Discover, Plan & Go!

Staying at remote field camps in one of the world's most spectacular and stark landscapes, you will work in the company of giraffes, gemsbok, springbok, and the livestock of local herders. You will locate elephant herds from vehicles, note their location using GPS technology, document their behavior and group composition, track collared elephants, and collect dung samples for genetic analysis. You may also spend time taking similar data on the region's unusual desert-dwelling giraffes. In Hobatere National Park, you will rotate between observing wildlife at a waterhole from a blind and walking transects with an armed guard in search of elephants. If time allows, a side trip to Etosha National Park may round out your experience.

As an Eons member, you'll get a free, 1 year membership to Earthwatch — a $35 value — when you sign up on any expedition. And members pay $100 less on their expedition contribution — so you save $135! Just put code EONS2007 in the comment field on the signup form, or, if you call, tell the Expedition Coordinator that you found us on Eons.

Earthwatch expedition-related costs may be tax-deductible in the US as volunteer expenses. Please check with your tax adviser.

You will soon be winging your way to Namibia to help us undertake some exciting research in one of the world’s most forbidding landscapes. Namibia has been described as the land God created in anger and this is probably a pretty fair description of the environment. In the hyper-arid northwest of Namibia, where all life is dependent on the spatial distribution and availability of water, drought is a common event and can have devastating effects on the wildlife and domestic stock populations. However, throughout this unforgiving land there is the miracle of life and surprisingly, elephants adapt to the hostile environment. These animals have previously been well documented by filmmakers and photographers alike but unfortunately very little scientific research has been conducted on the desert-dwelling elephants.

This is our sixth year of involvement with Earthwatch Institute after completing a four-year study on the Hoanib River Catchment that focused on the interaction between the environment, people, domestic stock, and wildlife. One of the findings of the earlier study was that very little knowledge of large mammal population dynamics and survival strategies existed for this arid environment. This is from where the current project supported by Earthwatch evolved. The study focuses on various aspects of the desert-dwelling elephant ecology, including numbers, population structure, behavior, range distribution, adaptations, and interactions.

However, the overall aim of the project is to assist the government, other non-government agencies, and the communities who live in close association with the wildlife in better managing their resources and to contribute to the long-term sustainability of both humans and elephants.