Tag: nature

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‘Being on expedition was incredible, a real revelation, that gave my life path an unexpected turn.’


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.

Shaha Hashim nowadays
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Volunteering Abroad for Wildlife Conservation: What Should You Expect?

4 people looking at a herd of elephants at sunset
Elephants right outside our camp while volunteering in Malawi

Are you thinking about volunteering abroad and interested in wildlife conservation?

Whether you want to help monitor whales, survey coral reefs, or support wildlife researchers in remote national parks, these volunteer projects offer the chance to contribute to real conservation work while experiencing a destination in a much deeper way.

But, volunteering abroad is very different from a typical holiday.

In this article I’ll walk you through what wildlife volunteering actually involves, what daily life looks like, and how to know if it’s the right fit for you.

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‘Seeing the world with different eyes’


‘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
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Maldives: Sickness & Health

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

Group 2 is now also qualified – well done – and checking those reefs.

The stories are as mixed as has been the weather. There are some quite healthy reefs and some that are sick.

Fish are scarce, especially grouper, because there is immense fishing pressure due to (over)tourism and a very active grouper fishery that sells them off as food fish, mainly to Hong Kong as live fish for restaurant aquariums there.

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Maldives: Round 2

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

Here we are back again with a smaller, but equally keen group 2.

The weather has turned and it’s more windy, greyer and rainy now. But underwater it’s wet anyway.

We’ve done our check-out dive and are well into our training sessions now. Lectures, pointy dives and fish test today. The proof will be in the pudding.

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Maldives: Stable recovery

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

Group 1 has checked all the reefs on its schedule, well done!

All were repeat surveys to track reef health and development over the years, one of the great advantages of citizen-scientist-funded expeditions, which can fund projects sustainably and reliably for many years (since 2011 in the case of the Maldives), generating long-term datasets that result in many insights and scientific publications.

None of this would happen without the many, many citizen scientists over the years who come to fund and help with this research and conservation work. Thank you!

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Maldives: Mantas and corals

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

We’re in the groove now and checking those reefs like clockwork – well done team 1.

We moved to Alifu Dhaalu (South Ari) atoll and studied a couple of sites there, as per our schedule. They were outer sites and coral cover was unchanged from when we visited them last in 2023 (still few fish, as has been the case for more than a decade now – they are just being overfished). The good coral cover, however, is positive news, showing some resilience.

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Maldives: Half checked

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

Team 1 is delivering and so is the weather – and the reefs.

After two days of intensive training, we’ve checked our first reef, well half of it, were it not for our very own two Daft Punks reeling in the survey line whilst people were still busy with the survey :))

But that’s exactly what the very first survey is for – after 48 hours of crash coursing – to get familiar with how it all comes together underwater. So no sweat and same again this morning, as per ze schedule, ja!

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Maldives: On board

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

Liveaboards in the harbour

Expedition scientist Simon and I have arrived on our liveaboard base in the Maldives and are setting up as we speak.

The liveaboard harbour is – against expectations – still here and has not been filled in for housing. We have a quiet corner amongst other liveaboards although there is some hammering and shouting going on as I type this as last minute repairs are done.

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Malawi: Expedition achievements

Update from our Malawi expedition volunteering with elephants, hippo, cats, pangolins and African biodiversity

The 2025 Malawi Expedition has now finished and I am happy to reflect on another successful expedition, with a great group of expeditioners, some memorable highlights and a lot of good research data collected.

This is an expedition with multiple research projects: elephant herd observations, hippo transects, elephant dung analysis, camera trap survey, night transects, bird transects and an iNaturalist project, which gives a record of all interesting species spotted opportunistically.

We have done well on all of these and uploaded a large set of data for the expedition scientist to analyse and write up.

A provisional summary of some of what the 2025 expedition has achieved:

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