It’s not a mistake he’ll be likely to repeat with her or any other woman: Carmen Rosa gives him a thorough ass whipping… and a tongue lashing, to boot. When she’s done with him, the man is prostrate at her feet, bleeding, crawling to find a handhold to pull himself off the ground. “You didn’t have to make his whole face bloody,” says her friend, who adds admiringly, “Daring, daring.”

If you think there’s something incongruent about a 40 year old indigenous Bolivian woman dressed in a traditional pollera skirt, embroidered shawl, and bowler hat kicking ass and taking names, well, that’s your issue. Carmen isn’t too concerned with what you think or what you expect. Pretty much everything everyone expects of her is subservient to Carmen’s expectations of herself.

Polonia Ana Choque Silvestre (Carmen Rosa is a ring name) has made a name for herself by taking people down: Men who oppress women. People who marginalize Bolivia’s indigenous communities. Politicians who stand in her way. And she’s especially passionate about schooling people who don’t think women should participate as anything other than observers in the popular sport of lucha libre, or wrestling. Even if those people are her friends or family.

“The ending of the film is a little ambiguous,” I say when we meet in New York, where she’s visiting to celebrate the occasion of “Mamachas del Ring’s” showing in HBO’s New York International Latino Film Festival. Maybe I should start the interview with a less intimate, more formal question, but I’m curious to know how she resolved an ultimatum her husband had issued: Wrestling or family.

“Both.”

I’m relieved.

“He used to be an artisan, a silversmith,” she tells me, “but now he’s like my manager. I take him with me when I travel and he likes that. Our economic condition is much better.” In fact, Carmen’s entire family is making a living through her involvement in lucha libre. “My son is just starting his training for lucha libre,” she says, “and my daughter helps with the promotion of my fights.”

She tells me how much things have improved since the documentary was filmed. “We have our own arena to fight in now,” she says, referring to the other indigenous women who are her fellow wrestlers. “We have someone doing the promotion work for us so we don’t have to do it ourselves. And I’m traveling a lot.” She smiles. “I like seeing new places.”

Carmen’s fame as a wrestler has taken her to Peru, where she was featured on “Magaly TV,” a popular show she references several times during our conversation. It’s clear the trip was significant to her; she and her companeras were received as celebrities and the buzz the segment generated started to spread throughout the region. Other media outlets picked up her story. Famous wrestlers from Mexico, “the cradle of lucha libre,” she says with reverence, have come to visit her in Bolivia.

Here in New York, Carmen has been taking in the sights between movie screenings. The Statue of Liberty, seen by boat. Top of the Rock. The Off-Broadway show, “Fuerza Bruta,” which she raves about. The wax museum, where Park snaps an iPhone photo of Carmen standing next to the Incredible Hulk. I have no doubt she’d kick his ass, too, even though he’s three or four times her height.

Though “Mamachas del Ring” hasn’t yet been picked up by a distributor in the US, an assistant to the director tells me that people recognize Carmen on the street. They say “Mamacha,” a term that, translated roughly, means “Big Mama.” As we walk, I hear a young girl say, “Mommy, that lady has a beautiful dress.” She even turns around to take a second look at the sequins and gold embroidery thread as her mother hurries her along.

Carmen eats it all up.

In fact, we’re standing in the crosswalk on 23rd Street and 8th Avenue when a truck driver leans out the window to salute her. Carmen smiles broadly, flashing teeth that have been gilded with gold. Then, she takes a long sip of a fruit smoothie Park bought for her at a street fair before she crosses the street and enters the theatre for the next screening.

*
Her wrestling career has taken off, and is far less precarious than it was when Park filmed the documentary. Then, Carmen had to support her wrestling career and her family with money she made as a vendor of small electronics and household knick-knacks. Carmen’s life has changed dramatically since she fought tooth and nail to open a space for women in the male-dominated world of Bolivian wrestling. She is even more proud of this victory than her personal wins. More girls are expressing interest in a sport that was taboo just a few years ago, and one of her goals is to open a training gym for young women who are as passionate about la lucha as she is.

Photo: Francisco Collazo

But Carmen may soon prove that she’s a mamacha in an entirely different ring. Her increasingly high profile has attracted the interest of Bolivian political parties, who are courting Carmen to promote their causes as a candidate. Within five years, she says, she expects to decide which party she’ll align with and will begin campaigning. For what office? “We’ll see, we’ll see,” she says.

Such a transition from sports and entertainment to politics is less a stretch than it may seem; the phenomenon is relatively common in Latin America (One example is the popular salsa singer and actor, Ruben Blades, who served as Panama’s tourism minister, a Cabinet-level position, until late 2009; he also ran for President previously).

The advantages Carmen’s candidacy might bring to any political party are considerable; with a substantial fan base–and a large percentage of it consisting of women and indigenous people–Carmen might help swing key voting blocs in a particular direction. The fact that voting is compulsory in Bolivia makes elections fierce, and since Evo Morales–an indigenous farmer affiliated with the Movement for Socialism party– was elected as president in 2005, women’s formal and informal involvement in politics has been on the rise.

Opportunities for indigenous women to influence local and federal level policies have also increased, largely due to President Morales’ commitment to both groups. Bringing Carmen, who is both indigenous and female, into politics, then, is a no-brainer. Though she doesn’t seem to have fully articulated the items that would constitute her platform, she immediately mentions that protecting the coca industry as part of a larger initiative to protect jobs and stabilize the economy is an issue that is critical to her community.

*
As Carmen’s visit in New York comes to an end, she seems a bit sad. She says she will be happy to see her husband and her family after the week away, but she has enjoyed her visit. Although the documentary doesn’t win any awards at the festival, she and Park both seem satisfied with the number of people who turned up for the film’s screenings, as well as their reactions: “Just saw a moving documentary called ‘mamachas of the ring’. If u’ve ever had 2 choose between a career & a personal life, u need 2 see it,” writes @MyLifeAsLiz_Liz on Twitter.

Carmen’s struggle with those types of choices isn’t over.

Perhaps it’s just beginning.

Photos by Francisco Collazo

Community Connection:

Follow “Mamachas del Ring” on Twitter.

1. Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada

Photo: D’Arcy Norman

2. Takilma, Oregon

Photo: grampymoose

3. Vanuatu

Photo: hiddedevries

4. Laos

Photo: Christian Haugen

5. Disneyland, Anaheim, California, USA

Photo: HarshLight

6. Northumberland, UK

Photo: Robbo-Man

7. Singapore

Photo: jensen_chua

8. Hokkaido, Japan

Photo: kevinpoh

9. Steampunk Tree House at Coachella; Indio, California, USA

Photo: Fred von Lohmann

10. Finca Bellavista, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica

Photo: Ian MacKenzie

11. Another tree house at Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada

Photo: D’Arcy Norman

Community Connection:

Interested in architecture and design? Check out this photo essay: 12 Coolest Art Installations in the History of Burning Man.

Photo: Franco Folini

If you’re feeling down, we’ve got 19 reasons to feel hopeful about the world.

1. Andris Bjornson

Long-time Matador member Andris Bjornson has a degree in physics. He’s worked as a wildland firefighter, a State Department diplomat, and an adventure trip leader.

But the reason why Andris is #1 on this list is because of the work he has done in Haiti. Within six days following the January 12, 2010 earthquake, Andris traveled to Port-au-Prince with Inveneo, a non-profit dedicated to improving information communications technology in underserved communities. “Within three weeks we linked 11 NGOs, among them CARE, the IRC, and Save the Children, setting them up with networks so they could connect with their headquarters,” Andris says. “Though the relief effort seem[ed]chaotic, it would be much more so without the technology we were able to put in place.”

2. The Epicocity Project

Using blogging and social media to spread the word about real-time conservation projects will eventually be so common as to be unremarkable. Until then, Epicocity’s showing other individuals and organizations how to amp up awareness and get people stoked about the environment. They must be doing something right–earlier this week, they were featured in “Monster Fish” on the National Geographic Channel.

3. Mitch Anderson of AmazonWatch

Prior to (finally) meeting Mitch in person here in New York a few months ago, I was already impressed with him; every email conversation, every phone call with Mitch is a total stoke. The guy lives with a sense of urgency about protecting the environment and indigenous communities, especially in South America, but he’s remarkably free of the nervous anxiety that tends to lead people with such interests into pushing others to adopt their beliefs. For someone who’s so intense, he’s incredibly laid-back.

Photo: Mitch Anderson

I like hearing Mitch talking about attending oil companies’ shareholder meetings, where he tries to reason with people who have an obvious stake in perpetuating our global oil addiction. I like how he disappears from the radar–literally–for a few months, and then returns for a minute, banging out emails that end with “I’m headed out now to document some oil pits but will be back online later this evening.” And I’m proud to publish his first-person reports on all of this important work, especially this photo essay.

4. Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jr.

Like Mitch, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jr. battles big oil companies and demands that they be accountable for the damage they cause. Ken’s stake in the struggle, however, is profoundly personal: his father, the writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was killed for the work that he did to raise awareness about Royal Dutch Shell’s activities and their effects on the Ogoni people.

I’ve seen Ken Saro-Wiwa speak. More than a year later, I continue to be inspired by his calm, rational, and absolutely tenacious approach to his work. Big oil may have big resources, but with folks like Mitch and Ken, I feel confident that the push for their accountability will continue.

5. The popularity of the “green” movement

So many causes and movements come and go, but it looks like the green movement is here to stay. Yes, we still need to reduce our dependence on oil, innovate alternative energy sources, and reduce our consumption, but environmental awareness seems much more visible now than it did a decade ago.

Photo: mastermaq

6. Plastic bag bans

Matador member and contributor Anna Brones recently wrote to let us know that Portland, Oregon is the latest US city to issue a plastic bag ban. For a list of other cities and countries that have banned plastic bags, read “Plastic Bag Ban: Coming Soon to a City Near You?”.

7. Majora Carter

I called Majora Carter out for a specious argument about urban poverty and environmentalism, but that criticism aside, Carter is a serious inspiration for urban environmentalists. Sustainable South Bronx, the organization she founded, is turning a former industrial zone into a livable neighborhood.

8. Misty Tosh

Misty, also a long-time Matador member and contributor, set up her own NGO, 4th World Love, in Lombok, Indonesia.

That was after she helped fund cleft palate surgeries for a bunch of kids.

Who knows what she’ll roll out next?

9. Twitter and the power of social media

Yes, we can spend way too much time in front of the screen instead of engaging with one another in real life, but when used well, social media can have incredibly positive implications, both for communicating about important issues that aren’t immediately urgent, and in emergencies.

I have a feeling we’re only just beginning to tap into social media’s possibilities.

10. Chris Jordan

Some artists care primarily about aesthetics. Others are more concerned with their message. Chris Jordan is concerned with both. What started out as a simpleproject to document human consumption through photography has turned into an ongoing commitment to using his creativity to draw attention to the world’s environmental crises.

11. Passports with Purpose

Four Seattle-area travel bloggers got together and decided to leverage their relationships in the larger travel blogging community in order to fund a project abroad that could positively impact other people’s lives. 2010 marks the third year of Passports with Purpose. Read about last year’s project here, and add the PwP blog to your reader; it will be updated soon with details about this year’s project.

12. LAT 42

There is a downside to the popularity of the green movement: every outdoor tour operator and every hotel/lodge/motel/hostel call themselves green.

But LAT 42 seems like the real deal, probably because Matador senior editor David Miller is so stoked about it.

13. ProPublica

Don’t get me started on a rant about what passes for news in the US these days. Instead, let me focus on ProPublica, “an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.” Here’s their mission:

Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.

Though ProPublica’s reporters are working on dozens of important stories at any given moment, I’ve been especially impressed by and grateful for their work about New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Photo: Jenny Buccos

14. ProjectExplorer.org

I learned about ProjectExplorer.org after meeting its founder and director, Jenny M. Buccos, on Twitter. Like so many Matadorians, Jenny used to hold down a corporate job–as a marketing project manager for Credit Suisse First Boston–but ditched it in 2001 so she could travel around the world… and make free, educational films for kids.

