The following page is designed to give you an insight into the types of environment you will working in whilst you are with Operation Wallacea. This should help you choose what you need to bring, and may also assist you in deciding which projects to participate in.

Forest Research projects

Research teams working in the forest will be collecting data from one of seven sites in the Cusuco National Park. These camps allow scientists to access both core and buffer zone habitats of varying altitude, floral and faunal type, and disturbance level.

Base Camp is the main camp in the core zone, and Buenos Aires is the main camp in the buffer zone. Both of these camps are situated on the east of the Cusuco park, and can be accessed by a 2-3hr journey from San Pedro Sula using 4-wheel-drive vehicles.

The other two east-side camps (Guanales and Cantiles), can only be accessed via a tough trek (2 and 4 hours respectively) from Base Camp.

In the west of the Cusuco National Park, there are three more camps: Santo Tomas, El Cortecito, and El Danto. 

Santo Tomas is a small village in the buffer zone where survey teams are based.  To get to Santo Tomas, volunteers will trek for 2-3 hours from a road access point, (after a 2 hour journey from San Pedro) with mules to help carry bags. From Santa Tomas, the other two north-side camps (El Danto and El Cortecito) can both be reached after a 6-7 hour trek.

Base Camp projects

Base Camp is the central research site for the Cusuco field sites and is where the Senior Scientist is based. The facilities at the Base Camp are designed so that volunteers and staff can stay comfortably here for the entire season.

Accommodation is in tents, so you will need to bring a sleeping bag, roll mat, and warm clothes for the evenings. There is a lockable storage room and a safe for small valuables such as passports and money.

There is a large generator which is used to power lights and the computer system in the main building. There are cold water showers and the toilets are western style.  Clothes washing (using bio-degradable soaps) can be taken on the laundry run down to the village of Buenos Aires, where it will be washed and dried by locals who charge for each item (the charges are very small but using this service helps provide a considerable income for the people concerned).

Food (for both carnivores and vegetarians) is prepared by a local team of cooks based on site, and  a water filtration system ensures that there is drinking water available at all times.  The Camp Manager will also operate a tuck shop after lunch and in the evenings where soft drinks and sweets can be purchased. 

There is a study area where relevant books and papers used on the projects will be stored, and the computer facilities will enable each volunteer to store information such as work, photographs, etc. on the network. There are CD writers on site, but volunteers will need to bring their own blank CDs. 

If you have your own laptop, bringing this would be a definite advantage for dissertation students, as computer space can be limited. Laptops can be connected to the network if you have a PCMCIA card or an ethernet port.

There are also PowerPoint facilities, and lectures will be given in the evenings on various topics. 

The network will have digital maps of the areas in which you will be working, as well as GIS software with recent satellite data (to a resolution of 1m), and many photographs which students can access.

There are very limited internet facilities available (depending on computer space), but please do not rely on this system as it relies on a satellite internet system which is weather dependent.

There will be facilities available for re-charging batteries (AA and AAA) as long as you bring your own 2-pin adapter.  Please note that the voltage used in Honduras is 110V, not the normal European 220V, so if you wish to bring your own electrical equipment please check that it can function using 110V. 

Buffer Zone Village camps

There are two buffer zone villages where volunteers may be staying: Buenos Aires on the east side of the park (just 20 minutes drive from Base Camp), and Santo Tomas on the west side. Both villages afford breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains.

Accommodation in Buenos Aires is in local houses (minimum of two volunteers per house) where a bed and mattress will be provided. In Santo Tomas accommodation is in tents, so you will need to bring a sleeping bag and a roll mat. There is a fantastic atmosphere in both villages, and volunteers will gain a real feel for the Honduran culture from their time at these camps.

You will need to bring a warm sleeping bag and warm clothing for the evenings. Meals will be prepared by local staff, and in Buenos Aires you will eat at the Toucan restaurant - a wooden hut at the top of the village. 

Local earth closet toilets and washing facilities are used, and, as with other sites, it is important for you to use biodegradable soap.

Whilst in these villages, it is vital that volunteers act in an appropriate way - please refrain from drinking or from acting in an impolite manner.

Satellite camps

These camps, based in the core-zone of the Cusuco National Park, will give volunteers the unforgettable experience of living and working at a truly remote field station. 

The trek to the satellite camps on the east side of the park (Guanales and Cantiles) takes up to four hours to complete (from Base Camp), and the journey to the camps on the west side of the park (El Danto and El Coretecito) takes around 6 hours from Santo Tomas.

A local team of cooks will provide the meals at the camp, using gas cookers and an open fire to prepare the meals.  Meals will generally be eaten on chairs and tables underneath tarpaulins and vegetarians can be catered for.  Water will be boiled and available for volunteers to drink. There will be a small generator to provide lights and battery (AA and AAA) recharging facilities at the site as well as to power the moth trap.  As with the Base Camp please note that the generator will supply 110V only. 

