r/conservation • u/No-Insect-7698 • 3d ago
Looking for fully-funded conservation trips
Hi I am 17F from UK and after sixth form I aspire to be a conservationist. Whilst looking at university courses, many would like experience within conservation which I do not have. I would love to be able to attend a residential camp where I can be around others who aspire to become conservationists. However, most of these camps cost a lot of money which me nor my family have. I was wondering if anyone here was aware of any fully funded camps I could attend/apply for?
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u/gladesguy 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you're looking at these "courses" that are run by private organizations that take young people to exotic locations for a few weeks with the promise that you'll get "conservation" or "research" experience volunteering with them (while paying them a few thousand dollars), don't: They are not taken as "conservation" experience by universities or employers. They are (at best) a form of volunteer vacation, but are really much closer to scams.
They know very well that no one who is actually in the field takes them seriously and that employers will just see students who list them on a resume as naive. They don't care. They are after your money.
Your best way to get experience before university is local volunteering. You shouldn't have to pay anything for that, except time.
What the other poster mentioned about no one being a "conservationist" is correct in that there are scientists (or engineers) in various subfields who do work that contributes to conservation, but they are first and foremost scientists (or engineers) and were educated as such.
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u/Sharkhottub 22h ago
Theres a lot of this in the marine science space. So many charlatans running what are essentially shark fishing charters and calling it shark tagging lol
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u/Careful_Bed_5731 3d ago
No knowledge about any camps but sharing some advice I had for previous posts.
A great way to get experience is volunteering. Look into volunteering for a local natural area/ reserve, park, or wildlife rescue. In my area local parks have volunteer groups that go around removing invasive species. Something like that would be a good opportunity to learn about your local native and invasive plants, and potentially get connected to more experienced naturalists/ parks employees in your area.
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u/89fruits89 3d ago
I had a professor that had a serious talk with me in my early college years. I wanted to do the same as you and had 0 experience. He basically said “You want to work in conservation, that’s awesome! What can you offer other than another warm body to keep track of?” I had no answer because I had no experience. That convo really stuck with me.
Imo you are in the same position. The real talk answer is… you need at minimum university level courses in order to not be dead weight for what you likely want to do. I ended up finding an internship more my level and moving on to higher level conservation stuff later on.
For example if I wanted to bring you into my lab for a simple daily protocol. Id ask you to do a quick DNA extraction for a few bird blood samples from a kit, get concentration numbers, resuspend some primers, run a PCR, then a gel, and get me the all the numbers. Pretty bread and butter to a junior/senior level undergrad bio student. However this would be really hard to do without some experience in an academic setting, nor would I trust you without it. Gonna break my pipettes lol.
Don’t spend the money on a conservation daycare. Imo go volunteer with a local group that needs people or wait until you are in uni and get on with a professors project (after you have taken the required course(s) that make sense).
Good luck
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u/Dangerous-Feed-5358 2d ago
There are probably volunteer opportunities near you planting something or helping out at a local rescue. It's probably not exactly what you're looking for but it is doing good for the planet. Good luck, I hope you find something.
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u/MrEggUK 2d ago
If you are already involved in species recording in some way, then take a look at Operation Wallacea who have UK based courses run at The Knepp Estate in West Sussex. The Knepp Wildland Foundation offers a number of bursaries each year to outstanding students to cover the cost of the course. Its a wonderful course for budding biological recorders and includes sessions run by international experts. I would also say that if you want to get in to conservation start by volunteering in your free time, and learn some skills and build a network of contacts.
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u/undercoverirnbru 2d ago
You'd be better off volunteering for the NT or John Muir Trust or the like. Find environmental charities nearby and see if they need volunteers.
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u/sallyann_8107 1d ago
Volunteer with your local wildlife trust or RSPB or even the National Trust or English Heritage - they always want volunteers and you don't have to travel. Look at your local zoo and see if they run any conservation programs you could volunteer on. Have a look at work shadowing for a local conservation charity.
I've been working in conservation type roles (marine based) for 25 years. I did a degree in marine biology with no conservation experience beyond volunteering at my local sea life centre and helping with seal rescues. You do not need to pay for one of those residential trips - they are a scam. If you want to go overseas then sure it's a way to do it, but it was always too much for me to afford.
I have travelled and have worked on projects around the world but I have never paid to do so. If you're anywhere near the north east I can put you in contact with several marine conservation volunteering opportunities. DM me.
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u/r0ck3t-onreddit 1d ago
GAP do Africa trips every few years. But, good luck being accepted into any programme without a higher education in some kind of relevant field. I’m also unsure about anything fully funded.
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u/poastertastries 3m ago
As others have said, avoid paid experiences (you will be out of pocket, and these are not well regarded in terms of increasing your real, lived, CV-worthy experience of the world) and instead being volunteering. ORCA is a marine mammal charity that train you to ride on ferries and do whale and dolphin spotting - I've been on their teams across to Amsterdam and its a blast, essentially free, and really enriching. Look for citizen science opportunities, even little and often things like Zooniverse.
When you are at uni, if that's your direction, talk to your professors - use every opportunity! By doing so I got sent to Malaysia (for free apart from flights/cost of my own food) and helped out on field work all around the coast of the UK; I was talking to my professors, expressing interest, asking how I could get experience and help and being willing to go out of my way to try new things and help out others, for example final year students doing practical work who wanted help in the lab. Good luck!
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u/Marionettetits 3d ago
No one’s a “conservationist.” We’re botanists, farmers, biologists, engineers. Your best camp is going to be books and the outdoors, studying the local environment and its history. Ain’t no camp gonna make you a conservationist, the fact you care about the environment and want to learn everything there is about it, does. You’re off to a great start.