She and her team just wrapped their Mexico series, which MatadorTV intern, Lindsay Clark, helped produce.

For kids who may not be able to travel, ProjectExplorer is an incredible resource.

15. Glimpse Correspondents Program

The Matador team was stoked to acquire the National Geographic Glimpse program earlier this year, mainly because of the Correspondents Program. When you read “From Egypt to Israel and Back Again”, “Two Villas in Iraq,” or “Hello, My Name is Run Basketball,” you’ll understand why.

16. Without Borders

Doctors without Borders. Reporters without Borders. Teachers without Borders. Scientists without Borders. Builders without Borders. The members of these organizations realize that true power is in sharing knowledge and collaborating with other people.

17. Voluntourism

I’m definitely not naive enough to believe that voluntourism is problem-free–in fact, I wrote a whole chapter about the perils of voluntourism in the book The Voluntary Traveler: Adventures from the Road Best Traveled. But for travelers who are aware of these problems and guard against them, voluntourism can be a transformative experience for everyone involved.

18. More women are (finally) gaining formal political power

I don’t believe in tokenism, and I don’t think that just because a woman is in office that women’s conditions will necessarily improve, but the fact that women are finally gaining formal political power–especially in countries where women have been systematically kept beyond the margins–is an important development.

19. The Matador community

The members of Matador are curious, caring, and generous. Check out the forums and see what I mean. They give me lots of hope for the future.

Community Connection:

Who and what give you hope? Share your sources of inspiration in the comments.

A construction helmet and other objects, repurposed as flower baskets. All photos by author.

Each morning, when I step out the door and onto Infanta, there’s the triple assault on the senses: dog shit from dachsunds and mixed breeds; diesel fumes belched out in plumes from the tailpipes of Ladas and camellos, and piles of garbage sitting on street corners, baking in the sun as they wait to be picked up and carted off.

Within minutes, I feel dirty.

By day 7, I’m wondering what the long-term health hazards of living here might be.

For all of its grit, though, Havana offers the “developed” world some useful lessons in green living:

1. We don’t need to-go cups.

The guy who sells guarapo–the fresh-pressed juice from sugar cane–on Infanta doesn’t use to-go cups. You belly up to the bar, such as it is, plunk down your change, and take a long draught straight from a glass. When you’re done, you hand the glass back, it gets dipped in some water, and the guy behind you gets ready for his swig.

Whatever you’re drinking–guarapo, or coffee, or Tu Kola–you don’t need so much of it that it requires a special, disposable cup. And you definitely don’t need to be in such a hurry that you can’t stand around or sit down for a few minutes to finish whatever you’ve ordered.

2. Minimalist packaging works just fine.

My mother, in Cuba for the first time, leans over the deep freezer at Carlos III’s meat shop to inspect the chicken, some of which is packaged, some of which isn’t. No matter– the price stickers are pasted onto the non-packaged chicken, just as they are to the thighs, legs, and breasts bundled and twisted into clear plastic baggies.

In the US, frozen chicken free of packaging would likely be scooped out of the freezer and disposed of, the management citing health concerns. None of our fellow shoppers, however, seemed to be worried about the minimalist packaging.

3. Almost everything can be repurposed.

During my first Cuba trip, I watched my mother-in-law wash and reuse disposable grocery bags until the “nylons,” as she calls them, were worn out. I returned home with an obsession: everything could be repurposed. A rubber band, a plastic shopping bag, the newspaper: nothing should be wasted.

Though I’ve controlled the obsession (partly by becoming conscious of what I consume in the first place), each subsequent trip to Havana has made me realize just how much we could upcycle if we really wanted to try our hand at repurposing objects that have outlived their original use.

4. We don’t need nearly as many artificial lights as we think.

Part money-saving strategy, part resource-consciousness, Cuba’s capital is hypervigilant about energy use. Businesses that don’t need to turn on all their lights… don’t. Banks, restaurants, hotel lobbies, bookstores… no matter where you go in Havana, you’re not likely to witness any excessive use of artificial light. And really, I didn’t miss it.

5. Our bodies are an incredibly efficient source of energy.

Like the other lessons, this one’s painfully obvious–except for the fact that it isn’t in societies where folks are overly attached to cars and gadgets that promise to make their lives more convenient.

Pedal power.

But check out the guy on the right. He’s repairing some nail clippers by pedaling a bike to which he’s attached a sharpener. What would happen if more people used the power of their bodies to do the work they need to do?

Many aspects of Havana’s “green” lifestyle were/are precipitated by sheer economic necessity- and by no means is my intention to romanticize poverty. Nor do I contend that the Cuban government consciously proposes or enforces any of these strategies as part of an ultra-environmental social consciousness, a la Curitiba, Brazil.

But economy and politics aside, seven days in Havana remind me of how easy it is to go green at the individual and societal levels. It’s worth a try.

Community Connection:

Which of these strategies could you try? Any others you’ve seen in your travels that would be simple to implement? Share in the comments.

A lionfish: both beautiful and dangerous. Photo: tibchris

That’s what the person on the other end of the line asked after the teacher passed her cell phone to me.

I was about to take 20 of her students snorkeling a mile or so offshore in La Parguera, Puerto Rico and her husband was calling to ask if I’d heard about the invasion of lionfish plaguing the area.

I hadn’t.

The caller–the teacher’s husband–related that he’d heard some lionfish had escaped from an aquarium in Florida. They’d recently been spotted in the Caribbean, and allegedly in the area where we’d be snorkeling.

As the group put on their swimsuits and slathered high SPF sunscreen on each other’s backs, I ran up to the shop where our local outfitters were based. “Carlos*,” I said, hugging the divemaster I’d known for five years. “Y que con el pez leon?”

Carlos might as well have been born in the water. He’s got a shark tattooed on his shoulder. He leads snorkel and dive trips all day, every day, but his free time is still spent on his boat. For a long time, he even lived in a house perched on stilts–in the water.

On the water, at least, I trusted him with my life.

“Nada,” he said, asking me about my husband, my daughter, what I’ve been up to since I saw him last July.

After the small talk, I pressed him again, just to be sure. “En serio, have you guys seen lionfish out there?” “Out at La Pared, yes,” he answered, referring to The Wall, a popular deep water dive spot a few miles offshore. “But not where we go. Todo bien.”

He winked.

*
Sometimes, if the kids aren’t strong swimmers, I’ll stay on the boat. Though the outfitters are attentive, teenagers stray; they get tired easily and overestimate their strength. When this happens, I can see them, jump in the water, and swim them back on track. Or haul them in.

But maybe I stayed on the boat this time because of the lionfish?

“Jim, I’ve got a question for you.” The captain, an American guy I hadn’t worked with before, lowered the Jimmy Buffett. “Shoot.”

“So is the lionfish out here?” “Yeah,” he said, almost without feeling. “It’s here.” He went back to the cabin. In a minute, Buffett’s washed out voice filled the quiet.

*
I saw Carlos dive down deep and surface again, a massive sea star in his hand. This is why he’s great with kids; he shows them a new world, gets them excited about it. He helps them confront their fears and he tells them “I’m proud of you” when they swim through that fear and pop up on the other side. Though neither of us will ever see these kids again, I know that their time with him changes them. They’re more self-confident. More brave. More willing to try new things.

If he told me about the lionfish, he knew I’d tell them the truth. And if I told them that truth, it would change everything. They’d sit on the boat, minds swimming with images of schools of lionfish.

And so he lied.

In La Parguera. Photo: Francisco Collazo

He lied, too, because this–showing people the sea–is his living. In a very real way, it’s the sustenance of the entire town. Described in guide books as a “quaint fishing village,” if you visit more than once or stay a lot longer, you know things are more complicated than that. All kinds of little lies are told here. Without them, the travel industry here would collapse.

As it would elsewhere.
*
The danger of the lionfish is real, but the National Geographic Society notes that a lionfish’s sting is “rarely fatal.” Excruciatingly painful, yes. But rarely fatal. Rarely. Hardly a comfort to people already frightened about the mysterious sea.

So we lie, Carlos and I.

__
*all names have been changed.

Community Connection:

Far more dangerous than the threat of lionfish to snorkelers and divers is the threat these invasives pose outside their home environments. To learn more, visit REEF.org.

Soldiers in the Korengal Valley, regarded as the most dangerous place in the world, and site of filming for the documentary. Photo: The US Army

Junger’s the journalist who wrote the wildly popular book The Perfect Storm. To the writer’s own surprise, the hardcover spent a year on The New York Times bestseller list; the paperback stayed at the top of the same list for more than two years. A Hollywood movie with A-listers George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg was made.

We’ll forgive him for the fact that the term has now become an entrenched phrase in American English, especially in light of his new project, the just-released documentary, “Restrepo.”

Restrepo is the name of an American combat medic, Pfc. Juan Restrepo, who was killed in action, and the subsequent military outpost his unit built in his name.

Junger and his co-director, Tim Hetherington, spent a year embedded with the 173d Airborne Brigade’s Battle Company, Second Platoon. Free from talking-head commentary, the documentary is completely framed from the perspective of the soldiers, a narrative strategy that contributed to the film’s win at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Have you seen “Restrepo”? If so, we’d love to hear your opinions in the comments section.

1. University of Dreams Foundation volunteers pose for a group picture in front of the school they’re painting in Guatemala.

2. University of Dreams Foundation volunteers build a retaining wall to prevent erosion in front of an elementary school in Guatemala.

3. University of Dreams Foundation volunteers paint a school in Guatemala.

4. Volunteers lead an English lesson in India.

5. School beautification projects are also part of the work done by University of Dreams Foundation volunteers.

6. Light building projects help volunteers use old skills… or develop new ones!

7. One of the rewards of volunteering is developing relationships with the people of communities you serve.

8. University of Dreams Foundation leads trips to Guatemala and India.

9. A joyful child motivates volunteers to pour their energy into their work.

10. Interaction with volunteers elicits welcoming smiles from these school kids.

11. School boys in India ham it up for the camera.

University of Dreams Foundation is currently accepting applications for its August trips to Guatemala and India.
For more information about the Guatemala trip, click here.
For more information about the India trip, click here.

Police confront students in a protest on the Capitlol steps in Puerto Rico. Photo: tecnofilms

I stood in the check-out line and thumbed through El Nuevo Dia to occupy myself as one customer realized he’d forgotten something, another argued over the shelf price versus the register price, and the cashier wandered off to get some change.

The news in Puerto Rico is rarely good.

I remember the menacing “5″ that took up the entire front page of the newspaper once, “5″ being Puerto Rico’s ranking, at the time, in the list of the world’s most violent countries (per capita).

I remember the national outrage that was sparked in late 2007–just before I moved off the island–when the municipal animal control agency in the town of Barceloneta was accused of throwing more than 80 dogs and cats off a bridge (the last survivor of that event died last week, according to another article I read, this time while waiting for coffee).

Last summer, while I was in Puerto Rico working on a travel guide book, three people were killed while drinking on the patio of El Taquito. A waitress was shot in the hand.

I have friends on the island who have been affected directly by violence: one friend shot in the head (he survived) and another whose ear was grazed by an errant bullet during a New Year’s celebration (it’s common to fire guns into the air on New Year’s… so common–and so dangerous– in fact, that the police sponsor an annual campaign: “No mas balas perdidas” (literally translated: “No more lost bullets.”)

Ultimately, one of the reasons why I left the island was because of this violence, which works its way subtly into many aspects of daily life: casual conversations, driving, trying to resolve a legitimate concern about a service you’re paying for. The violence is verbal. Psychological.

And it is most definitely physical.

