Seacology

We’re less than a week away from the start of Spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, but it’s still kind of cold. If I could swing it, I’d probably try to get out of Chicago until early April and spend some time on a tropical island (who wouldn’t want to do that?). Unfortunately, the demand for tourist destinations along with other factors has put many of the world’s most beautiful islands at risk. Islands are important – not only are they awesome places to spend a vacation – they’re also the “earth’s great repositories of biological diversity.” Luckily, we have non-profits like Seacology to protect the world’s islands. Seacology is an organization that “searches for win-win situations where both the local environment is protected and islanders receive some tangible benefit for doing so.”

Island Jobs

As the “the world’s premier nonprofit environmental organization with the sole purpose of preserving the highly endangered biodiversity of islands throughout the world,” Seacology has a pretty cool niche. What’s even cooler is that they have a group of field representatives located across the world who scout out projects. I wish that I could tell you how to land that job, but it seems that they don’t have any island hopping vacancies right now. The kinds of projects that Seacology does vary pretty wildly, but they all have the structure of a trade.

Here are some of their more recent projects.

Repair to 20 primary schools and seven municipal offices in exchange for the protection of ten Madagascar Flying Fox roosts totaling 321 acres in the Mangoro Region of Madagascar.
Construction of a kindergarten and school administration building in exchange for the establishment of a forest preserve and two marine protected areas for Vuna Village, Fiji.
Establishment of a permanent no-take mangrove forest reserve in exchange for coral reef clean-up and mangrove restoration in Iboih Village, Indonesia.
Protection of the highly endangered Hainan Gibbon in exchange for the education of the children of four villages, Hainan, China.
Construction of a community center in exchange for protection of a forest reserve on Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu.

It sounds like an awesome concept, and it’s something that you can be a part of. Seacology currently has a job opening for a Development Assistant in Berkeley, CA posted on Idealist. It doesn’t sound as though you’ll get to go island hopping, but maybe that will be in the cards eventually. If it sounds like something that you’d want to do, send a cover letter, resume, and contact information for three references to islands@seacology.org.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

If you could visit any island, which one would it be?

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