Some knowledge cannot be transmitted in a course or a book. It can only be transmitted by living alongside the work for long enough that the land begins to teach you directly.

 

An internship or apprenticeship at Tsunul Reserve is for the person who has made a decision: that this work—healing degraded land, building ecological communities, and growing the native plants that restoration depends on—is what they want to do with their life. The question is no longer whether. The question is how to develop the depth of knowledge and the practical capability that makes the work genuinely effective.

 

We have hosted over 100 international interns and mentored 8 university projects at Tsunul Reserve and in our 20 years in Canada. The people who came for a month and stayed for six, who left and built their own restoration practices and nurseries, who went back to their universities with field experience that transformed their research or went on to government or private jobs — these are the people this program is designed for.

 

100+ · International interns & students hosted in Canada and Mexico
8 · University projects mentored
30 · Years mentoring in Canada and México
514 · Species documented on site

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What interns have actually produced:

 

Two examples. An undergraduate thesis completed at the reserve and Andrés's ant biodiversity survey (50 new species for the Yucatan!). Both went back to their universities as finished work. 

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Ant biodiversity research​

 

 

Undergrad thesis

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How to apply

There's no application fee, and it costs nothing to talk to us.

Start with the Path. Before you apply, do the first two stages: Awakening and Seeing. It's free, it lives in the app at app.planethealers.org, and it takes about a month. Thirty days of sit spots. Twenty species logged.

We ask for this because it's the work. Everything that happens at Tsunul starts with sitting still in one place long enough to notice what's there. If that month sounds like a chore, the four months here will be worse. If it sounds like the best part of your day, we should talk.

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It also tells us more than a CV ever would. We can see how somebody pays attention.

Then send the form. Five questions, and we read every one.

1. Where do you live, and what have you been doing for the last year?

2. Describe one place you know well. What has changed there in the time you've been watching it?

3. What do you want to be doing in five years?

4. When could you come, and for how long?

5. Anything about money, health, or visas we should know now?

Then a call. Twenty minutes on video with Paul or Sophia. Free. This is where you ask us the awkward questions and we find out whether we all want to eat dinner together for four months. Bring your doubts. We'd rather hear them now.

 

About the fee

$680 a month covers your bed, your food, and everything you eat and learn while you're here. That's what it costs us, roughly.

If it's out of reach, say so on the form. We run a sliding scale down to a full place at no cost, and we don't ask anyone to prove anything. The Path has always been given away. This is the same idea with a roof on it.

Mexican students doing servicio social or residencia profesional pay nothing. Talk to your university coordinator first, then write to us.

 

Everyone starts as an intern

One to four months to begin with. There's no separate apprenticeship application, because we only offer the five and six month apprenticeships to interns who are already here and doing well.

That's better for you as much as for us. Four months is long enough to know whether tropical restoration is your life or a good year, and short enough that you haven't lost anything if the answer is no.

 

What it's actually like

Fair warning before you fill anything in.

The work is hot. Days start before dawn because that's when the birds are up and the sun hasn't started. Some of it is repetitive: you will carry water, you will pull the same vine off the same tree three times in a season, and you will spend an afternoon potting seedlings. The cenote at the end of it makes up for a lot.

You'll be living in a small community on a limestone reserve in rural Yucatán, a long way from a bar. Some people find that the point. Some people last three weeks.

Spanish helps and isn't required. English works. Sophia teaches in both.

 

Timing

We take applications all year and reply to all of them.

Apprenticeship season runs October to March, when the weather is workable and there's the most to do. Internships can start any month, though the rains from June to September change what's possible.

We're taking one or two people at a time while we get this right. That means we say no more often than we'd like, and a no this year is not a no next year.