Unfortunately, the violence seems to be more prominent and more disturbing than ever. The week prior to my arrival, three men had killed their wives. All three were police officers. And to bookend the trip, as I packed my bag last night and prepared to fly back to New York, I heard the news about the teargassing of protesting students by police in front of the Capitolio. I’d driven past the protest just an hour before the shit hit the fan. In the hours since this encounter, as the public has called for the Superintendent of Police to justify the use of such extreme force, local politicians have come out in support of the violence. “Se tiene que respetar,” said the Superintendent. “They’ve got to respect [the law].”

You don’t teach respect for the law through violence. You don’t teach love through abuse.

It’s important to point out that violence in Puerto Rico rarely affects travelers. So why bring this up at all? Because a country that’s 100 miles by 39 miles shouldn’t be among the world’s most violent nations. Because the mainstream media in the US (Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, after all) and abroad pay little attention to the island and someone needs to do so. Because the situation in Puerto Rico provides us the impetus to examine our own acts of violence. How do we wound others with our words and actions?

If you’re interested in participating in any of the protests that are being organized in response to the police action against the protesting students, there is a protest today, July 2, at 4 PM at 135 West 50th Street (between 6th and 7th Aves.) in New York City. A National Day of Protest has been scheduled for July 18 in Puerto Rico.

Community Connection:

To learn more about other aspects of Puerto Rico’s history and culture, visit our Puerto Rico Focus Page.

Looks nice here; . Photo: Francisco Collazo

As I pulled myself onto the boat, I had my gear in one hand and a collection of garbage I’d picked up from the bottom in the other. My occasional tour guide work in Puerto Rico always reminds me that humans have a really sick relationship with garbage. We make too much of it, first of all, and we ship it off to places that get paid for storing it because we don’t want to see it ourselves.

For people who live on islands or near water, problems with trash are particularly acute. When you learn more about the Pacific Trash Vortex (and there’s a companion vortex of garbage swirling in the Atlantic), you can’t help but think we’ve got to come up with a better way to deal with the waste we produce.

Community Connection:

Do you have ideas for improving our waste management systems? Share them in the comments.

Photo: Julian Love

As the Mental Floss blog explained:

“Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn are bringing vibrant art to unexpected places with their Favela Painting [P]roject. About one-third of Rio de Janeiro’s population lives in favelas, urban slums overrun with gangs and drugs. To prevent kids from getting caught up in the drug trade, the Favela Painting project pays Brazil’s youth to create murals for their communities. As a result, armies of teenage artists are giving their neighborhoods new faces—ones covered in bright, cheerful colors. The hope is that within the next few years, the entire landscape of favelas will become a massive work of art, drawing attention to the needs of the poor and filling the community with pride.”

Koolhaas and Urhahn recruited locals in Rio’s Santa Marta favela to spend a month learning painting techniques and transforming the gray-scale favelas into a vivid complex that looks as if someone took a prism and shattered it, scattering light across the whole favela.

The result–if you like color–is impressive; you can see before and after shots here.

The project is similar to a larger, worldwide initiative called Let’s Colour, which intends to “transform grey spaces with vibrant colour.”

On the one hand, these types of projects are appealing. They leave foreigners who come into “downtrodden” spaces feeling good about themselves and their work, good about what they can “give” or “share” with other people, and good about the connections they make with people who live in “grey spaces.”

On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder what happens when the artists go home and the colors fade. These types of projects are exciting and even temporarily transformative, perhaps, but they don’t lead to real social change. They don’t solve–or even really address–the kinds of problems that crowd people into tiny, grey concrete homes with little or no services. And even when these projects pay the painters, as Favela Painting does, one has to consider whether these projects are anything more than the do-gooder’s equivalent of crack: a quick hit of a feel-good sensation that eventually wears off.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments.

Community Connection:

Want to learn more about Brazil? Visit our Brazil Focus Page, where you can find trip tips, drink recipes, language resources, and much more!

Photo: Tracy O

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett made their fortunes in business (and continue to reap profits from their company and investments, respectively), and have spent years sharing their wealth with people in need through numerous philanthropic projects.

Now, they’re upping the ante, inviting the other people who run in their super-rich circles to increase their own commitments to spreading wealth. Specifically, Gates and Buffett want the super-wealthy to give away half of their net worth, whether during their lifetimes, or at the time of their deaths.

Earlier this week, CNN reported that Gates and Buffett are going after their companions on the Forbes 400–one of the indices that ranks the richest people in the world. In 2009, the combined net worth of the Forbes 400 was approximately $1.2 trillion. Yes, that’s trillion with a “t.” And 50% of $1.2 trillion is $600 billion.

$600 billion for philanthropy could go a long way.

The financial powerhouses who have signed onto the Gates-Buffett project are being referred to as The Great Givers, and their commitments will be made public on the website, The Giving Pledge.

It’s this aspect of the project–the making public of the pledge–that may be as significant as the pledges themselves. As the Giving Pledge FAQs explain, one of the goals of this initiative is to foster conversation about philanthropy and to envision new ways of giving that are morally and ethically appropriate, as well as effective in their aim to solve social problems.

You can read Warren Buffett’s pledge–his commitment to give 99% of his wealth away– here. Then, let us know what you think? Does this initiative represent an exciting new chapter for philanthropy?

Community Connection:

Read more about Gates’ philanthropic work in 4 Gates Foundation Projects You’ve Probably Never Heard of.

Photo: The US Army

Gold. Cobalt. Copper. Iron. Lithium.

The “bleak Ghazni Province seems to offer little,” noted the caption on the header photo leading into the article in Sunday’s New York Times, and the photo itself seemed to confirm the observation, a spectrum of grays and browns on a flat, rock-pocked landscape.

But beneath it all, apparently, are rich veins of the world’s most precious minerals that “are so big and include so many minerals… that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world….,” said Times journalist James Risen.

Even General Petraeus was awestruck by the discovery and its “stunning potential.”

For whom, though, remains to be seen.

Risen speculates that the discovery of minerals could incite the Taliban to redouble its efforts to stake territorial claims. He mentions “resource-hungry” China’s potential interests in the region. He fails to mention–at least not overtly, anyway–potential American interests, simply noting that

A “Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development. International accounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have been hired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical data is being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies and other potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghan officials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall….”

The discovery of the minerals could certainly represent a significant turning point for Afghanistan, which is currently ranked 181 (out of 182) on the United Nations’ Human Development Index, which examines lifespan, education, and overall quality of life to determine a country’s position relative to other nations.

At what cost might this discovery come with respect to the country’s current political situation, though? Not to mention environmental issues.

What do you think about this news? And how should Afghanistan act to protect its own interests? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Community Connection:

Afghanistan isn’t the only country with rich mineral deposits that is struggling to retain control of its own resources. Read “Bolivia to Become World Battery Capital?” to learn more about this phenomenon.

Photo by author

It’s just too damn easy and it’s not particularly productive.

Besides, plenty of other writers have been busy doing exactly that– it’s not hard to find material; even The New York Times had a front-page story about BP’s CEO, who has had to apologize to families of the 11 workers killed on the oil rig for his thoughtless statement, “There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. You know, I’d like my life back.”

But when I opened Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal to find a full page ad featuring Darryl Willis, the BP employee responsible for overseeing claims related to the oil spill, I was completely flabbergasted.

The BP spin machine–which has attempted to soothe us into a mental coma with the simplistic (but seemingly empty) refrain “We will get this done. We will make this right,”–really worked a good one with Willis.

In the ad, Willis explains that he was “born and raised in Louisiana” and that he “volunteered for this assignment because this [the Gulf Coast] is my home.”

I don’t doubt Willis’ good intentions–when a disaster strikes, especially in one’s hometown, most sentient, sensible, and sensitive people want to do something to help.

What I have a problem with is BP’s exploitation of Willis’ story to strike a particular chord in readers. “At age 70,” Willis says in the first paragraph of the five paragraph advertisement, “my mother lost her home to Hurricane Katrina. Afterwards, she experienced enormous frustration. So I know first hand that when tragedy strikes on a scale like this, people need help without a lot of hassles.”

Here’s the issue: Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster. One whose effects were most certainly exacerbated by human negligence, but a natural disaster nonetheless. The BP oil spill was not a natural disaster. It was a disaster caused by the deliberate decisions of a company’s executives to ignore warning signs, to fail to correct safety breaches, and to continue chasing profit as long as possible.

Willis may well make the connection between Katrina and the BP oil spill, but BP has no right to do so.

Community Connection:

Read How to Evaluate Claims about Big Oil to learn how you can assess oil companies’ messages more effectively.

Photo: ydhsu

The common attribute of the people we studied–including Jane Addams and Sara A. Collins Fernandis –was that they all saw a social problem, wanted to fix it, and got off their ass, brought people together, and did something about it.

The not-so-subtle message for students in the social work program was that we were expected to pick up the banner of social change and run with it. What I’m saying is that until recently, my model of activism has very much been rooted in, well, activity.

But after reading a recent article in Fast Company magazine about “slacktivism,” I’m beginning to think that passive forms of activism might not be as contradictory as they seem at first glance.

“Slacktivism” is the term that has been coined to describe quick actions, like texting to make a donation or “signing” an online petition. One of the entries in Urban Dictionary conveys obvious disdain for slacktivism, defining the word as “[t]he act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.”

I don’t know about “obviously pointless.”

Photo: Lisa Brewster

If you take a look at how much money was raised for Haiti via text messages (more than $16 million by Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti as of May 11, for instance), you’ll be inclined to at least think twice about “slacktivists.” And though you can find plenty of naysayers about the futility of online petitions, organizations like Change.org and MoveOn rely on them to demonstrate support and pressure the government and other interest groups to take action on issues as diverse as gay rights and the oil spill.

Slacktivism does have limitations; the collection of money and signatures is only useful, for example, if they’re directed to legitimate causes and are managed/implemented properly. And critics complain that “slacktivists” never have to get their hands dirty… just check out this group… on Facebook no less (Hey! Click to join our group “Slacktivism is an OUTRAGE!”).

But I think slacktivism is a valid form of activism. At the very least, it gets people interested in an issue that they might not have been aware of before… even if they don’t roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.

Photo: dcJohn

For others, it’s the temptation to buy contraband–and the promise of a high resale value–that draws them to forbidden objects.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service hopes both types of people will help fatten its bank account.

Every year, the US Fish & Wildlife Service seizes thousands of objects made of animal parts: ostrich skin boots, lizard trimmed watches and wallets, and weasel fur coats, to name just a few.

The number of seized items has become overwhelming; however, and with 1.5 million items in storage, the FWS is trying to clean house, selling 300,000 items online through Lone Star Auctions.

Though the agency would prefer not to have to make money by selling the very items it forbids others to traffic, FWS officials say there’s no better way to dispose of these objects. The last auction, held in 1999, netted the agency $500,000 in profits, all of which were directed toward wildlife conservation.

Some activists, though, are outraged by what they view as hypocrisy on the part of the FWS. One senior member of PETA had the following to say about the auction, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:

Ashley Byrne, a senior campaigner with the animal-rights group PETA… argues that the sale just stimulates demand for weasel coats and python-trimmed figurines. Instead, she says, the agency should donate the merchandise to PETA. She has laid in quite a store of fake blood to splash on the shiny green snakeskin shoes and the weathered leather jackets trimmed with fox fur. She would like to put the bloodied goods on display anywhere she can, next to video monitors rolling footage of “animals being skinned alive or bludgeoned to death.” The juxtaposition will make would-be shoppers queasy, Ms. Byrne promises. “As opposed,” she says, “to perpetuating the idea that it’s OK to turn an animal into a keychain.”

What do you think? Should the FWS sell these goods or dispose of them without making money? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Kate Metzler, right; volunteering with the Culinary Corps in New Orleans; Photo: Julie Schwietert

Kate Metzler wears a gold shark tooth on a chain around her neck.

