Wildlife Conservation Volunteering in Botswana

Live in a remote part of the Southern African bushveld and join our effort to protect elephants and other local wildlife

Destination

Botswana

Age

16+ y/o

Minimum Stay

1 week

Start Date

July and August

Accommodation

Eco-lodge

What’s Included

24/7 Support

Round-the-clock support on the ground and 24/7 back up from our global teams.

Accommodation & Amenities

Clean, safe, and welcoming accommodation. A home away from home with comfortable amenities.

Activities, Training & Equipment

All programme activities and equipment, including training and workshops from experienced professionals.

Certification

Certified record of service hours, workshops, and activities for your CV.

Request Info

Starting at £1,945 for 1 weeks

Flexible 0% Interest payments

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Trip Overview

Keep track of elephants and others

Believe it or not, the world’s largest animal needs tracking. Support efforts to monitor elephant populations. Look out for leopards too, and more.

Support essential consveration work

Work alongside conservation experts on anti-snaring patrols, waterhole maintenance, and wildlife surveys.

Camp under the stars

Live in safari-style tented camps in the heart of Tuli Block Reserve. Enjoy delicious meals overlooking wildlife roaming the African bushveld.

Join a conservation crew

You’ll live and work with others who are just as passionate and wildlide and conservation, learn together and from each other.

Unwind with your new friends

Pick up a game of cards, watch stunning sunsets, and share stories around the campfire during your evenings and weekends.

What you need to know

Overview

This wildlife conservation volunteer opportunity in Botswana is open to all ages. It’s especially well suited to anyone with a passion for the great outdoors and conserving wildlife.

If you’ve been craving a break from constant connection and city or suburban life, this off the beaten track adventure is just what you need.

Pursuing a career in conservation? This project offers a perfect balance between research and doing hands-on work. You will also be learning from conservation experts, giving you a good all-round experience to add to your CV. You can use this experience in interviews and talk about what you learned and the challenges you faced.

Aims & Impact

The aim of this volunteer Conservation Project is to preserve land and ensure the survival of precious wildlife species facing a range of threats.

Located at the place where Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe meet, Tuli has seen a decrease in wildlife populations. This is due to:

encroachment of human settlements
illegal hunting
desertification
land degradation

By doing species research, soil erosion control, necessary construction, and anti-poaching drives, we are helping preserve what is left of this highly sensitive Botswana wilderness.

The ultimate goal is to create a legally binding protected conservancy by combining this reserve with other game reserves, national parks, and conservation areas in the region.

By joining forces with these other reserves and parks, we can create one powerful voice. This will help boost the message of conservation even more in Botswana. Become a volunteer to help make this happen!

Activities

As a volunteer on this wildlife Conservation Project, you provide the much-needed and vital manpower to protect wildlife in a Tuli Block reserve.

Here are some of the tasks you can expect to do during your placement:

A volunteer conducting an elephant survey in Botswana

Research elephants to help track population growth and family units

Help build waterholes and ensure that they are always full

A volunteer performing a bird survey in Botswana

Help with surveys to track birds, animals and vegetation

Undertake anti-poaching patrols and help get rid of snares

Your work will be divided into four main categories:

Help us conduct elephant research

The Tuli region is home to a large elephant population, which is one of the most exciting things about the area. However, these gentle giants do have quite an impact on the environment with their 12 – 18 hour-a-day feeding habit.

For this reason, it’s important for us to keep track of their population growth and movement. As an environmental volunteer, you’ll have the opportunity help us do this by taking part in elephant research. For example, you’ll help identify and record individual elephants and their family groups. You’ll also learn how to spot and record movement patterns.

Anti-poaching patrols

Illegal poaching of bush meat is a major challenge to wildlife conservation in Botswana. As a conservation volunteer, you will help reduce poaching in the Tuli area. You will mainly do this by joining local staff members in removing snares around the wildlife reserve.

In 2017, our Conservation volunteers removed over 1,500 snares in Botswana. We’ve seen a decrease in the number of snares as well as an increase in the amount of wildlife in the past years. We hope that this might indicate a decrease in poaching activity, but we need you to help us continue these efforts.