Toilets will be earth closets and washing will be by using a mandi style system.  Black jerry cans will be filled with water and left out in the open next to the river during the day to heat up.  An area with a few curtained off cubicles and drainage to ground will be set aside away from the river for washing.  Each of these cubicles will contain a plastic bucket which you fill with water from your jerry can and then using a small scoop, empty the water over yourself.  Please bring bio-degradable soap for washing.   

Manacal

In addition to these montane sites in the National Park, a lowland study site has been established at Manacal, in a series of forest fragments, each with its own troop of Honduran mantled howler monkeys. This privately owned reserve can be easily accessed from Cofradia and is an excellent site to study the behaviour and ecology of the monkeys. Researchers working in Manacal forest are based in a house in Cofradia.

Marine Research projects

Volunteers on marine projects will either be working on the tiny Caribbean island of Cayo Menor via the coastal community of Rio Esteban, or the larger neighbouring island of Utila.

Rio Esteban

This picturesque Garifuna village on the northern Honduran coast has no existing tourism. Operation Wallacea in conjunction with Grupo de Apoyo al Desarollo (GAD) is helping the local community develop ecotourism income as a replacement for the income lost from not being able to continue fishing the Cayos Cochinos MPA. Accommodation is in local houses with meals taken in a specially built restaurant overlooking the ocean. All volunteers and staff use Rio Esteban as the gateway to the Cayos Cochinos Islands and will overnight in the village before crossing in boats in the early morning. This gives a great opportunity to experience the wonderful Garifuna hospitality and have an evening of dancing!

Cayo Menor

The Cayos Cochinos Islands are a Marine Protected Area (MPA) and have strictly limited entry to tourists with Cayo Menor being restricted to marine researchers. The Honduran Coral Reef Foundation runs the Cayos Cochinos Islands on behalf of the Honduran government and development is severely restricted by this NGO in the islands. The Operation Wallacea project is based on a beach of the tiny uninhabited island of Cayo Menor. There is a trail across the island and on the far side are completely empty white sand beaches! Accommodation is in tents on the beach or in shared bunk accommodation in huts. Cayo Menor has a fully equipped marine research centre with diving equipment, speed boats and wet and a dry labs. There is a restaurant and bar high on the hill overlooking the sea.

There is a specially built restaurant on the island and a professional catering team providing the meals.  The food is excellent and there is a good vegetarian menu.  Filtered drinking water is constantly available and tea and coffee is available after each of the meals.  There is a bar for soft drinks and beer in the restaurant.

The main laboratory building on the site has been equipped with a network of computers and spare slots so that if you bring your laptop with a PCMCIA card you can get onto the network. The network will have a back up system, printer and CD writer. CD's are hard to get hold of so please bring your own CD's for writing copies of your data and photos onto. The network will have digital maps of the marine protected area, statistical packages and has an extensive collection of photos for available for downloading.

The main laboratory also has private study areas and a lecture area where PowerPoint facilities are available. There is an evening lecture programme with talks by members of the academic team.  All dissertation students are required to give a PowerPoint presentation of their work before leaving the island. There is a wet lab at the end of the jetty with a series of aquaria and a pumping system for providing continual supplies to the tanks.

Diving is scheduled in waves at 7am, 9am, 11am and 1pm. We found from previous years that after 3pm the wind tends to get up strongly making diving difficult in the late afternoon. You can hire dive gear on the island (masks, snorkels, fins, BCD and regulator only).  There are 70 complete sets of diving gear available for rent and we operate a system where the dive shed team issues dive gear to individuals before each dive and it is then handed in at the end of each dive for use by the next wave of divers.  There has been considerable investment on the island to prepare the site for the research programme and there are now three compressors working which will allow up to 220 dives per day.

Utila

Utila has a large and developing dive-based tourism industry with many hotels and associated businesses. Development control is much more limited and conservation organisations can only influence development proposals and have no direct control as for HCRF on Cayos Cochinos. Nonetheless the economic importance of the reefs on the island means that they are well protected by the activities of concerned divers and conservationists. 

There are extensive stands of mangroves fringing the lagoons on the island, which not only provide habitats for a whole range of aquatic and terrestrial flora and fauna indigenous to these ecosystems, but also provide substantial nursery grounds for many reef species.

Accommodation is in shared rooms with fans in the Coral View Hotel, away from the main tourism centre and situated between some of the best reefs and the largest mangrove lined lagoon system on the island.

A specially built saltwater lagoon in front of the hotel is used for the confined water training. Speedboats are available to take the divers out to the 73 dive sites around the island and there is an amazing variety of reefs and always the possibility of swimming alongside a whale shark.