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Hi,
My name is Joana and I’m a Biology student from University of Oporto, Portugal. Last year, Operation Wallacea (Opwall), an organisation that runs a series of biological and conservation management research programmes in remote locations across the world, came to my University looking for volunteers. Facing such an amazing opportunity, I applied to an expedition in Honduras, next summer.
The forests of Central America are some of the most species diverse forests in the world partly because they are the meeting point of two great faunas – those from North America and those from South Africa which had evolved separately. On the other side, in the Caribbean there are a number of core issues that have been affecting the biodiversity of the reefs – inlcuding the mass mortality of keystone sea urchins that have allowed algal colonisation of reef areas, an invasive species originally from Indo-Pacific (lionfish), that acts as a predator on the reef fish, has been spreading across the Caribbean, and overfishing of reef fish by local communities.
This expedition will last 4 weeks and I’ll do both Forest and Marine research, hoping to obtain as much knowledge and experience about the endangered wild life and how to prevent their extinction. During my stay, I’ll assist all research projects, including helping to set up and empty invertebrate pitfall traps, light traps, performing timed searches for herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians), point counts, mist netting for birds and monitor reef fish and benthic community of Utila’s reefs.
However, to participate in this project, I need to raise 3500€ (3682$ or 2984£) to cover my expedition, logistics and equipment costs or I won’t be able to partake in this project.
Any contributions will be deeply appreciated.
For more information about Opwall and their expeditions:
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