Daniela

Getting Bigger and Busier – 2025 Overview

March 14, 2026March 14, 2026 Daniela

So we had more nests than ever, more interns than ever, and I have put on some more weight – hence the title “getting bigger” suits so perfectly well to the season 2025. Haha!

But jokes aside… Here is my rundown of events and I hope I don’t miss any that are worth mentioning.

Off-season: Preparations and stuff

Our new 2-bed Cabañita

It seems like ages ago but our beautiful Mini Cabaña is not even a full year old at the time of writing! As we had a lot of inquiries for the sea turtle season of 2025 and I wanted to be able to put together a larger team, I decided that it was time to finally have another addition to MEMANTAs sustainable infrastructure.

It took a while to find a local team that would build the cabañita for a reasonable price but I was not going to accept to pay more than I did back in 2020 for our first Cabaña which had been considerably larger than this one.

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Good to know

Conservation Internship Abroad: What to Know and Where to Go

January 18, 2026January 18, 2026 Daniela

If you’re studying biology, ecology, environmental sciences or even geography, you might want to consider doing an internship at a conservation initiative abroad. Whether it’s a voluntary internship that’s ought to benefit your personal development and career or a mandatory, academic internship that is needed to get ECTS points – a conservation internship abroad lets you contribute to real-world environmental protection, gain hands-on experience, and develop skills that are increasingly valued in many sustainability-related careers.

As I have been there and done that myself and am now running a center for sea turtle conservation in Nicaragua where interns are a highly valued asset, I know what the common fears, challenges and pitfalls are when choosing a reputable project.

This is why I wrote this guide which hopefully helps you decide whether a conservation internship abroad could be the right fit for you. Towards the end of my blog post, I will show you how to find a suitable project and where to look for offers worldwide.

What involves a Conservation Internship Abroad?

A conservation internship abroad is a structured program offer by an environmental organization or a grassroots conservation project. It combines:

Practical conservation work (field research, species protection, habitat restoration)
Learning and training under experienced staff or researchers
Cultural immersion in another country

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Good to know

7 things to consider before you volunteer with sea turtles

March 6, 2025 Daniela

Releasing baby turtles at sunset on a heavenly beach with coconut palms and white sans is really fun. But the work with sea turtles involves a little bit more than just doing the picturesque, instagramable stuff.

Are you thinking about becoming a sea turtle volunteer or conservation intern abroad? Then check out this list with 7 things to consider before you book your trip!

1. Money

Be ready to invest some money when you want to volunteer with sea turtles!

The great majority of wildlife conservation projects have a pay-to-work model in place. Well, they call it “pay-to-work”, but it mostly is a “pay-to-live” model.
Because the providers – which are usually NGOs on a very tight budget – give volunteers a place to sleep and three meals a day plus drinks and water.
But that’s not all: Receiving volunteers requires staff to train, supervise and care for them, especially when the volunteers are no experts in their field but rather just learn new skills. And because wildlife projects are mostly off-the-grid, the providers also take care of their general well-being and leisure activities.

So you volunteer for free (that’s why it’s called volunteering and not working), but you pay for your housing, food, convenience and leisure.

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Turtle season

Highlights, Mysteries & First Times – What happened in 2024

January 22, 2025February 13, 2025 Daniela

It has been few weeks only since we shut down the 2024/25 MEMANTA season. So it is time to tell you guys about all the amazing things that have happened.
I can certainly say that this has been our most successful and most expensive sea turtle season so far. Details will follow shortly…

Buckle up, grab your drink, lean back and keep reading… 📖

A new Hatchery… again

Once again it was time to expand our hatchery, even if it was just for a mere 2 metres. But we re-did the whole thing:
(1) We buried a black plastic fence around 40 cm deep all around the hatchery which is sturdier and more durable than the mesh,
(2) We renewed all the posts and even the wooden door as termites and rain had basically destroyed the former ones.

The new hatchery was built in mid July with the help of our first interns, Kim and Fiona from Luxembourg! These were our first guests ever from this small country and they were truly wonderful people who enjoyed themselves very much I think 🙂

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Turtle season

Challenges, Changes and Chances – What happened in 2023

January 6, 2024January 6, 2024 Daniela

Simply the fact that it’s 10 pm and I’m sitting at home in front of my laptop instead of working in the hatchery or walking on the beach shows that the sea turtle nesting season has come to an end – again.

Now it’s time to show you what we saw, felt, did and experienced over the past few months – in pictures who hopefully speak a thousand words each.

As I covered the months January and February in my previous blog post already, I’ll start with…

march

Let’s start our post with some doggo cuteness overload. We received a new family member: Gulasch! He was so shy, calm and sweet at the beginning. A little baby to melt your heart. Who would have thought he would turn into the freaking crazy daredevil he is today…

Baby Gulasch
Güllllliiiiii
so sweet and innocent
he was such a baby!
cutiepie

Another great thing that happened in March was our volcano trip – halfway up the San Cristobal volcano (Nicaraguas highest volcano btw) and then up the Casitas volcano where we were rewarded with spectacular views. This was our well-deserved mini adventure holiday before I had my surgery in April.

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