2026 Dates
2 weeks: 1 week terrestrial & 1 week marine – 20 June – 3 July
2 weeks: 1 week terrestrial & 1 week marine – 18 July – 31 July
3 weeks: 2 weeks bush & 1 week Marine – 20 June – 10 July
3 weeks: 2 weeks bush & 1 week Marine – 11 July – 31 July
3 weeks: 1 week bush & 2 weeks marine – 11 July – 31 July
4 weeks: 2 weeks bush & 2 weeks marine – 20 June – 17 July
4 weeks: 2 weeks bush & 2 weeks marine – 11 July – 7 August
For those booking onto the 3 week course beginning on 11 July, please email expeditions@opwall.com to indicate if you would like to do 1 or 2 weeks terrestrial.
KwaZulu-Natal teams
Our main base in South Africa is situated within a private game reserve in the KwaZulu-Natal province, an area renowned for its incredible biodiversity and iconic African wildlife. The camp itself is nestled in the bushveld, giving volunteers the chance to experience life in the reserve while being surrounded by the sights and sounds of the savannah. Opwall teams are assisting local researchers to assess the success of species management for South African conservation and provide the reserve management with the empirical data they need to make informed decisions.
You will spend half of your time in the field, helping with vehicle-based distance sampling of large mammals. You will also be working on foot, completing biodiversity assessments of birds and vegetation, estimating the level of fire and herbivory impacts on vegetation across the whole reserve. The rest of your time will be spent in camp where you will have daily lectures on “An Introduction to African wildlife conservation and management”. You will also assist with the analysis of camera trap data from an extensive network of cameras placed across the reserve to capture evidence of illusive and nocturnal species.
Sodwana Bay Diving Centre
At this centre you will complete a PADI Open Water dive training course or an Indian Ocean reef ecology course with practicals by diving (if already trained) or snorkelling. Our marine base is a short drive to the beach or pool, snorkelling and diving take place within the iSamangaliso Wetland Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Operation Wallacea and our partners, Wildlife and Ecological Investments (WEI), coordinate large-scale research programmes to provide an empirical backbone for key conservation projects in South Africa. Our main aim is to assist conservation managers with pressing large-scale issues that they do not necessarily have the resources to address themselves. The South Africa research programme covers a series of reserves across the country, each using slightly different management strategies to conserve wildlife in their reserves. Big game areas in South Africa are fenced to avoid the spread of disease and conflicts between communities and dangerous animals. However, in reserves surrounded by densely populated areas such as those within the Kwa-Zulu Natal region human-wildlife conflict can be a major challenge. Here, our research teams are looking at the extent of this conflict with a special focus on large mammal species. Large mammal distributions are monitored regularly through game transects, and nocturnal mammal distributions are assessed using a matrix of camera traps set up throughout the reserve. By combining this information with our knowledge of areas of dense human activity, we can begin to understand how human disturbance can alter large mammal movement and behaviour.
The restriction of natural movement caused by fences can also lead to locally dense mammal populations with high levels of vegetation impact. Elephants, for example, are ecosystem engineers and their impact can alter vegetation structure and composition. By directly monitoring feeding impact on vegetation and its knock-on effects to other taxa, such as birds, our teams can assist the reserve managers to better understand how elephants can affect long-term change in the ecosystem.
Most of our volunteers fundraise for their expedition costs. Find out more.
Climate
Our expeditions run during the South African winter, so in Somkhanda temperatures can drop as low as 0-2 degrees at night. It is also dry season, however, so the chances of rain are slim here and days are usually sunny and warm with temperatures up to 18-22 degrees. The temperatures are generally warmer at night in Sodwana, and the sun can be quite strong when out all day at the beach.
Fitness level required
Low. There are some short hikes over rough terrain, but most of the work is in or close to the game-viewer vehicles.
Creature comforts
In Somkhanda you will be staying in large safari-style tents with bunk beds and large, structured tents are used for the kitchen and communal areas. Sodwana accommodation is in dorm style rooms with beds. All sites have hot running showers, flushing toilets and access to electricity for large portions of the day. There is very little phone signal in Somkhanda, or the camp in Sodwana Bay, but the beach has better phone signal. No sites have access to wifi.
Find out all about how you could fundraise for an expedition.
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