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What is Operation Wallacea?

Operation Wallacea is an organisation funded by tuition fees that operates biological and conservation management research programmes in remote locations across the world. These expeditions are designed with specific wildlife conservation aims in mind - from identifying areas needing protection through to implementing and assessing conservation management programmes. What is different about Operation Wallacea is that large teams of university academics work at the study sites.  These academics are specialists in various aspects of biodiversity and conservation science, and give volunteers the unique opportunity to work with them on a range of projects. The surveys result in a large number of  peer-reviewed publications each year, have led to the discovery of 30 vertebrate species new to science, the re-discovery of four 'extinct' species and have levered $2 million from funding agencies to set up best practice management policies at the study sites. The survey teams of academics and volunteers are funded independently from normal academic sources and have enabled large temporal and spatial biodiversity and socio-economic data sets to be produced, providing information to implement effective conservation management programmes.

In 2012/13 the expeditions are operating in 11 countries: Indonesia, Honduras, Egypt, Cuba, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Peru, Guyana, Romania, and Mexico. In each country a long-term agreement is signed with a partner organisation (e.g. Honduran Coral Reef Foundation in Honduras, Fund Amazonia in Peru, Wildlife Ecological Investments in South Africa, Nature and Science Foundation in Egypt, Fundatia ADEPT in Romania) and, over the course of this agreement, it is hoped to achieve a survey and management development programme at each of the sites. Occasionally a competent local partner organisation is not available. In these cases Operation Wallacea mentors the formation of a new NGO formed from local staff who have provided successful input to the expedition surveys (e.g. Lawane Ecotone for the Indonesian forest, Lembaga Alam for the Indonesia marine sites and Expediciones y Servicios Ambientales de Cusuco for the Honduran cloud forests).  This enables a Global Research and Conservation Management Strategy to be developed at each site.