In a way, it seems like a relic from an East Coast, 1980s childhood, but for Kate it’s also a reminder of the mission she’s focused on every day: saving sharks. And shark fins, specifically.

Metzler is a socially and environmentally conscious chef trying to raise awareness about shark fin soup. Fascinated with sharks during her childhood, much of which was spent on Cape Cod, her interest in one of the ocean’s most reviled animals has only deepened over the years. She reads extensively about sharks and has swum with sharks on an environmental expedition.

But it’s her work as a chef that has made her more attuned to one of the most persistent and lethal threats sharks face: the desirability of their fins.

Though Metzler has not made shark fin soup, she has become aware of how pervasive the shark fin trade is–and how lucrative it is, too.

“Yes, shark fins are sold openly in Chinatown [in New York],” she tells me, explaining how the gelatinous fins are skinned and dried for sale. They might as well be a tidy stack of gold bars; single fins can sell for as much as $20,000.

MatadorU student Mike Collins, a former commercial fisherman, confirms that a haul of fins is not unlike pulling up a net full of cash. “When the Blue Fin Tuna started becoming scarce most of the tuna boats in Maine jumped on the ‘finning’ band wagon.” At the height of the shark fin craze, he said, fishermen were taking in $42 per pound of fin.

Photo: mocvdleung

The fins are repurposed as a delicacy, and the going rate for a bowl of shark fin soup can top $100. And while you may not remember the last time you saw fin soup on a menu, an August 2009 post on the blog Animal Tourism says you don’t have to look all that hard: San Francisco has at least 69 restaurants serving shark fin, while New York City has at least 56.

Cash aside, it’s at the table, over soup, where things get dicey. The soup’s popularity dates back to the Ming Dynasty, and shark fin is purported to have medicinal benefits. It’s also supposed to kick start your sex life. Shark fin soup is a dish that represents so many things, among them, status and adherence to cultural traditions.

Matador contributor Valerie Ng has had shark fin soup “on a few occasions, always at family restaurant outings (usually for special occasion like a birthday, wedding, or anniversary).” For a long time, Valerie wasn’t aware of how fins were procured or the consequences of “finning.”

When she learned more about the process, she stopped eating the soup, though has felt awkward at gatherings where it is served. “I’ve never had to pay for it myself,” Valerie says, but that hasn’t made the moral and ethical dilemmas easier for her. “It does pain me to see leftover bowls of the soup, and sometimes I feel compelled to help myself, so as not to let them go to waste,” she explains. And yet, her parents boycott the soup and have asked organizers of family outings not to order the soup on occasion.

Metzler hasn’t tried the soup herself–she’s thinking about it, reasoning, “How can I talk about this issue if I’ve never even tasted the soup?”–but as a chef, she can explain its role as an ingredient. “It’s basically used as a thickening agent,” she says, “but the actual flavor of the soup comes from a lot of other ingredients, not the fin itself.”

Mike Collins has had shark fin soup on several occasions and describes it as having no flavor at all. “It is just cartilage,” he says, confirming what Kate suggests about the other ingredients: “It is [everything else that] goes in the soup that has the flavor.”

Photo: Hector Garcia

Here’s what happens when shark fins are cut with the soup bowl in mind. The shark dies. Whether by drowning (it can no longer swim) or by having its position in the food chain completely upended, the definned shark has no chance of survival.

And the fin is usually the only part that is saved. While Mike said whatever other parts were saved would be used to bait lobster traps when he was a fisherman, Kate explained why shark steaks and kabobs are not all that popular: shark meat’s high ammonia content means that unless it has a fast transition from sea to table, and is cared for with exceptional attention in the process, it poses significant health hazards to the person eating it.

For all these reasons, Kate is on a mission to get chefs to commit to not serving shark fin. She’s turned off by groups like PETA and Sea Shepherd and her face contorts when I mention something about activism. She’s not even entirely comfortable aligning herself with the few groups that have taken on the shark fin issue because she’s uncomfortable with their preachy tone. “I don’t want to tell people that making shark fin soup or eating it is wrong,” she says. “I just want to make them aware of related issues so they can make their own informed choices.”

Community Connection:

Have you eaten shark fin soup? Have you ever had a culinary experience that caused a conflict with your environmental values? Share your experiences in the comments.

Photo: hill.josh

BP’s bad–no, really, really bad–at damage control.

And I’m not just talking about in the Gulf.

Someone from the petroleum giant’s public relations team failed to snatch up all the possible account names that could be established for the company on Twitter, and left one of the most obvious ones of all for the person behind @BPGlobalPR to snag.

It’s probably no big surprise that the “real” BP account, @BP_America, had a measly follower count of just 6,700 late this week (as of this writing, it’s topped 8,000), while @BPGlobalPR’s followers numbered more than 84,000– after all, how can an oil company really establish an authentic social media conversation when it can’t even use traditional media to convey an honest portrayal of itself?

@BPGlobalPR, on the other hand, has spent the past week calling BP out for its negligence that precipitated the oil spill and its relative ineptness at getting the spill under control.

A few choice tweets:

Proud to announce that BP will be sponsoring the New Orleans Blues Festival this summer w/ special tribute to Muddy Waters. #bpcares

What a gorgeous day! The ocean is filled with the most beautiful rainbows! #yourewelcome #bpcares

Just woke up from a terrible nightmare. I was driving a Prius and I kissed my wife on the lips. #bpcares

We plan on spending millions of dollars to fix this mess. We also plan on jacking gas prices so high that you’ll wish you never complained.

Lots of people blaming this on Bush or Obama. Pph, we wish. The truth is Presidents don’t have any control over what we do. #bpcares

This horrible spill wouldn’t be happening in the gulf of AMERICA! Arizona knows what I’m talking ’bout!! #fistpound #bpcares

Please text “Wildlife” to 20222 to donate hot dogs to the BP Corporate Memorial Day Picnic #bpcares #3dayweekend

Community Connection:

Want to know what you can do to help the Gulf? Read Nancy Harder’s article about donating your hair to absorb the spilled oil–yes, really.

#10: Adopt a school or classroom. Photo: DavidDennisPhotos.com

That’s a quote by Matador Goods editor, Lola Akinmade, who volunteers as a photojournalist with NGOs around the world.

For passionate travelers who are equally passionate about volunteering, Matador has devised the ultimate bucket list. Here are 25 volunteer projects we want to get involved in:

1. Help save sea turtles.

The sea turtle life is tough from the get-go; everything, it seems, conspires against a hatchling’s survival. All seven species of marine turtles in the United States are listed as endangered, and the situation isn’t much better elsewhere in the world.

Saving sea turtles involves many human interventions, including protecting nesting habitats, assisting hatchlings from nest to sea, and monitoring turtle populations.

Matador contributor Teresa Ponikvar profiles one organization, Project Todos Tortugueros, in her article, “Saving Turtles in Baja California Sur, Mexico.”

2. Learn an endangered language in order to help save it.

Languages, like animals and cultures, are endangered.

According to UNESCO, more than half of the 6,700 languages spoken in the world are likely to be extinct by the end of this century.

Find out which languages are at immediate risk of being lost, and then check out Matador Abroad and Glimpse Editor-in-Chief Sarah Menkedick’s article about ways you can help prevent language extinction.

3. Help build a house.

Maybe not with Habitat for Humanity, which contributor Bryan Fox has questioned for its opaque accounting practices, but building a house–or better yet, helping build a community–is one important way of providing people with the basic resources they need to be able to meet their other needs.

Baclayon Medical Clinic, Philippines; Photo: beshigyawn

4. Translate at a medical clinic.

If you’re fluent in another language, you can provide vital support as a translator at short-term or permanent medical clinics abroad. The Humanity Exchange, which works with the Afro-Colombian community in Choco, Colombia, seeks volunteer translators to translate documents from Spanish to English and vice versa. The documents are vital for securing funding to continue its medical work in the region.

5. Donate needed supplies.

Check the Stuff Your Rucksack bulletin board before leaving home to find out if an organization at your destination is in need of health, educational, or other supplies. Save a permanent space in your backpack for a donation of books; organizations like Big Brother Mouse, based in Laos, welcome donations to expand their libraries.

6. Build a website for a community co-op.

One of the challenges for people leading projects in developing countries is they often lack access to platforms where they can disseminate information about their work. If you have web development skills, inquire if a local co-op might be interested in a pro-bono website. Just make sure that there’s a way for them to update the site–or for you to do so through ongoing contact with a local liaison.

Bam, Iran, an endangered WHS; Photo: Charlie Phillips

7. Help preserve a World Heritage Site.

30 of the world’s UNESCO Heritage Sites are in critical danger due to climate change, overdevelopment, poorly managed tourism, political conflict, or natural disasters. If you’re headed to an area that has an endangered World Heritage Site and you possess specific skills, such as archaeological or artifact conservation, contact local cultural organizations to see if you can join their preservation efforts.

8. Organize a beach clean up.

Maybe you attended a full moon party in Thailand with a bunch of fun-loving travelers from your hostel. Visit the beach again after your hangover has worn off–it’s probably a pretty dirty patch of sand.

Trash on beaches causes animal deaths, human injuries, and other environmental problems. Be part of the solution- organize a beach clean up.

9. Shoot photos for an NGO.

Non-profits all over the world are doing incredible work, but many lack the financial resources to document their efforts. Photographs, in particular, are an important part of that documentation process, because they provide tangible evidence that the organization is achieving the objectives it has articulated, evidence that is required for continued funding.

If you have photography skills, consider volunteering with an NGO. Offer a set amount of time to document their work and then give the photos to them on a CD/DVD and jump drive– pro bono.

10. Adopt a school or classroom.

When I spent a month in Mompox, Colombia in 2008, I was blown away by how some modest efforts could make a big difference in the lives of kids. If I could adopt a class of ninth graders and make sure they all had gym shoes (at $5 USD each), then I’d be supporting school attendance–teachers would make students go home if they showed up without gym shoes, yet many parents couldn’t afford them.

A reef in the Maldives; Photo: nattu

11. Dive to document reef conditions.

Reefs around the world are dying due to global warming, but divers are playing a key role in documenting reef conditions and gathering data that may help slow or prevent further damage. The UK based organization ReefDoctor leads conservation and research dives in Madagascar.

12. Document world music.

If you’re handy with a video camera and/or video editing software, the renowned public radio program Afropop Worldwide is seeking a volunteer to document performances as part of a living archive. More details can be found here.

13. Help save strays.

Stray animals, especially dogs and cats, are a huge problem in many parts of the world, including Santiago, Chile. Learn more about how you can help strays while you’re traveling.

14. Fund raise for the arts in Africa.

Ghana’s Foundation for Contemporary Art “provides an information resource for artists, regularly holds workshops and exhibitions, and provides a space for artists, curators and academics to share ideas on the future for African art.” It’s currently seeking a volunteer to help fund raise, so if you’re good at hustling for dollars, this might be a good match for you. Bonus? The ideal volunteer is expected to “frequent galleries and cultural organisations in Accra and to attend occasional evening events.” More details can be found here.

15. Teach kids conflict resolution skills… and how to make movies.

Use this curriculum from the organization Where Peace Lives to help kids learn how to use a video camera and, in the process, “to learn to work through problems in a non-violent way.”

The planetarium in Ghana; Photo: satm test

16. Run a planetarium.

Got a thing for the stars? So does Dr. Jacob Ashong, founder and director of the Ghana Planetarium Project. Dr. Ashong wants to hear from volunteers who are interested in a long-term assignment as a planetarium assistant or project coordinator. Teach astronomy to kids… and then tell the world you helped run a planetarium.

17. Design a wiki for peace.

Join the Michigan Peace Team, an “international organization that trains people from all walks of life (and increasingly, all areas of the world) in nonviolence and conflict intervention skills,” as a tech-savvy volunteer. The MPT needs someone proficient in wiki development to help set up a wiki set for its International Peace Teams Advanced Nonviolence Training Program.

