Overview
Volunteer conservation project with pink river dolphins in Brazil

Live in a magical environment aboard a floating house in the midst of the flooded forest, deep within the Brazilian Amazon, and help revolutionize knowledge of the pink river dolphins that live there. As part of valuable conservation work carried out on behalf of the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development, you will spend your days on the water in small boats observing and recording the dolphins’ behavior.

South America is a great place for volunteer holidays, but this project in particular give volunteers the rare opportunity to help study and preserve some rare and mysterious marine life, whilst also having the chance to actually live in the Amazon Forest of Brazil amidst all the wonderful wildlife that the forest has to offer.

View Film Footage, images, blogs, volunteer stories from the field, volunteer video diaries and more at the programs media centre

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What Difference Does This Project Make?

Mamirauá is a sustainable development reserve which combines the conservation of the area with the managed use of natural resources by the local population. Research on the dolphins includes new births that are recorded and the development of each calf monitored until it is weaned, through adolescence and as a young adult. This work contributes to the research and conservation work preventing the demise of river dolphins worldwide

Highlights

Living and working in the world famous Mamirauá reserve, researching rare river dolphins and assisting the project’s observation team.

Location

This project takes you into the heart of a unique area of Brazil's Amazon rainforest. After flying to Tefe in the Amazonas region, you then embark on a two hour boat ride to reach the Mamirauá reserve, located in the middle of the Solimoes River. Mamirauá is a sustainable development reserve, which combines the conservation of the area with the managed use of natural resources by the local population. The reserve is part of the Várzea ecosystem, a forest flooded by the sediment-rich Amazonian rivers. The flooded forest is a fantastic experience not to be forgotten, where bugs, beasts and the weird and wonderful are plentiful.

Field Conditions

Our base is a floating house/lab of 11m x 15m, tethered to trees in the floating forest, which has showers and solar power. Accommodation is plain but comfortable, with beds or hammocks in bedrooms, a good shower, a flushing toilet, a gas cooker and running water. We normally share cooking duties. Food is relatively simple but excellent, and vegetarians can be catered for. Laundry is washed by hand on site, and dries in the sun. It’s hot, so shorts, t-shirt and open sandals are standard. The nearest town is two hours away by boat, and has a telephone and hospital.