Posted by Kaya Responsible Travel on July 14th, 2011.
Voluntary Jobs
Location: Pantanal, Brazil
Closing Date: August 13th, 2011
Job Description
The Project
Volunteer in Brazil on a conservation project in the Pantanal to help protect the white-lipped peccary from extinction. White-lipped peccaries (WLPs) are wide-ranging, fruit-eating ungulates that form large herds in Neotropical forests. The herds strongly affect forest biodiversity via fruit predation and dispersal, and WLPs are important prey for jaguar and humans. Throughout its range, local extinctions have occurred due to habitat fragmentation and hunting. White-lipped peccaries were selected as one of five “landscape species” for the Pantanal during a 2003 workshop sponsored by WCS and Embrapa-Pantanal.
Conservation efforts targeting landscape species help maintain regional biodiversity and ecological integrity because they use large, diverse areas, have significant impacts on ecosystem structure and function, and are vulnerable to human-related environmental threats. A nine-year study in the 210,000km2 Pantanal of central South America has shown that viable WLP populations persist, but they are vulnerable to recent economic trends that have caused deforestation. Problems related to deforestation include habitat fragmentation, hydrological alterations, erosion, degraded water quality, disease transmission, loss of habitat for forest-dependent species and increased wildlife-human conflicts.
Role of the volunteer
Volunteers will help to: explore new areas, caves and prehistoric designs; walk on trails to monitor fruits and set camera traps; help with peccary captures, radio tracking, aquatic riparian surveys and reptile pit fall surveys; and will get involved with evening slide shows on conservation issues in the local region. Volunteers will also help process data.
You will have an on-site orientation for the peccary and botany project, an evening slide show and an introduction to the Aquatic ecology projects. During your project, you may also have the opportunity to experience various monitoring projects such as: the aquatic and bird life, wildlife, botanical, herpetology projects, community outreach, and our sustainable cattle ranching project.
On your days off the local staff will take you to visit beautiful waterfalls where you can swim and have a picnic.
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