Award-winning, non-profit and ethical wildlife conservation volunteering. Advancing citizen science and conservation since 1999 – for nature, not profit.
Author: Biosphere Expeditions
For wildlife, not profit
Our planet is in crisis, with nature under attack like never before. We believe everyone has the power to change this. We are mindful of nature and empower people through citizen science and hands-on wildlife conservation. We are a non-profit, visionary, award-winning and ethical conservation organisation. We are a member of the IUCN and the UN's Environment Programme. Working hand-in-hand with local biologists and communities, we champion change and protect nature. And we succeed - the creation of protected areas on four continents is just one example.
Come and join us! Make your holiday time count and share in our vision of a healthier planet. Whatever your age or background, make your voice heard and spend a week or more on a wildlife conservation expedition with us. Travel with us to remote and beautiful places, learn new skills, meet like-minded people from around the world and experience conservation in action. Together - for nature, not profit - let's act like our world depends on it. Because it does.
Vom 5. bis 18. Juli 2025 untersuchten 19 Bürgerwissenschaftler mehrere Wolfsgebiete und legten dabei in zehn Erhebungstagen mehr als 650 Kilometer zurück.
A team surveying a reef along a 100 m transect tape
In 2025, Biosphere Expeditions continued its long-standing citizen-science project in the Maldives, focusing on coral reef health through hands-on volunteer expeditions. Since 2011, these marine surveys have been an important constant of local reef conservation, blending scientific rigour, citizen science and immersive adventure.
The 2025 expedition brought together diverse teams of volunteers and scientists aboard a liveaboard vessel, each group contributing to Reef Check-standard surveys across multiple atolls. These surveys involve underwater assessments of coral cover, fish populations and other ecological indicators to track reef health across time.
A special emphasis on revisiting long-term monitoring sites allows Biosphere Expeditions to build multi-year datasets that reveal trends in reef resilience and degradation. The expedition’s work has resulted in annual scientific reports and many publications in the literature.
During the 2025 expedition, citizen scientists surveyed 11 reefs and documented a mixed picture of reef conditions: some sites showed stable or improving coral cover, especially on ocean-fed outer reefs, while inner lagoon sites, more exposed to warming and stress, continued to struggle.
Resilient outer reefs in Ari atoll had maintained levels of coral cover and had reasonably good reef fish populations with 50 – 60% hard coral cover on the deeper surveys (6 – 10 m depth). Some reef sites within atolls showed a further recovery for hard coral cover since the 2016 mass coral bleaching, reaching 40 – 50% cover on more shallow sites (3 – 5 m depth). However, other inner reefs continue to show a ‘phase-shift’ to a non-coral dominated status with opportunistic / fast-growing benthic fauna such as the coralliomorph Discosoma smothering the reef surface at one site (Dega Thila) and currently preventing the re-establishment of corals and other benthic groups.
Biosphere Expeditions has completed another successful Africa volunteer expedition in Malawi, gathering long-term research data on biodiversity in one of the country’s least-studied wildlife reserves.
Conservation expedition to Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve
Working closely with Malawi’s Lilongwe Wildlife Trust (LWT), the volunteer expedition team spent two weeks at Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve, researching the populations of elephants and hippos around Lake Kazuni, along with surveys of other mammals and birds, using camera traps and direct observation.
A white wolf howling in the woods in Germany (c) Christiane Flechtner
The 2025 Biosphere Expeditions wolf conservation project in Lower Saxony, Germany has once again made a significant contribution to state wolf monitoring efforts. It collected 79 scat samples, 13 of which are “good and fresh enough” – says expedition scientist Charlotte Steinberg – for DNA analysis, and all of which will be studied for remains of prey animals.
Expedition scientist Charlotte Steinberg (left) assessing scat samples with local wolf ambassador Kenny Kenner.
