Description

ASVO (Association of Volunteers for Service in Protected Areas)is a Costa Rican organization that is dedicated to maintaining and preserving national parks, communities and beaches throughout Costa Rica. The organization was started in, was founded on January 27, 1989 in the response to the growing realization that although Costa Rica is renowned for their natural resources and biodiversity, there was very little awareness around environmental protection by many people who lived in Costa Rica. Originally focusing on the preservation of national parks, the program eventually expanded to include sea turtle conservation, community education and habitat identification.

ASVO is a non-profit and non-governmental organization whose mission is to promote the importance of preserving the environment by operating a number of grass-root conservation projects and conducting a variety of educational workshops throughout the country. Over the years environmental issues such as deforestation, species extinction, forest fires, and climate change have been addressed by the members of ASVO as they have worked to expand their programs through the country.

ASVO places volunteers in national parks and other areas protected by the Ministry of Environment and Energy all over the country. The organization currently has stations in twenty-eight different locations all over Costa Rica, from Corcovado in the south to Guanacaste in the north. These projects are divided into four categories: Wildlife Refuges, Education and Communities, Sea Turtle Projects and National Parks.

Volunteers who are interested in working with sea turtles will love to work here. Tortuguero beach is the most important nesting site of the endangered green turtle in the Western Hemisphere. In addition, you will have the opportunity to work with other species such as the Hawksbill, Loggerheads, and Leatherback sea turtles.

Tortugeuro National Park is seeking volunteers to work at their sea turtle patrol stations. These patrol stations are important because many of the sea turtles who nest in this area are endangered species. For example, the Green turtle are near extinction because their meat and eggs are considered a delicacy. The green turtle population is believed to have come perilously close to extinction in the 1960s when nearly every female turtle arriving to nest in Tortuguero was taken for the export market for turtle soup.

Since the 1950s, ecologists and volunteers have conducted extensive nest monitoring programs every year in Tortuguero and shared the findings with Costa Rican park managers. In 1995, volunteers began monitoring the Tortuguero beach during the spring months (March to May) for nesting leatherback sea turtles. In 2000, during the green turtle nesting season (July through October) over 2,600 green turtles were tagged. This is a significant increase from 1999 when only 2,002 greens were tagged. Through this research it is evident that volunteers are making a difference and are needed to continue monitoring the sea turtles and conducting research.

Volunteers can help with the maintenance of paths, cleaning and maintenance of the installations, customer service (in case of a good Spanish), protect the park together with the park guard, make polls to the tourists.

Volunteers will be expected to work 6 days per week. The hours will be from 8:00am to 3:00pm each day.

URL: http://www.basecampvolunteerabroad.com/sites/bc-volunteer-abroad/place_details.cfm?pl_id=765
Tags: conservation, Costa Rica, volunteer, volunteering
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