18. WWOOF on six continents.

Got a green thumb? Organic farms around the world could use your expertise. Check our beginners’ guide to WWOOFing for tips on finding a farm and getting started as a WWOOFer.

19. Provide counseling and mental health support to the blind in Bolivia.

Sustainable Bolivia has numerous volunteer opportunities, including the chance for trained mental health professionals to provide short-term counseling support to blind Bolivians through its partnership with the Manuel E. Gandarillas Rehabilitation Center for the Blind. Though the focus of his volunteer placement was different, Matador Trips co-editor Hal Amen has volunteered with Sustainable Bolivia. Read more about his experiences in his Volunteer Voice series.

20. Coach a soccer team in Tanzania.

Sports are an important aspect of community development, and the organization Hope Tanzania is actively seeking volunteers to coach soccer and other sports, including net ball and volleyball. The placement provides lots of other experience as well, including the opportunity to teach HIV/AIDS awareness.

21. Lead participatory art events in El Salvador.

Puppetry, mural-making, theatre performances, and storytelling are four ways you can get involved in community arts projects in El Salvador. The ArtCorps is seeking long-term volunteers for a one-year placement.

22. Teach orphaned children in Nepal.

Orphanages around the world are typically strapped for resources, including teachers to give lessons in basic literacy skills. Nepal is just one of the many countries where you can volunteer to teach orphans; learn more here.

23. Teach English to African refugees in Israel.

Language acquisition is one of the predictors of a refugee’s success in transitioning to a new culture and country. Tel Aviv’s African Refugee Development Center seeks volunteers to teach evening English classes to recently arrived refugees. Placements are for two months.

24. Support endangered species research.

The US-based Endangered Species Coalition has an ongoing need for volunteers to conduct research and help develop educational awareness materials regarding endangered species.

25. Make GIS maps of marine and land habitats.

Your specialized skills can be of benefit. If you know how to make GIS maps, the Greek organization Archipelagos could use your help. The organization is documenting biodiversity in the Aegean Sea and needs assistance analyzing data.

Community Connection:

What’s on your voluntourism bucket list? Tell us in the comments!

Photo: Save Our Wild Salmon

The BP oil spill has put animals living in already-fragile ecosystems at greater risk- animals like brown pelicans and other sea birds, sea turtles, and manatees and dolphins, according to the National Wildlife Federation. What’s worse is that BP’s legal liability for the spill is capped at $75 million under current laws, a figure that won’t even begin to cover the clean-up of damage that’s been caused, much less care for animals.

But beyond the oil spill, there’s another big news item this week that will affect animals significantly: the Obama administration is scheduled to release a federal salmon plan that will either signify the strengthening or the weakening of the Endangered Species Act.

Not surprisingly, the plan involves the administration making a decision between big energy interests and the integrity of species’ habitats. At issue: a choice to remove some dams and restrict future dam development (which would help endangered wild salmon populations recover and stabilize) or to give the green light to dam developers (which would increase the energy producing potential of the Columbia and Snake Rivers).

The decision is being viewed by both environmentalists and big energy interests as a test case for their respective causes: Will Obama commit to species protection or to energy expansion? The answer isn’t clear just yet, but the situation isn’t looking good for salmon: Obama’s administration merely dusted off a Bush-era plan and resuscitated it. Bush, if you’ll recall, wasn’t exactly animals’ best friend.

Regardless of the decision, the its implications are likely to be felt way beyond the western US where the wild salmon live. If big energy wins, they’ll know they’ve got the president in their pocket, and will likely keep pushing for their interests.

If you’d like to take action and encourage the Obama administration to “stand for salmon,” visit Save Our Salmon to learn more.

Community Connection:

Headed west? Want to cast a line? Read Tim Patterson’s “Fishing Montana: Lamar River Cutthroat Trout.”

All I wanted to do on Saturday was be outside at the street fair, deciding whether to eat some roasted corn. And then The Cat Lady appeared…. Photo: Ed Yourdon

Spring finally arrived in New York on Saturday. I checked my email, then threw baby gear in my Osprey backpack, and announced to my husband: “I am NOT staying inside today.” The dawdling type–he’s Cuban–I accompanied the statement with an ultimatum: “We’re leaving for the Hell’s Kitchen International Food Festival in 20 minutes.”

An hour later, we were on 9th Ave., trying to decide whether we wanted vegetable focaccia or fresh roasted ears of corn. Just before we met up with Matador Trips co-editor Carlo Alcos and his wife, Yvonne, I saw The Cat Woman.

“We rescue cats! We’re all volunteers! We need YOUR help! PLEEEAASSE GIVE! The cats need you!”

Predictably, she had a cat shaped cookie jar for donations, and she wore cat ears on her head.

Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.

I was totally turned off– and not just on the idea of donating to the cat rescue fund, but on the whole morning. It seems like everywhere you turn these days, someone’s asking for a buck. Can’t I enjoy a simple street fair without having to be subjected to the plaintive solicitations of some crazy cat woman? “That shit should be illegal,” I complained to my husband.

*
I know what it’s like to have to ask for money. I worked in the non-profit world for five years, I started my own counseling business, and at various points in my life have had ambitious plans to help other people that have all depended largely (ok, exclusively) on the generosity of family and friends.

Now that I’m out of that whole world, though, I’m more attuned to what it’s like being on the receiving end of those requests.

And quite frankly, I’ve had enough.

It’s starting to seem like you can’t go anywhere without being hit up for money. At the drug store, I’m asked if I want to donate an extra dollar for multiple sclerosis, or kids with congenital disorders, or women with breast cancer.

In the park where I take my daughter to swing every afternoon, the same child has asked me three days in a row if I want to buy candy for a school fund raiser. She can’t even tell me what the fund raiser is for.

Photo: sharon.schneider

And at the damn street fair–where I shouldn’t be faced with any decision more difficult than determining whether I want to spend my hard earned money on focaccia or corn–The Cat Lady wants money for cats.

I don’t even like cats.

*
There are lots of issues I care about: Health care for underserved communities. Education. The arts. The environment. Food safety. Immigrant and refugee issues. Indigenous communities. Human rights in general.

I even give money to organizations working on some of these issues. But not by force… or by solicitation (by the way Human Rights Watch, I appreciate the free address labels, but I’m not more likely to send you a donation because of them). I realize every cause needs funding… but I keep wondering whether there are smarter, more creative ways to ask for money?

And if so, why aren’t more people experimenting with them?

*
I actually felt a low-grade despair about this issue for the rest of the weekend, I guess because I’ve been thinking about “activism” in general and how we just need to blow up all the old models, which don’t seem to have much relevance anymore, and come up with something totally new.

Even as I sat down to write this, I wasn’t really sure where it was going or whether I could wring some useful–even happy–conclusion out of my annoyance.

But I guess I stared at the computer screen long enough, because the example of Misty Tosh eventually came to mind. Misty, a Matador contributor, bootstrapped her own NGO in Lombok, Indonesia. She also got people stoked about donating money to provide surgery for kids with cleft palates– all without begging. How? She involved them in more than just forking over some cash.

And then there’s Housing Works, a New York City-based social service agency I used to work for. Housing Works is pretty brilliant when it comes to fund raising. It started a used bookstore and cafe, a whole empire of thrift stores that celebrities trip over themselves to donate to, and sponsors fund raisers that are actually… fun. A spelling bee for adults. A drinking game with writers from Slate (so fun that tickets are sold out).

So it seems, then, that the key to raising money is… to stop asking for it.

Just stop.

Plan something fun and charge a couple bucks for it. Let the people who give you money take ownership of the cause. Educate them about your cause without teaching them, or forget about education all together. Just let ‘em have fun.

And please, get rid of the cat shaped cookie jar.

Community Connection:

Are you bootstrapping an NGO or other non-profit? We’re sure your cause is worthy. Check 5 Ways to Raise Money at Home for Your Cause Abroad or How to Fund Your Start-up Org.

Screenshot of clip from “Gasland.”

When Josh Fox received a letter in the mail offering $100,000 in exchange for the use of his family’s land for natural gas drilling, he did what most of us wouldn’t do: He took off on a 24 state tour of the United States to learn more about natural gas drilling.

He took a camera along with him to document his findings (including the fact that some Americans can set their tap water on fire), and then turned them into the documentary, “Gasland.”

“Gasland,” which won a special jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, has been selected as one of the features to be shown at the 32nd annual Mountainfilm Festival, which will be held in Telluride, Colorado May 28-31, 2010.

Fox talks about the film in this interview:

Mountainfilm has been praised by photographer Chris Jordan as “simultaneously inspiring, devastating, profound, hopeful,” and by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns as a festival that “reminds us of the force of filmmaking, about things that matter, worlds worth exploring and conversations worth sustaining.”

If you’re interested in attending Mountainfilm and you’re on a budget, the festival is still accepting volunteer applications. If you’re 18 years or older, you will receive festival passes for 16-22 hours of work. More information can be found on the Mountainfilm website.

Community Connection:

If you can’t wait til Mountainfilm or don’t plan on going, head over to MatadorTV for incredible videos shot by Matador members all over the world.

Screenshot from video

I learned about Ambassadors for a United Lawndale after reading a post on the blog of MatadorU student and contributor Linda Golden. Lawndale is a Chicago neighborhood, and Chicago, if you’re not familiar, has long been plagued by interracial misunderstanding and violence, especially between African American and Latino communities.

I’ve never been to Chicago myself (yet… Katie Hammel’s Chicago on a Budget has had me stoked about getting to middle America for a while now and Matador’s resident social entrepreneur, Allen Burt, lives there), but I first read about some of the city’s racial tensions in sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day.

I’ve also learned about the effects of those tensions by keeping up with Michael Skolnik of Russell Simmons’ Global Grind; among his many projects, Mike’s working to bring national attention to Chicago’s problems and its potential.

And it’s the potential that interests me as much–no, more, way more–than Chicago’s problems.

That’s why I was really interested in Linda’s blog post about Ambassadors for a United Lawndale, a group of Blacks and Latinos coming together to learn about one another and their cultures. You can learn more about them in the video below.

And once you’ve watched the video, please consider voting for the video, which has been entered into the One Nation One Chicago Film Contest. Yes, you have to register. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass. But 2 minutes of your time might result in $20,000 for the Ambassadors for a United Lawndale, which they’ll use to continue their good work.

Community Connection:

All of Matador’s articles about Chicago can be found on our Chicago Focus Page.

A woman receives a bed net to protect her from mosquitoes bearing malaria and other diseases. Photo: Ixtla

A few years ago, while living in Puerto Rico, my husband and I both spent a week bed-ridden with dengue fever. Imagine feeling the symptoms of every illness you’ve ever had–simultaneously–and you’ll begin to understand how terrible that week was.

Dengue is just one of many mosquito-borne illnesses, which are especially common in tropical climates. Another common mosquito-borne disease is malaria, which threatens half the world’s population according to the World Health Organization.

Every year, more than 200 million experience malaria; of that number, almost one million die.

The Gates Foundation, one of the world’s most active proponents of malaria prevention and treatment, believes that this disease can be eradicated.

While the research it funds is focused on preventing malaria through vaccination, an important intervention that’s available now is the bed net.

The Gates Foundation noted in January 2010 that bed nets have had a positive effect in reducing the total number of malaria cases and deaths. According to the Foundation, “Rwanda has seen a 45 percent decline, Zambia 50 percent, Cambodia 50 percent, [and] Eritrea 80 percent” since the Foundation introduced a concentrated effort to distribute nets widely.

Photo: Nothing But Nets

Today, as part of World Malaria Day’s awareness efforts, Nothing But Nets, one of the best-known non-profits working on malaria eradication through mosquito net distribution, is inviting you to help ensure people in malaria-prone areas have access to nets. You can purchase a $10 net or start planning a “sleep out” for next year’s World Malaria Day using the information and promotional tools available on the NBN site.

