EARTHWATCH
David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet feature documentary was launched in cinemas and now on Netflix for all to see. The film is a powerful first-hand account of humanity’s impact on nature and a message of hope for future generations. It’s honest, revealing and has a matter of the up most urgently. A strong message to us all.
With this in mind we’ve been looking at what we can all do towards making the planet a better place, no matter how small.
That’s where Earthwatch comes in.
Travel the World. Make a Difference.
Earthwatch connects people with scientists worldwide to conduct environmental research and empowers them with the knowledge they need to conserve the planet.
Be more than a tourist, experience hands-on science in some of the most astounding locations in the world. Meet a community of like-minded travellers and return home with stories filled with adventure.
Leave no trace. But make your mark.
An Earthwatch expedition isn’t just a fun travel adventure for nature lovers. It’s an investment in scientific progress—one that allows you to 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 Earthwatch volunteers 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 Earthwatch’s nearly 50-year history.
Here are just a few recent examples of the expeditions they offer.
From 2017 to 2019, Earthwatch 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.
Years of Earthwatch research helped convince the Costa Rican government to restrict heavy maritime traffic in Golfo Dulce, a critical habitat for spotted and bottlenose dolphins and a calving ground for humpback whales, and to declare the area’s mangrove-lined inner basin a sanctuary for critically endangered hammerhead sharks.
We love this one…
Trailing Penguins in Patagonia
Be among the first people to get a glimpse of what penguins do far out at sea, and learn how this behaviour could affect their chicks back on land.
Penguin colonies are a bustling place with adults either disappearing into the ocean to forage for food or returning to feed their chicks. How and where penguins get this food is still unknown, but this foraging behaviour is crucial to the species' survival as it can shape the fate of the penguin chicks. Join a team of scientists making cutting-edge use of technology to solve this mystery and gather data that can inform how we work to conserve this beloved bird.
Travel to the rookeries—nesting colonies—on the dramatic rocky shores of Argentina’s Golfo San Jorge to investigate. Spend your days in a national park, getting up close and personal with penguins in a colony with about 9,000 breeding pairs.
While the land within the national park has government protection, most of the waters off its coast don’t—which is why researchers need to document where these charming birds go and what they do out at sea. With that knowledge, they can understand which parts of the ocean most need protection to keep penguin populations strong.
Earthwatch volunteers will help tag penguins and map the location of each nest in the colony. They will also select 50 or so sets of penguin parents to track with sophisticated underwater cameras and GPS devices. Volunteers will help mount these devices, which will capture every move the penguins make. For the first time, researchers will get a detailed picture of how and where this bird population forage and feed their young.
