Overview
Operation Wallacea (Opwall) began working within the Wallacea region of Indonesia in 1995. Initially funded to run a rapid assessment of this poorly-explored area, they soon discovered that the need for long term monitoring data in many ecosystems was critical.
Nearly 30 years on, Opwall now run biodiversity research expeditions all over the world, sourcing data that has underpinned hundreds of research papers and informed high-level environmental policy decisions in the sites we work in
They also offer biodiversity and conservation field training courses in the UK as well as online training courses using data collected on our expeditions.
Mission and approach
Operation Wallacea adheres to a social and environmental responsibility programme that meets or exceeds the requirements of a Responsible Tourism Operator based on the following core principles:
- To ensure that all field operations are run by local NGOs or host country academic institutions who own the facilities and equipment used.
- To maximise income to local communities.
- To ensure that staff and volunteers understand and have minimal impact on local culture and customs.
- To ensure that the core research programme is targeted at providing information on locally relevant conservation priorities.
- To work with local communities to develop income streams linked to conservation management.
- To work with local communities to increase awareness of environmental issues and provide skills training for conservation management
- To ensure the research programmes have minimal impacts on the use of resources.
What they do
Operation Wallacea is a series of biological and conservation management research programmes that operate in remote locations across the world.
These expeditions are designed with specific wildlife conservation aims in mind – from identifying areas needing protection, through to implementing and assessing conservation management programmes.
Large teams of university academics are concentrated at target study sites, giving volunteers the opportunity of working on a range of projects. These programmes provide the opportunity to consider science and conservation of key ecosystems from a global perspective.
The programmes also draw upon researchers from a wide range of different disciplines and academic institutions to address major issues related to the sustainable management and conservation of some of the world’s most diverse but threatened environments.
Expedition and participation opportunities
Operation Wallacea run field sites during the summer in Croatia, Honduras, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru, Romania and South Africa. Students can join to help with the monitoring effort and gain first hand field experience living and working in remote and beautiful locations.
Their expeditions involve teams of experienced scientists and field biologists running a series of biodiversity surveys and independent research projects at overseas sites.
These scientists collect monitoring data and complete short-term specialist projects to support academic publications and providing long-term datasets indicating the ecological health of our research sites.
Monitoring surveys are typically standardized between sites, allowing them to not only identify long-term biodiversity changes occurring in a given site, but also meaning we can compare trends and answer conservation questions using data from multiple sites sourced from the same methods.
Specialist projects are more short-term and often change between years. These use specific methodological approaches to answer a range of ecological and conservation questions.
Examples include examining the effectiveness of coral snake mimicry patterns, evaluating the impact of techniques for controlling populations of invasive lionfish, or targeted taxonomic collections to support our search for new species.
Last updated: January 2026.