Want to learn more about the malaria vaccine that is current in the research and development phase? Matador’s resident doctor, Erik McLaughlin, offers an overview in “In Search of a Malaria Vaccine: What Travelers Should Know.” [Note: Statistics in the introduction of that piece have since been updated by the World Health Organization.]

Community Connection:

Do you get vaccinated before you travel? Matador editor Tim Patterson doesn’t– and identifies nine other travel risks worth taking. Join the conversation!

Screenshot of Nalgene’s survey results. Feature photo: CanarsieBK

Last year, I made an argument for cities as potentially more sustainable than rural areas.

As a New Yorker who doesn’t own a car, takes public transportation, shops local, recycles, and has access to communities of other like-minded folks, like freecyclers, I have lots of first-hand reasons to be passionate about the environmental potential of cities.

Earlier this month, Nalgene published the results of its second annual Least Wasteful Cities study; the rankings are visible in the above graphic. San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Portland, Oregon, and Boston are the top five; Houston ranks dead last.

Nalgene defined waste aversion by questioning 3,750 respondents (approximately 150 participants from each of the 25 largest cities) about 23 different behaviors and habits that ranged from recycling to using public transportation.

As for the analytical nitty-gritty:

The answers for each question was [sic] calculated with a point-value giving to each answer based on the same 10-point scale. To derive the average answer for each question for a particular city, the number of respondents for each response was multiplied by the corresponding value (1-10), and then divided by the number of total respondents for that city. The result is the “unweighted” score for each question:

The average of all 23 questions was then used to derive the overall unweighted score for each city.

[Q]uestions were then weighted, reasoning that some actions are have a higher influence on waste or overall impact on the environment. Each question was assigned a value of 1, 5, 10 or 25 by which the unweighted score was multiplied, providing the final, weighted score:

1 Minimal impact behavior (e.g. Reusing wrapping paper)
5 Low impact (e.g. Turning water off when brushing teeth)
10 Moderate impact (e.g. Energy efficient light bulbs, reusable bottles)
15 High impact (e.g. Recycling)
25 Extremely high impact (e.g. Taking public transportation)

Do you live in any of the surveyed cities, and if so, what’s your take on the results? What might explain a particularly low score? If you live in a city outside the U.S., how might it rank according to these criteria? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Community Connection:

Why are cities sustainable? Here are my six reasons why cities are sustainable places. Let me know if you agree or disagree!

Photo: +Angst

This isn’t to say that I don’t have goals (I do) or that I’ve perfected living in the moment (I definitely haven’t). It’s just that I realize how quickly new opportunities can arise, and how an idea that seemed viable today may have fizzled out by next week.

So the premise of this video, put together by the organization Four Years. Go., is slightly overwhelming to me. What can I commit to today and work on steadily for the next four years to help prevent continued environmental degradation and to make the world more livable for everyone?

On the other hand, thinking about the urgency of doing something meaningful for the environment within four years as opposed to 40 or 50 years feels more doable and just makes sense.

Check out the video and Four Years. Go.’s mission. Is this a project you’d want to be involved in, and if so, what do you pledge to do?

Photo: dheuer

And here are 20 from Matador members who are experienced volunteers.

1. Lola Akinmade, Matador Goods Editor

“I volunteer because ‘to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.’ — Luke 12:48. I honestly don’t know how to live outside of giving and sharing, and wouldn’t want to.”

Lola volunteers as a photojournalist with both World Hope International, documenting the organization’s projects in countries such as Nicaragua and Cambodia, and C.H.I.E.F, an NGO based in Lagos, Nigeria that promotes grassroots health development, HIV/AIDS awareness, and the empowerment of women.

Her church in Stockholm recently started a monthly food kitchen for the city’s homeless, and she hopes to work a lot more with them as well.

2. Richard Stupart, Matador Intern

“I volunteer because I find something incredibly satisfying about acting in a way that is consistent with my principles. Being able to say I changed something in the world, in the lives of others, gives meaning to my being here beyond simply looking after myself. For me, it changes my life from being purely self-centered to being something with meaning for others, too.”

Richard volunteered for South African Schools Debating, where he coached school kids and taught them critical thinking, working through issues in their communities, and learning to express their own opinions articulately on issues that concern them.

3. Leigh Shulman, Matador Life Editor

Photo: Dave Bezaire & Susi Havens-Bezaire

“I volunteer because it takes me out of my daily life. Because I have expertise that is easy for me to teach and yet makes a big difference to those I teach. Because it reminds me how lucky I am. Because I have been given so much in life and believe it’s important to give as well.”

Leigh volunteers at a local church in Salta, Argentina, serving lunch to school children and helping kids with their English homework.

4. Juliane Huang, Matador contributing editor

“I volunteer because it continuously teaches me something new about people, about cooperation, about compassion, and about myself. In helping others, I am reminded that we are all in this together and we need to remember to support each other. Life has so much to offer if we remember look beyond ourselves.”

Juliane volunteers at the Berkeley Free Clinic.

5. Candice Walsh, Matador Associate Editor

“I volunteer because I love my city and I need to give back something to it other than tax dollars. Also, my soul needs redemption.”

Candice volunteers with Girl Guides of Canada and Heavenly Creatures, an animal rescue organization.

6. Abbie Mood, Matador Intern

“I volunteer because I want to not just see the world, but make a difference in it.”

Abbie has volunteered at United Planet.

6. Kate Sedgwick, Matador Nights Co-Editor

“I volunteer because I have the time. I recognize that time is something I can give, if not money. I regret that I never volunteered before I left the U.S. I don’t know that I make a big difference in the lives of the kids that I work with, but I do know that I can take some pressure off of those that are able to devote more time. Sometimes that’s just got to be enough.”

Kate volunteers at Ojo de Pez and Conviven in Buenos Aires.

7. Matt Scott, Matador Intern

“I volunteer because… it often lets me get closer to a community, the people and the region- I discover so much more than simply having travelled through. Also, on the most basic level, it’s nice to feel I’ve achieved something positive with my day- rather than simply add to the profits of the Fat Cats I usually work for.”

Matt has volunteered with Share Centre Ireland, Nightingales Children’s Project,
Sudan Volunteer Programme, Bagaduish Holiday Centre, and in Appalachian Trail conservancy work.

8. Heather Knight, Member

Photo: sarvodaya.org

“I volunteer because: 1) I truly like helping people. 2) I feel called to volunteer and share my talents and time with others. 3) I enjoy meeting different people from different backgrounds and cultures while volunteering. 4) I like having my comfort zone stretched and expanded. 5) It’s a lot of fun!

Heather plans to volunteer while on a RTW starting this month. Home for Hope in India and Habitat For Humanity in Thailand are on her list so far.

9. Pamm McFadden, Member

“I volunteer to learn something new or to acquire a skill that I lacked. I couldn’t go out and get a job to learn that skill, but I could volunteer and learn it.”

Pamm has volunteered in a hospital, for the local Department of Social Services, for local, national and international solar organizations, the local District Attorney’s office as an investigator, a conference organizer, and a knitter – knitting sweaters for every child in an orphanage outside of Lhasa, Tibet.

10. Nola Lee Kelsey, Member

Photo: mikebaird

“I volunteer because I can’t handle seeing any animal suffering as if no one cares and because it makes me feel alive.”

Nola has volunteered with Care for Dogs in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

11. Barb Hautanen, Member

“I volunteer because I want to demonstrate to individuals around the world that someone from ‘way over there’ does care about them, that all Americans are not like those seen on TV or at their country’s tourist destinations. Now, when I hear about about war, political situations, natural disasters, crime, and more in foreign countries, I can picture faces and remember names of people living in those countries.”

Barb has volunteered with Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Center in Sulawesi, Indonesia and African Impact.

12. Hal Amen, Matador Trips Co-Editor

Photo: Alex.ch

“I volunteer because I’ve seen firsthand people living in plywood shacks in Vietnam, the Philippines, Mexico, Bolivia and people playing golf on a Tuesday at a Beverly Hills Country Club, the only difference between them being where they were born. The system obviously doesn’t work, so we have to.”

Hal has volunteered with Sustainable Bolivia and Asociacion Mapu.

13. Susan Greenwood, Matador writer

“I volunteer because I feel it is part of being a human being. I think we are designed to help one another. Help comes in many forms, and I believe that volunteering is one way to accomplish what we are supposed to accomplish in this lifetime. Bottom line, it just feels good inside to give unconditionally.”

Susan has volunteered for the American Diabetes Association, Girls on the Run, (http://www.girlsontherun.org/) and City of Hope’s breast cancer research initiatives.

14. Jamie L. Worms, Member

“I volunteer not so much to help others, but to gain some perspective about my own life. But in the end, I suppose I accomplish both.”

Jamie has volunteered with Catalytic Communities, CIACAC, and Calle.

15. Kelsey Gryniewicz, Member

“I volunteer because I can. It’s as simple as that. If you could do something to help the world around you, why wouldn’t you?”

Kelsey volunteers with AIDE at Casa Luz in Costa Rica.

16. Sheethal Shobowale, Member

Photo: Dave Bezaire and Susi Havens-Bezaire

“I volunteer because I enjoy helping people. Besides, it is professionally and personally fulfilling and great karma!”

Sheethal volunteers with the microloan organization, KIVA.

17. Melanie Campbell, Member

“I volunteer for experience to put on my resume.”

Melanie has volunteered at St. Paul’s College, a school for children and teens with disabilties, and at a primary school working with refugee children.

18. Jane Stanfield, Member

“I volunteer because I always want to learn something new.”

Jane volunteers with Earthwatch.

19. Kirsty Henderson, Member

“I volunteer because it lets me get involved in a community in a way I would never get to if I were just passing through as a traveler. It also keeps me fit and allows me to save money. Volunteering for weeks or months at a time could allow you to live more cheaply than you would at home.”

Kirsty volunteers with Hands on Disaster Response.

20. Julie Schwietert, Matador’s Managing Editor

“I volunteer because I need to feel I can take meaningful action. Until the election of President Obama, I felt like the traditional ways for people to be involved in resolving social problems had been usurped. Volunteering was one way to still make a difference and will always remain one way to exercise your rights, responsibilities, and power.”

Julie has volunteered with the Culinary Corps, Project Liberty, and has participated in virtual voluntourism with JobAngels.

Community Connection:

If you’d like to get started volunteering, but aren’t quite sure how, our Volunteering Abroad Focus Page offers lots of useful resources.

Mariel trying out the walker; Photo: Francisco Collazo

A few weeks back, my husband and I realized that our six month old was ready to practice toddling on her sturdy little legs. No longer content to lie prone on the bed, and too heavy, at 20 pounds, to sit in the swinging chair, it was time to buy her a walker.

Off we went to Target.

If there’s anything to make you aware of your materialist consumerism, it’s having a baby. Even when you resist the prevailing parent marketing narrative that it’s necessary for you to buy all sorts of gadgets and doodads (an electric warmer for diaper wipes!), it’s true that the addition of a child to your family does occasion the need to make some purchases, mostly of items that will outlive their usefulness within a few weeks or, at best, a couple months.

The environmentalist guilt associated with this phenomenon is relieved, somewhat, by deciding that you’ll pass these items on as hand-me-downs rather than toss them to the curb, but still… as I look at the plastic Kolcraft walker taking up a quarter of our living room, I can’t help but wonder where it will eventually end up.

As someone who cares about the environment, I’m fascinated by people like Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, who try to live as impact-neutral an existence as they can. And I admire people like Taina, a 31 year old Vancouverite who has sworn off plastics for at least a year, and Matador’s own Dona Francis, who lives fridge free and is currently trying to pare down her inventory of personal goods to just 100 items.

