered as a general example. There will sometimes be changes, due to the nature of the project. In fact, we should bear in mind that we are working on wild endangered species, in a foreign country in South-East Asia.

• You will work in shifts and in teams (the size of the team will depend upon volunteer numbers). One day you might undertake activities that you will not carry out the following day, there is early morning (about at 5.30 am) monitoring, walking one of the 3 beaches (5 -10km long, about 2-3 hours walk).

• Breakfast

• Around 9.00, weather condition measurements.

• Late morning (around 9.30): ‘Observations from the rock’. Two volunteers will go up on the rock near GBB resort to observe the sea, looking for sea turtles swimming in the water, dolphins or other animals.

• If you are not on shift for ‘observation from the rock’ you might have free time for swimming or walking on the beach.

• Once a week, we take a boat out and check Ko Ra beaches. Some of the beaches are monitored by walking and this requires a jump from the boat and swimming ashore and back to the boat.

• 13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

• Afternoon: Various small projects

• 14:30. The second turn of ‘observations from the rock”. Two volunteers will go up on the rock near GBB resort to observe the sea, looking for sea turtles swimming in the water, dolphins or other animals.

• At 19:00 Dinner

Other activities to be planned on site might be: preparing materials for the school, monitoring nests, creating or updating displays, path creation/clearing, conducting guided tours for visitors, bird watching, turtle talks and reef surveys etc.

Activities are organized in daily schedules and shifts. The work is not structured from 9.00 to 17.00; volunteers should be flexible and adapt to working a few hours, having some free time and then working another two hours. You will have plenty of time to enjoy the beauty of the island.

All these activities are coordinated by the field leader that will train volunteers for the data collections and will supervise the field work.  

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