Sea kayaking. Skiing. Rock climbing. Camping. There’s one factor that almost all of my hobbies have in common: the outdoors. I grew up in a small mountain town, and sun or snow you could always find me romping through the pines.
I moved down to the coast when I started college, and I was quick to explore my new terrain. By junior year, I was leading outdoor adventures and even got a student job checking out gear and leading wilderness skills trainings.
The world is truly a playground to me, and yet it wasn’t until recently that I started considering what must be done to preserve what’s around me. Typically, I spend my free time camping, but this year I decided to take a new type of Spring break.
Hobbies Turned Volunteering
Though I had spent so much time exploring natural landscapes, I hadn’t taken the time to slow down and become part of any conservation projects. So, I began researching environmental volunteer programs, which led me to South America.
The Amazon Rainforest spans numerous developing countries including Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. One of our world’s greatest treasures, the Amazon is a vast and diverse source of natural resources.
But despite being coined the “lungs of the planet,” tropical rainforests aren’t always protected as carefully as they should be. The Amazon Jungle has been plagued by unmonitored deforestation turned commercial logging.
Even indigenous communities living off the land cut down large areas of rainforest after their farmland becomes depleted. That’s why educational initiatives addressing eco-farming and practices like crop rotation contribute to conservation over time.
Because the health of the Amazon is so important to the balance of the natural environment across the globe, I knew I wanted to become part of its preservation. While researching environmental volunteering options, I found Maximo Nivel.
I was immediately drawn to Maximo’s jungle conservation program; it wasn’t long before I found myself en-route to the Peruvian Amazon. Nestled in South America, Peru is also home to the Andes, as well as coastal and desert habitats.
In spite of Peru’s unparalleled natural resources, little governmental funding is reserved for environmental protection or educational initiatives. The overlooked wonder of this country’s biodiversity made it the perfect place to volunteer my time.
Undoing What’s Done
I had wanted to find a program in a developing country. Peru already has a large presence in Latin America and is starting to make a global name for itself. However, its economic growth needs to be met by environmental consciousness so that the country’s industries can evolve sustainably.
To truly help communities toward lasting development, we need to ensure they aren’t destroying their land in the name of economic progress. Though this isn’t obvious to everybody, to help the population we must help our planet first.
Thankfully, private, and public organizations are already working to combat deforestation in the Amazon. Logging, however, has all but stopped. There is also limited awareness in the region surrounding environmental conservation.
So as a conservation volunteer, I worked alongside local professionals to rebuild the rainforest and encourage the community to rethink the way they were living for the betterment of future generations.
In addition to participating in educational outreach, I got to help maintain trails, remove any man-made waste interfering with the natural environment, and promote the health of native plant and animal populations.
We planted native trees and shrubs while removing invasive ones so the rainforest can one day grow back to its previous state. Environmentalists made a point of farming alongside locals to foster a sense of collaboration.
Taking the time to replant and restore is all that can save the future of our environment, and in turn, society. Manpower is what got us into this mess and manpower is what will get us out. It’s time to undo what we’ve done.
Reflecting Back, Looking Forward
We can’t change the past, but we can work in the present to preserve the future. Tending to the environment responsibly and working with communities rather than against them spurs long-term growth on both a local and global scale.
By immersing myself in the Peruvian Amazon, I witnessed the delicate relationship between humanity and the natural world firsthand. We need ecosystems like the oxygen-rich rainforest not only to enjoy life but also to simply survive.
If we continue to exhaust our natural resources, we’ll be strapped to meet our basic needs. But if we persist with preservation efforts like reforestation, we’ll still have a planet full of life and energy—perfect for play.
Peru was the ideal place to explore environmental volunteering. The country is a hidden mecca of biodiversity but its infrastructure is still developing. As much as we need to focus on improving people’s standard of living, we can’t lose sight of how intertwined humanity and the natural environment are.
Not everyone is able to volunteer abroad, let alone in the Amazon. However, the way we live doesn’t only affect our little pocket of the planet. If we can all treat each other and our environment with more respect, we’ll be taking a step in the right direction.