I’d like to be like them, and really, I try to do my part. I take cloth bags to the grocery store, I buy local whenever possible, I let natural light replace light bulbs as much as it’s feasible. I recycle, I eat organic, and I try not to buy things I don’t need.

But it feels incredibly challenging to get even close to the kind of lifestyles Colin, Taina, and Dona are leading.

I’d love to know how you try to reduce your impact on the planet and what kinds of challenges you confront. Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Community Connection:

Learn more about how you green your life on our Green Products Focus Page.

Feature photo: Gamma-Ray Productions; Above: Screenshot of Free Rice

I don’t really understand Farmville or Second Life, and since work keeps me online all day, I don’t really want to spend my leisure time in front of the screen, too. But if you like online games, why not take a few minutes to play FreeRice, a game sponsored by the United Nations designed for you to show off your smarts in order to earn free rice for hungry people.

Yes, the UN is now into gaming.

Here’s the premise: The UN asks you questions– English vocabulary, chemistry, visual art, language learning, geography, and math–and for every answer you get right, the UN’s World Food Program donates 10 grains of rice to someone in the developing world. The rice is given away by sponsors of the game.

The game is great for nerds, especially those of us who love to travel, and contrary to what you might expect, the questions actually get pretty challenging. Do you know the meaning of the word “mucronate”?

I didn’t, and that’s why I kept playing while I wrote this article… all the way up to 1,000 grains of rice.

At least I’m procrastinating for a good cause.

Community Connection:

Everything you could possibly need or want to know about life online is collected on our Social Media Focus Page.

The recently passed reform bill notwithstanding, the US lags behind most of the rest of the “developed” world with respect to health care.

Some of the data and their accompanying interpretations might as well be Greek to me, but the one I found most interesting was that 90% of people who received care as medical tourists in Mexico were happy with their care, as opposed to 80% of patients receiving care in the US.

What’s the most interesting observation you take away from this infographic?

Community Connection:

Considering a medically motivated trip? We’ve rounded up the Top 12 Places People Go for Cheap Healthcare.

Photo: Alaskan Dude

TV and digital media reporter Brian Stelter writes in today’s New York Times that the former Alaska governor has entered into an agreement with the cable channel TLC to film an eight-part documentary about Alaska.

Discovery’s Chief Operating Officer, Peter Liguori had the following to say in the company’s press release:

“Discovery Communications is so excited to help Sarah Palin tell the story of Alaska, and to have a great documentary filmmaker in Mark Burnett helping to reveal Alaska’s powerful beauty as it has never been filmed, and as told by one of the state’s proudest daughters,” said Peter Liguori, Chief Operating Officer, Discovery Communications.

Screenshot from TLC.

Note that just under the press release is a video clip of Palin sitting on a couch that appears to be topped by a bear rug– complete with bear head.

According to Stelter, Palin had been shopping her TV show pitch around Hollywood this month, with little initial success; all the broadcast networks turned down her proposal, presumably due to its nature-oriented theme. But TLC, under its parent company, Discovery, bought global rights to the show and is reportedly prepared to pay Palin more than $1 million per episode for her hosting skills.

There are at least a dozen jabs I could make about all this, but the real point I want to make is this: Is Sarah Palin really the best ambassador for wild Alaska?

This is the woman who has argued that climate change is not a real phenomenon, but a conspiracy theory promulgated by “so-called…experts” using “fraudulent scientific practices.” “[W]e can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes,” Palin asserted in an op-ed piece in The Juneau Empire and The Washington Post.

She’s also the woman who has been repeatedly cited by environmental advocacy groups as having an “abysmal” record when it comes to conservation and environmental protection policies and practices. Among the evidence they draw upon:

-As governor, Palin disputed the conclusions of research conducted by the federal National Marine Fisheries Service regarding the beluga whale population. The NMFS stated that the belugas are in critical danger; Palin argued that the population was actually rebounding.

-Palin resisted efforts of state legislators to protect streams where salmon spawn from mining effluence.

-Palin supported an initiative to shoot wolves from helicopters, as well as a policy of paying a $150 bounty–from state funds– to hunters who turned in “freshly killed” wolves.

-Palin supported drilling for oil in Alaska.

-She sued the Interior Department to contest its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species.

As she stepped onto the national stage, Palin often portrayed herself as a lifelong nature lover. Photos of Palin fishing, hunting, and riding an ATV were commonplace, and there’s nothing wrong with any of that (well, except maybe the ATV-riding).

But being a fisher and hunter does not an environmentalist make, and Palin’s hardly a champion of the natural world.

So why has TLC gone where the broadcast networks didn’t even want to tread? Is Sarah Palin really the best ambassador to show off Alaska’s wilderness?

Community Connection:

Matador’s CEO, Ross Borden, recently returned from a heli-skiing trip in Alaska. Check out “The Ruby Mountain Heli Experience” on MatadorTV.

Photo: J.C. Rojas

This week is World Water Week, a time when environmentalists encourage us to become more conscious of and conscientious about our water usage.

For those of us living in the “developed” world, water is seemingly so abundant and accessible that we’re inclined not to worry about this particular natural resource.

But as Annie Leonard explains in her new video, “The Story of Bottled Water,” our water usage–and, in particular, our use of bottled water–affects people all over the world:

Community Connection:

Want to learn more about your own water usage and how you can use water more conscientiously? UNICEF has some useful resources on its TAP Project website, and here on Matador we have lots of ways you can learn more about water usage:

The Facts About Water

What’s Your Water Footprint?

40 Shocking Facts About Water

Photo: Stewart

Things aren’t looking good for bluefin tuna or polar bears.

Enacting measures to protect bluefin tuna, threatened by overfishing, and polar bears, endangered by the effects of climate change, were on the agenda at the UN conference on endangered species held in Doha, Qatar earlier this week.

The proposed plan for bluefin was to ban international trade, while the plan for the polar bears was to enact protective international agreements to prevent poaching and trade of bear parts.

Both proposals were defeated by a margin that was disturbing to environmentalists: 68 to 20 in the case of the bluefin (with 30 voting members abstaining), and 62 and 48 for the polar bear (with 11 voting members abstaining).

Sharks and elephants are the animals that will be up for vote next, and with the bluefin and polar bear decisions, the future isn’t looking so great for them, either.

Community Connection:

Read more about bluefin tuna as big business in “Mitsubishi’s Back-up Business Plan.”

Feature Photo: swanksalot

A show about people who make money by dumpster diving and fashioning trendy new products out of old ones.

Community Connection:

MatadorNights co-editor Kate Sedgwick was dumpster diving before it was cool. And she’s written a how-to guide all about it.

Photo: Charlie Brewer

Direct from the Sierra Club’s press release:

“The lucky young person (age 18–25) selected to be our Outdoors Youth Ambassador will:

*Travel around the country camping, rafting, hiking, contributing to environmental service projects, and enjoying the outdoors with the Sierra Club’s youth programs.
*Create an awesome video blog that documents the experience.
*Be based in beautiful San Francisco at the Sierra Club’s headquarters.
*Earn a $2,500 stipend for the 8-week internship, plus all expenses paid for travel.
*Be outfitted with $2,000 worth of gear from The North Face and Planet Explore.

The Outdoors Youth Ambassador will spend the summer video-blogging on a variety of Sierra Club-sponsored programs that include National Outings Volunteer Vacations, Inner City Outings, and Building Bridges to the Outdoors programs. Find out more and apply online at www.sierraclub.org/bestinternship. Deadline is March 31st!”

Community Connection:

Looking for a job in the great outdoors? Check out our Travel Jobs Focus Page!

Photo: Morgan Solar

Everyone with an Internet connection knows what Google is and has used it for a basic search. Beyond its basic search engine, though, Google’s got a bunch of other products, many of which are virtually unknown to users.

One of those products is Google PowerMeter, a free software program that calculates your energy use for you. A project of Google.org, Google’s philanthropic umbrella, the purpose of Google PowerMeter is to “help users understand how they use electricity and help them use less,” as well as save money on energy costs.

The PowerMeter isn’t widely available just yet– it requires the collaboration of local utilities, and Google has formed initial partnerships with 10 providers in the United States, Canada, the UK, and India. If you happen to be a customer of one of these utility providers, you can apply to become a beta tester of the PowerMeter.

If you’re not a customer of one of these utility providers, you can either purchase a monitoring device that streams live energy use data to your computer or register for updates.

Community Connection:

Check out Matador’s Global Environmental Issues Focus Page.

Photo: Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake

One of the most popular articles we’ve published on MatadorChange is How to Start a Successful NGO in 10 Steps. The article, written by photographer and NGO-preneur Ryan Libre, has had more than 200,000 views since it was published in September 2008.

Every day we receive comments on this article, often from people in “developing” countries who are fired up on solving local problems with local solutions. They view starting an NGO as an excellent way to do just that.

They’re right, but the challenge they all face is funding. If dollars were distributed on the merit of good ideas alone, well… you wouldn’t need an article like this one.

If you’ve got a sweet idea about an NGO, non-profit, or small business that could change your community–or the world–here are a few ways you can bootstrap your start up with some funding methods beyond the usual approaches.

1. Set up a blog.

If you’ve got a great idea but no one knows about it, how do you expect to get funding for it? Setting up a blog is almost as simple as having an Internet connection… and it’s free.

Start establishing your Internet presence by setting up a simple blog on WordPress. Matador’s got dozens of resources to help you understand exactly how to do this on our Blogging Tips Focus Page.

Essential information includes: the name of your organization; your mission; who you’re working with and/or serving; what need you’re fulfilling; and why no one else is filling it. Provide a way for visitors to get in touch with you if they want to ask questions. Let them know how they can help.

2. Broaden your web presence.

Screenshot of Matador member Misty Tosh’s NGO’s website

What evidence can you provide that you’re already working to solve the big social problem your NGO, non-profit, or small business is going to address?

Flickr and YouTube will let you compile and present visual evidence that you are (1) who you say you are, (2) where you say you are, (3) working on what you claim to be working on.

Flickr and YouTube accounts are free and they’re essential to building and broadening your web presence. They also can be integrated into your WordPress blog easily.

Beyond Flickr and YouTube, set up a Twitter account. Connect with other social entrepreneurs who have started their organization or who are in the process of setting one up. Share ideas and contacts; provide each other with support. Connect with journalists and other people who may be interested in your enterprise. Ask for their support.

3. Now, start raising funds.

It used to be the case that starting an NGO or non-profit required non-stop grant writing.

While grants remain a significant source of operating income, the Internet provides many more tools you can use that will supplement your organization’s financial flow:

ChipIn: ChipIn is a free widget you can embed on your blog to raise money for your cause.

Screenshot from ChipIn

People who want to support your fledgling organization donate money using their PayPal account by clicking on the ChipIn button that now appears on your blog. You can also add the ChipIn widget to your Facebook profile.

Matador has used ChipIn to raise funds for our Brave New Travelers scholarship.

Kickstarter: Kickstarter’s a bit like ChipIn, but with a twist- you set a fund raising goal for your project and you have to meet our goal within a certain period of time in order for the donors’ money to be released to you.

Screenshot of Irina Zhorov’s project on Kickstarter

There are two other catches: (1) You have to have a US bank account and address in order to set up a Kickstarter account and (2) Kickstarter makes its money by taking 5% out of your funded project.

But if you’re agreeable to those terms and if you have a network of people you can reach out to to contribute, it can be an effective fund raising platform. Charyn Pfeuffer, who was profiled on MatadorChange recently, recently funded her $20,000 international voluntourism project on Kickstarter and Matador contributor Irina Zhorov is currently fund raising for a project on Kickstarter, too.

Grow VC
Grow VC is a brand new venture capital funding platform for entrepreneurs who are launching start-ups with a mobile or web-based focus. If your project falls into that category, read about this new funding option on the Grow VC website or in this article from TechCrunch.

