EXPLORE TURTLE CONSERVATION PROGRAMS
Sea turtles have roamed the world’s oceans for more than 100 million years. They are ancient, extraordinary animals — and today, all seven species are classified as either vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered. The threats they face are relentless: illegal poaching for their shells, skin, meat and eggs; entanglement in fishing gear; plastic pollution; coastal development destroying nesting beaches; and the accelerating effects of climate change on sea temperatures and sand conditions that determine hatchling sex ratios.
Conservation efforts are working — but they depend on sustained, data-driven fieldwork. Marine Impact’s turtle conservation programmes give you the opportunity to contribute directly to that work, volunteering alongside professional marine biologists and conservationists in some of the world’s most important sea turtle habitats.
What will you do?
Turtle conservation fieldwork is hands-on, varied, and genuinely impactful. Depending on the programme and season, typical activities include:
- Night beach patrols to monitor nesting females, record clutch sizes, and tag turtles for long-term population tracking
- Hatchery management — relocating eggs to protected areas, monitoring incubation, and recording hatching success rates
- In-water surveys to monitor turtle feeding grounds, assess coral reef health, and record turtle behaviour and abundance
- Photo-identification work to build individual turtle records and track movements over time
- Data collection and entry contributing to national and international conservation databases
- Community education initiatives in partnership with local schools and fishing communities
Fieldwork is scheduled around turtle activity, which means some programmes involve early morning or night work. This is real conservation — turtles don’t keep office hours, and neither do the teams protecting them.
Where can I volunteer?
Marine Impact runs turtle conservation programmes across some of the Indian Ocean and Caribbean’s most significant nesting and feeding sites, including Zanzibar, Mozambique, South Africa and the Cayman Islands. Each location offers a different conservation context — from protecting green turtle nesting beaches to in-water research on hawksbill feeding ecology on healthy coral reefs.
Our programmes run year-round, though the best time to visit varies by location and species. When you enquire, we’ll help you match your available dates to the right programme and the right season.
Who is this for?
No prior experience in marine biology or conservation is needed. Full training is provided on arrival and you will be supervised throughout by qualified scientists. A basic level of swimming confidence is required for in-water survey work, and some programmes require a PADI Open Water diving certification, which can be obtained locally before or during your programme.
These programmes are well suited to gap year students, undergraduates in environmental or biological sciences, career changers with a passion for wildlife, and anyone seeking a meaningful travel experience with genuine conservation impact.
Why Marine Impact?
Marine Impact combines the scientific expertise of leading marine biologists with the operational experience of African Impact, one of Africa’s most established conservation volunteer organisations. Our programmes are designed to produce research outputs that matter — data that feeds into long-term conservation strategies rather than one-off projects with no legacy. Every volunteer contributes to an ongoing programme, not a standalone event.
We are committed to ethical, responsible wildlife interaction. Our turtle fieldwork is conducted strictly in line with best-practice conservation protocols — minimising disturbance to nesting females and hatchlings while maximising the value of the data collected.
