Location:

Entebbe, Uganda

Program Type:

Study Abroad

Degree Level:

Undergraduate

Term:

Rolling Starts, Year Round

Program Overview

Program Description:

Explore human and chimpanzee interactions in the rainforests of Uganda while helping scientists develop a strategy for sharing shrinking food resources amongst primates and local farmers.

In the Budongo Forest Reserve in Uganda, fruit production by forest trees is mysteriously declining. The result: chimps and other primates are raiding local subsistence farms. Dr. Fred Babweteera is studying primates’ foraging habits and fruit trees’ pollination and fruiting cycles with the goal of developing new approaches to sharing the resources – and he needs help from volunteers.

About 700 chimpanzees live in the Budongo Forest Reserve, the largest remaining tropical rainforest in East Africa. Each day, you’ll team up with field assistants at the Budongo Conservation Field Station to observe chimps and other primates as they forage for food in the morning and late afternoon. You’ll also learn to identify local trees, and work alongside researchers to set insect traps, collect trapped insects, label and preserve the collected specimens for further identification.

Setting Description:

Camp consists of several simple buildings erected on a large clearing in Budongo Forest. You’ll stay in a single room that contains a bed, beddings, mosquito net, reading desk and a chair. All rooms are connected to solar electricity. You’ll have access to a warm shower, every evening after a long day’s work. Water used at camp is harvested off the roofs or taken from the Sonso River.

Cost:

$2,825 – Our volunteers contribute essential funds that help to cover the cost of the research, and also through their inspiration and effort, they provide the people power without which many of our vital projects simply couldn’t take place. We are a non-profit organization but accommodation, meals, insurance, training and transport in the field are included within contribution cost.