Intern Life at Camino Verde
Volunteers Jarven (left) and Luca at Camino Verde Baltimori
text and photos by Emma Schneck, environmental journalist
who visited Camino Verde in 2025
Choosing to live in the Amazon in a place as remote and wild as Camino Verde’s research station in Tambopata is no easy endeavour. Here, staff and volunteers are surrounded by dense, thick forests, miles and miles away from most kinds of modern amenities. Even simple tasks like drying clothes can seem like nearly insurmountable feats in the tropical humidity.
Luca became an experienced harvester of cacao
Despite the rural jungle conditions, Camino Verde attracts volunteers and interns from all over the world to live and work in the Amazon rainforest, some for months at a time.
Luca Barlemann and Jarven Nieweler are both volunteers from Germany working for an entire year with Camino Verde. Record holders for the longest stays at CV, they were placed through ADRA Deutschland, a German non-profit that partners with development and aid organizations all over the world.
“I had it in mind that I wanted to work in nature and just do something physical,” said Luca. “I wanted to see and experience a different way to live. That was my main thing.”
For Jarven, coming to the Peruvian Amazon was a dream since childhood. “My favorite childhood book was about here in the Peruvian Amazon. I really loved the jungle as a child and I knew that when I grew up I wanted to come here.”
That childhood dream of coming to the Amazon rainforest was shared by Lena der Boer, a Biology student from the Netherlands. As a young child, she tried to plant a palm tree in her bedroom, unfortunately to no avail.
Now Lena is researching several Amazonian tree species and monitoring their growth process at Camino Verde. Her work over a three month stay aims to optimize production from the trees and measure how much carbon is stored by different tree species.
Lena measuring tree heights in primary forest and agroforestry systems
Lena was connected to CV through a professor in the Netherlands whose previous students had positive internship experiences with the organization. When Lena was looking for a local institution to host her research, her professor suggested Camino Verde. “The idea is to bring in students that kind of do scientific research at CV and both benefit from the outputs of the project.”
“I knew that I wanted to go to a really remote place in nature for my research,” said Lena. “With Camino Verde, we wanted to evaluate the best factors for tree growth rate to help inform projects in which native communities plant these trees.”
In terms of their day to day activities, volunteers and interns lend a hand in many ways around Camino Verde. Some days they are handling seedlings in the nursery, planting new trees in the field, or using machetes to harvest bushels of bananas in the jungle-like farm.
As Luca describes, “The volunteers are here to be a helping hand in many ways. We support the staff to maintain the land and work on projects with Alejandro, the coordinator for the center. We do a lot of different tasks, which is really cool because you gain so much experience in so many things.”
Likewise, Jarven’s favorite thing about volunteering with Camino Verde is getting out of her comfort zone. “I do so many things I’ve never done before in my life—and have seen things I’ve never seen before in my life,” she says.
While the interns help out a lot around Camino Verde, life in the jungle is not all work and no play. After long days in the forest, the staff and volunteers often unwind with a friendly game of volleyball or a cooling swim in the river on particularly hot days.
More than anything, it’s these moments of joy and connection with the staff that has made the interns feel most at home in the Amazon.
“When I first arrived at Camino Verde, I was really happy,” shared Lena. “I felt at home immediately. The team is so welcoming, they really get to know you.”
Camino Verde hosts interns and volunteers at their center in Tambopata. Learn more about their volunteer program by connecting with them here.
Jarven and Luca harvesting and hauling bananas
Emma Schneck is an environmental journalist, photographer, and editor specializing in sustainable tourism and environmental activism. She has an MSc in Environmental Governance at the University of Oxford. “I tell visually-engaging stories that bridge the nexus between environment, global travel, climate solutions and more.” She visited Camino Verde in 2025.