Description

Escape to Madagascar - the magical island which is home to some of the world's most spectacular and least explored dive sites. The crystal clear waters host a dazzling array of pristine marine habitats and support a huge diversity and abundance of marine creatures.

The vivid multi-coloured corals and luxuriant sea grass beds provide rich feeding grounds for an extraordinary array of colourful reef fish, rays, sea urchins, anemones, octopus and even sea turtles. While barracuda, sharks, dolphins, migrating whales and shoals of pelagics cruise the deep blue waters offshore. You can explore this exquisite, untarnished underwater world as you learn to dive off the island of Nosy Be. Meaning "Big Island" in Malagasy this location certainly lives up to its name.

* What Will I Be Doing?

The marine research and conservation programme is run in association with L'Institut Halieutique et des Sciences Marine (IHSM), with whom Frontier has been in partnership since 2000. This research and conservation project aims to provide the local stakeholders and government bodies with the information they need to design and implement management plans for the future protection of this pristine marine ecosystem. To gather the data needed you will be diving regularly (weather permitting) with Sunday off. You'll be locating and mapping the extensive coral reefs and studying the various communities existing on them.

You will also explore the luxuriant mangrove forests and record the rich variety of organisms living there and in the other intertidal zones. Whilst diving you will discover dense sea grass beds rich sources of nutrients for the marine communities. You will deploy a wide range of newly learned research skills and scientific techniques including: underwater visual census of reef and commercial fish such as trigger fish and parrot fish, assessment of algal and coral cover to determine the extent of coral bleaching and damage, and line intercept transects for benthic life and indicator invertebrate species such as nudibranchs. You will record observations of the feeding habits and behaviour patterns of a range of marine life. You may even get to study the impact of potentially destructive fishing methods on the corals reefs, study the effects of global warming on marine communities or note any indication of the impact of the marine-curio trade on endangered marine invertebrates.

Whilst diving, you'll see an extraordinary array of animals from colourful reef fish species to turtles, sea cucumbers to feathery starfish, and spiny urchins to octopus. By the end of your project you will be expert at identifying hundreds of coloured and patterned reef fish as well as being an experienced and competent diver. Although the work is intense and challenging you'll get immense satisfaction from having survived and from having made a valuable contribution to the conservation of this untarnished marine wilderness. Volunteers who join the project for less than 4 weeks will be unable to participate in the full range of project activities and surveys, but will still be able to make a valuable contribution to the work . You will return home with thousands of photos, lots of new friends, a wealth of fascinating stories and extraordinary memories.

You'll find your team to be a fun, dynamic mix of ages and experiences, with members who all share a passion about travelling in developing countries and saving endangered life. Your staff will be young, friendly individuals who are highly experienced in their research field and many of whom will have been Frontier volunteers at an earlier stage in their career.

Highlights

* Get free PADI dive training!
* Dive in some of the world's best dive sites.
* Make lifelong friends.

Languages

• English

Cost in US$:

2,100

Cost Includes:

• Food
• Housing
• In-country orientation/Training
• In-country staff support
• Written materials abroad
• Written materials pre-departure

Program Fees Include:

Before you go:
* Pre-departure support
* Travel & medical advice & documentation
* Equipment advice
* Discounted medical kit
* Free Frontier t-shirt
* Free UK residential briefing weekend for 10 week+ volunteers
* UK residential briefing weekend available (GBP 50 per person)

In-country:
* Food
* Accommodation
* Internal ground transfers & in-transit accommodation (for volunteers arriving on the 1st Monday of the month & joining for 4+ weeks)
* Local orientation
* Project training
* Project equipment & materials
* Dive training PADI Open water (2 weeks)
* Dive training PADI Advanced open water (4 weeks+)
* In-country emergency support
* 24-hour international HQ back-up

Experience Required

no

Volunteer Types

This Program is open to

Worldwide Participants. This Program is also open to Couples and Individuals.

Typical Living Arrangements

• Group living
• Other

Participants Travel

Independently

Application Process Involves

• Phone/Video Interview

Frontier's Mission Statement

To conserve the world's most endangered wildlife and threatened habitats and to build sustainable livelihoods for marginalized and under resourced communities in the world's poorest countries. To create solutions that are apolitical, forward-thinking, community-driven, and innovative and which take into consideration the long-term needs of low income communities.

Year Founded

1989