You will never be expected to take part in any anti-poaching activities that could risk confrontation with poachers.

Water conservation

Water is scarce in Southern Africa, so we have to work to conserve it.

As a wildlife Conservation volunteer, you will help us construct and repair waterholes, boreholes and rainwater tanks. This will ensure that water is caught up during the wet season and that there is lots of fresh water during the dry season.

Surveys

Keeping tabs on the movements of wild animals is no easy feat, but we manage to do a pretty good job with our ongoing surveys. During your time in Botswana, you may help us with a bird census, a crocodile census, spoor identification or compiling an inventory of all the mammal species in the reserve.

We’re currently conducting a survey of all the baobab trees in the reserve and doing a thorough vegetation mapping project.

By doing these surveys, you will help us prove this area of Botswana is unique, wild and an essential area for protecting biodiversity in Southern Africa. In turn, this helps us achieve the longer-term aim of establishing a legally binding conservancy for the central Tuli area.

A Day in the Life

As a Conservation volunteer in Botswana, you can expect to work five or six hours a day. Your workload will be divided as follows:

Four hours of hard work during the cool morning hours
Two hours of less demanding tasks in the late afternoon

In the mornings, you will typically help our local staff members do things like dig water holes, join an anti-poaching patrol to remove snares and do some spoor identification.

Because mid-afternoon can be incredibly hot, you’ll use these hours to eat, sleep, swim, relax, and read.

Late afternoons and early evenings are the perfect times to conduct surveys, as animals and birds emerge from their midday slumber to quench their thirst at waterholes. You may also join rangers on another anti-poaching patrol.

Since you will be sharing accommodation with your fellow volunteers, you will be able to spend your evenings and weekends getting to know each other better. Share knowledge and go on memorable excursions, such as bush walks or game drives in the African wildlife reserve.

Map & Location

World-renowned for having the largest elephant population, Botswana is a country located in Southern Africa.

It’s considered one of the safest countries in Africa making it a popular tourist hotspot to see Africa’s Big 5—elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos, and buffalos!

Famous for sights such as the Okavango Delta, Kalahari Desert, and Chobe National Park, it’s one of world’s last true wildernesses just waiting to be explored.

The Tuli Block

Immerse yourself in the heart of the remote African bush at our conservation reserve in The Tuli Block, eastern Botswana.

This region, characterised by dramatic sandstone cliffs, baobab trees, and the Limpopo River, supports a diverse ecosystem of spectacular wildlife. In fact, it’s home to a large elephant population that may even stroll right through your camp!

You’ll also see giraffes, lions, leopards, cheetahs, and much more — it’s a safari lover’s dream.

Food & Accommodation

We’ll provide everything you need for a fantastic experience in the heart of the African savannah, including a comfortable bed, three meals a day, and fresh drinking water.

You’ll share a safari-style tent with other volunteers during your stay at our base camp in the Tuli Block. This is a great way to get to know your fellow volunteers and share a totally different experience with the wildlife of the bushveld on your doorstep.

Despite having no electricity in your room, you will have access to communal, solar-powered charging stations and hot, running water. Your room will be cleaned weekly by our team of camp attendants and we’ll take care of your laundry too!

Enjoy your free-time under the stars around the campfire, playing cards, sharing culture, and telling stories.

Free Time and Leisure

Volunteering in Botswana with us is a chance to experience a completely different way of life. By living and working in a wildlife reserve, you’ll be able to connect with nature and experience the beauty of Africa.

You’ll spend most of your time in the reserve. You can spend your free time connecting with like-minded volunteers who are passionate about making a difference.

Quiet afternoons are perfect for enjoying a good book or relaxing under the shade of an acacia tree. In the evenings, you can roast marshmallows around a campfire or play board games together.

You’ll also spend a lot of your time going on safaris, spotting the majestic African wildlife like rhinos, elephants, and leopards.

Your Arrival Made Easy

When you arrive at your respective airport, a member of Projects Abroad staff will be there to meet you. You can find more detailed information on arrival airports, orientation, and visas on our Botswana Arrival Procedures page.