We are now accepting intern applications for the 2011 Internship Program. We are looking to do trips to Papua New Guinea, Nepal, and Mongolia in the Summer of 2011 and would love to hear why you think you should be on our trip! For more information on the internship you can email, HIT@m-cam.com.
Mass slaughter and rape in the Congo.
Conflict Minerals.
They are in almost all of our smart phones, laptops, and digital cameras. A conflict mineral is any mineral mined in conditions of armed conflict and human rights abuses.
Nicholas D. Kristof, of the New York Times, reported that in Congo, there are "women who have been mutilated, children who have been forced to eat their parents' flesh, & girls who have been subjected to rapes that destroyed their insides".
We received updates from Krishna, our contact in Nepal this past weekend. He has been spending time visiting various places within Nepal which have given him various ideas for the coutnry. The political situation there is unstable but peaceful. The prime minister has recently resigned and many party's prominent leaders are looking to take his place. The monsoon season has also arrived so the community has planted fruit trees near their club house which is serving as the medical facility which was described in his previous update.
The Forest Trust, formally The Tropical Forest Trust (TFT), is a non-profit international organization seeking to address the problem of deforestation by working with companies and communities and help them trade Forest Responsible Products. Created in 1999, The TFT works to set up traceability systems and assist in producers towards sustainable forest management.
This afternoon we received a message from one of our dear friends in India, Dr. Bremley W. B. Lyngdoh. He expressed a story to us about how his ancestors planted their trees on their native land 500 years ago. The story is as follows:
"Remember in the movie Avatar the Colonel says - You are not in Kansas anymore - You are in Pandora - Well our homeland is like Pandora. In the depths of Meghalaya northeastern India, in one of the wettest places on earth, bridges aren't built - they were grown 500 years ago by our ancestors.
Although we are not currently working on trust documentation in the Amazon, the article published in the April 2010 issue of GeoWorld grabbed the HIT teams' attention. The article is titled "Protecting Their Rainforest", and the main focus is on the work Amazon Tribes are conducting to protect their home. In the remote jungles of South America, the Indians of the Amazon are using technologies like GPS units, Android devices, and Google Earth for "cultural mapping".