The wolf expedition in 2025
From 5 to 18 July 2025, nineteen citizen scientists gathered wolf evidence in support of the state’s official wolf monitoring programme. Some participants came from Germany and its neighbouring countries, as well as the UK and Spain, but there were also participants from North America, Australia, Oman and Brazil.
The mountain ghost caught on camera trap on a Biosphere Expeditions snow leopard conservation expedition
The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is an iconic large cat native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because the global population is estimated to number fewer than 10,000 mature individuals and is expected to decline by about 10% by 2040.
Working in snow leopard conservation since 2003
Biosphere Expeditions has worked in snow leopard conservation since 2003. This makes it one of the longest-running initiatives organised by Biosphere Expeditions and one of the most extended research projects on snow leopards ever conducted.
Initially, expeditions were based in the Altai mountain range in Russia from 2003 to 2011, where we utilised sign rates and sightings for species recordings to confirm snow leopard presence, which contributed to the establishment of Saylyugemsky National Park – just one of many achievements that Biosphere Expeditions has racked up over the years.
Diving and contributing to protecting some of the most beautiful reefs in the world as a way to aid burnout recovery.
Some days, exhaustion feels deeper than the muscles or sleep you’ve lost. You can sleep, take a holiday, work out regularly, or binge-watch your favourite shows and still wake up feeling flat.
Burnout is rarely solved by rest alone. It’s emotional depletion, loss of motivation, and a sense that what you do no longer matters.
After the holidays or during any major life transition many people feel this more acutely. Returning to work, routines and obligations, or questioning what comes next, can feel surprisingly flat, even after a “restful” break. That’s because burnout is often about disconnection from purpose, not just physical fatigue.
Volunteering expeditions with a clear focus on wildlife conservation provide structure, shared goals and opportunities for all skill levels to contribute meaningfully.
Shaha Hashim is a pioneer in the conservation movement in the Maldives. Her passion started at a young age when she “was lucky enough to be selected for the school snorkelling club where I witnessed the vibrant beauty of the corals before the 1998 bleaching event devastated over 90% of them.”
Many corals have grown back since and Shaha never lost her dedication to them. In 2014 Shaha joined Biosphere Expeditions, an international non-profit citizen science organisation, which supercharged her conservation career.
We are delighted to once again collaborate. with Dr. Alan Lee as the expedition scientist. After successful expeditions with him to the Peru Amazon from 2011 to 2016 and South Africa from 2015 to 2017, we will be back with him in his native South Africa on an expedition entitled “Much more than just leopards: Surveying biodiversity in the Cape Floral Kingdom of the fynbos mountains of South Africa.”
Dr. Alan Lee
This expedition will focus on documenting biodiversity in the western Baviaanskloof wilderness area, with a particular focus on threatened and elusive Endangered mammals such as the riverine rabbit and Cape leopard, as well as birds and other fauna recorded through Coordinated Avifaunal Roadcount (CAR) transects. The work supports long-term monitoring obligations within the Cape Floral Kingdom (fynbos), a UNESCO World Heritage Site renowned for its exceptional biodiversity.
‘I wanted to have an impact on protecting nature,’ says Angelika Krimmel from Germany, reflecting on what drew her to her first expedition with Biosphere Expeditions.
That first experience was in 2016, studying whales and dolphins in the Azores. It wasn’t long before Angelika found herself coming back again and again – to Slovakia in 2017 to monitor lynx, bear and wolf; to Kyrgyzstan in 2019 and 2024 for snow leopard research; and to Kenya in 2023 for African biodiversity conservation.
Whales, paw prints and camera traps
Each project offered something unforgettable. “After a week with the whales, you think nothing can top the first sight of one. But then a curious sperm whale swam alongside our boat, jumped three times and looked straight into our eyes. That look went directly to my heart.”
Angelika (yellow circle) with her 2016 Azores expedition team
Biosphere Expeditions: blogs from the frontline of wildlife conservation and the fight for a more sustainable planet 