Amazon Affiliate Program
You won’t be able to fully fund your start-up as an Amazon affiliate. You likely won’t even make enough to buy coffee for a week, but if you use this program as part of a diverse set of passive income sources, you might just cover some basic operating expenses, like simple office supplies.

There are all sorts of catches, but if you’re approved, the program is easy to use. Read all about it in Amazon’s overview.

Google Grants and Google for Non-Profits
Google has all kinds of resources that relatively few people know about, and Google for Non-Profits is one of them. In addition to its grants program, Google offers in-kind AdWords advertising to non-profits. All of their relevant resources can be accessed on the Google for Non-Profits page.

Community Connection:

Do you have experience funding a non-profit or NGO? Want to share your tips? Leave your advice in the comments section.

Photo: kjunstorm

WildlifeNearYou wasn’t designed to save animal species.

Instead, the purpose of this newish website is to create a dynamic, crowdsourced clearinghouse that can point animal lovers to places where they can see certain types of animals.

The developers of the website specifically state that WildlifeNearYou was “born out of a passion for zoos, nature reserves, and wonder and awe at the vast amount of amazing creatures that inhabit our beloved planet.”

To that end, they invite users of the site to upload photos of animals they’ve seen on their travels and to document where those animals were seen.

Though they specifically indicate that “We’re interested in places where wildlife can be seen reliably,” noting that “A badger spotted in your back garden or an eagle hovering over the M4 aren’t of interest because other people can’t go and see them later,” it seems to me that WildlifeNearYou has the potential to serve as a forum where animal lovers can document sightings of species that may be endangered or even thought to be extinct.

WildlifeNearYou also has the potential to raise awareness about animal species around the world that may be unfamiliar to people outside their local territory. Travelers, in particular, could use WildlifeNearYou to let other users of the site know about the buffy hummingbird (Leucippus fallax) in Colombia’s Tayrona National Park or the elusive (extinct?) ivory-billed woodpecker in Cuba.

Are you a birder or animal lover? What animals have you seen in your travels, and would you use a site like WildlifeNearYou to either document your trip or help you plan places to visit?

Community Connection:

Love the outdoors? Check out 10 Birding Hotspots for our favorite places to spot the world’s most beautiful birds.

Via: Online Schools Feature photo: yeowatzup

What do you think about this infographic? Sound off in the comments.

Community Connection:

Want to learn about SOUTH Korea? Read South Korea Exploration: Roadtripping the Peninsula, Gonzo Traveler: Surviving the Beef Riots in South Korea, and How to be a Vegetarian in Korea.

Best Buy announces its recycling program on a billboard in Times Square. Notice that the sign is made of disposed electronics. Photo: Francisco Collazo

E-waste–the garbage that takes the form of disposed electronics–is largely responsible for landfill overuse and health problems in communities where e-waste ends up.

Many people see electronics as difficult to recycle, as their local recycling programs don’t accept e-waste. Here in New York City, our periodic e-waste collection days were eliminated last year due to municipal budget cuts. It’s easier to throw these items away, even when we know that the consequences of doing so may harm the environment or other people.

Electronics retailer Best Buy is attempting to make e-waste disposal easier and less damaging to the environment and to communities by sponsoring an e-waste recycling program. If you have a TV, DVD player, computer or laptop, cables, cell phones, or other electronics you’d like to get rid of, Best Buy will accept them– even if they weren’t bought at their store– and work with third party vendors to recycle or repurpose the items.

It all sounds good, but upon hearing about the recycling program, I was somewhat suspicious: is Best Buy ensuring that these electronics won’t end up in developing countries, where they’ll be stripped of valuable components like copper wire, exposing people to harmful chemicals in the process?

Best Buy addresses such concerns in its FAQ section. In response to concerns like mine, they write:

Best Buy makes sure that the recyclers we work with adhere to the highest guidelines and standards so that the products customers bring into our stores for recycling don’t end up in landfills or in foreign countries, and that all hazardous materials are disposed of properly. We partner directly with a short list of qualified, respected recycling companies who ensure all products collected for recycling through Best Buy are handled responsibly. These recycling companies meet our standards, and we encourage them to examine and consider additional third-party standards for responsible practices (such as the EPA R2, eStewards, etc.). Please refer to our Consumer Electronics Recycling Standardsfor more information and a list of our partners.

If you’re interested in recycling your e-waste through Best Buy, stores in the US and in Puerto Rico are accepting drop offs (two items per person, per day) indefinitely. The store locator can help you identify a drop off point near you.

Not in the US? Please let us know of e-waste recycling resources in your city or country by leaving information in the comments section.

Community Connection:

Get more information about environmental responsibility on our Global Environmental Issues focus page.

Instead, they’re the ones shot by locals who have the greatest stake in what’s occurring around them.

Carlos, a Chilean photographer, took these shots in his neighborhood, Santiago Antiguo. He writes:

“Many immigrants live in this overcrowded neighborhood, and many are living in the streets. In some neighborhoods, there’s no lights or water… though the situation in Santiago isn’t as grave as it is in the south.”

1. A car is surrounded by rubble from partially collapsed buildings.

2. Neighbors survey the damage.

3. A woman salvages what she can.

4. A man assesses damage.

5. People have moved what’s left into the street.

6. A view of the old buildings in Santiago Antiguo.

7. Residents line up for aid provided by The Salvation Army.

Community Connection:

We are currently communicating with Matador members in Chile to find out what kind of help is needed. We will update readers here as we have more information.

A woman in Santiago surveys damage after the quake. Photo: todosnuestrosmuertos

One of the stories we’ve been working on since the Haiti earthquake is how social media platforms are being used in disaster to improve rescue, recovery, and rebuilding efforts.

In addition to Twitter, Facebook, and text messaging, a new and powerful app has been unleashed by Google: the Google Person Finder.

The Google blog explains:

“After hearing of the devastatingly powerful 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile overnight, we began to mobilize several teams to see what Google resources could help with disaster response. For those concerned about loved ones in Chile, the Person Finder tool, initially created in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, can be used to submit or search for information about individuals who may have been affected. The Person Finder tool has been translated into Spanish and is currently available at http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/, as well as several media sites and the US Department of State website.”

As a community of travelers and expats, Matadorians are in a unique position to use this app for massive information diffusion. Do you know someone in Chile? Have you heard from them since the quake? Add their name and update their status using the Person Finder tool.

The other app Google’s making available is Google Map Maker.

Again, from the Google blog:

“Google Map Maker is currently available in Chile, and we are making this map data available for download by relief and aid organizations. Visit http://mapmaker.google.com/datadownload for more information and to access the data. If you have familiarity with the region, please help these efforts by contributing data about Chile on Google Map Maker. We will be refreshing the download data frequently to reflect the latest set of contributions.

How are you using social media and online tools to respond to the quake and the resulting tsunami? Share your experiences in the comments.

Snowboarder Shaun White. Photo: hypergene

Philanthropy among athletes has achieved a certain de rigeur status.

Though we’ve questioned his extra-marital dalliances, Tiger Woods has helped more than 10 million children through his Tiger Woods Foundation, which focuses on youth development.

Magic Johnson has used his celebrity athlete status–and the considerable fortune it brought him–to establish the Magic Johnson Foundation, which supports community-based organizations in urban neighborhoods around the United States.

Tennis great Billie Jean King is another philanthropist, responsible for establishing multiple foundations, including the Women’s Sports Foundation, which advocates for women’s equality in sports.

And Olympic athletes have long been involved in philanthropic work, too.

Soccer superstar Mia Hamm started her own foundation. In addition to promoting opportunities for girls and women in sports, the Mia Hamm Foundation is also involved in raising awareness and money for bone marrow disease research, and to support families involved in the marrow transplant process.

Ice skating champion Kristi Yamaguchi’s Always Dream Foundation works to provide funding for existing programs providing services to children.

This year’s Olympians are no exception.

Snowboarding favorite Shaun White, popular for his youth, cheerful attitude, and his shock of red hair, has also been spotlighted for his charitable work with the Tony Hawk Foundation, Heartgift, Make-A-Wish Foundation and Summit on the Summit.

Hannah Teter, the 2006 women’s gold medalist in half-pipe snowboarding, also has a foundation, Hannah’s Gold, which sponsors the town of Kirindon, Kenya, providing residents with clean water, health services, and educational opportunities.

What other stories have you heard about Olympians doing good? Share your favorite in the comments!

Community Connection:

If you haven’t had a chance to catch any Olympic action, MatadorSports has a round up of the first week of events.

Screenshot from “Reporter” trailer.

In his twice-weekly column, on his blog, and in his books, Nicholas Kristof takes a social problem and trains his focus as close-in as someone can get to find the single story that will make the rest of us care about what’s going on in other parts of the world.

It’s a method that’s been both criticized and praised, and which compelled filmmaker Eric Metzgar to make a documentary about Kristof.

That documentary, “Reporter,” debuts tonight on HBO. Full details about the documentary and airing time are available on HBO’s website.

Here’s the trailer:

Community Connection:

Who do you read and what sources do you consult to find out about what’s going on in other parts of the world? Let us know by leaving a comment.

William Kamkwamba, one of the TED presenters. Photo: whiteafrican

Here are six of our favorite TED Talks about the environment:

1. Yann Arthus-Bertrand captures fragile Earth in wide-angle.

“You know the problem [is that] we don’t want to believe what we know,” Arthus-Bertrand says at the beginning of this 15 minute talk, in which he presents large-format photos he’s shot that show exactly how we’re damaging the planet. The statistics he superimposes on the photos of Kilimanjaro, the North Pole, and the New Caledonia coral reef are given weight by the fact that those images illustrate numbers that remain abstract unless we see the damage with our own eyes.

I first saw Arthus-Bertrand’s photos in Puerto Rico a couple years ago and recall thinking, “This is important. It’s only by presenting familiar information in a new way that we’ll take action.”

Though Arthus-Bertrand’s photos might leave you feeling desperate, the other part of his talk provides reason for hope. He presents his other projects, an Internet-based multi-media documentary called “6 Billion Others,” and a film, “Home,” both of which aim to collect and disseminate people’s stories about their own lives.

These two projects complement his large-format photos of destruction in an important way: they put a human face on the problems we’ve caused and show just how much is at stake. “It’s too late to be pessimistic,” Arthus-Bertrand concludes. “We can all be part of the solution.”

By showing us the problems, Arthus-Bertrand helps point us toward solutions.

2. James Balog on time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss

I learned about James Balog’s work in the NOVA special, “Extreme Ice.” Balog, a photographer like Arthus-Bertrand, is also director of the Extreme Ice Survey, and it’s through this research project that Balog documents the rapid recession of glaciers in time-lapse photography. “Ice,” Balog says, “is the canary in the global coal mine.”

Photos and film of receding ice can help reshape our understanding of why glacial melt is important.

You can argue all you want about climate change, but once you see Balog’s work, you’ve got to concede that the planet is heating up… and that the consequences are likely to be devastating.

3. Edward Burtynsky photographs the landscape of oil

Do you really know where your oil comes from? Burtynsky shows you where it comes from–and where it goes–in this super-short but profoundly powerful talk. To me, Burtynsky’s photos of the landscapes of oil–the places where oil comes from and the places where oil-powered and oil-based objects end up– are evocative of Chris Jordan’s photographs of mass consumption, and they have the same effect: that of making us more conscious about our consumption.

4. John Francis walks the Earth

The fact that John Francis even gave a TED Talk is fairly remarkable: the man spent 17 years in silence. That’s just one of the unconventional commitments he made in his personal campaign to improve environmental awareness.

That campaign began in 1971, when Francis watched two oil tankers collide in the San Francisco Bay, spilling 1/2 million gallons of oil. He immediately decided to stop driving, choosing to walk everywhere instead.

It’s an unusual journey, he acknowledges in this TED Talk, but one that can serve as a means of reflection for all of us on our own journeys.

If you think environmentalism is for boring people, then bump Francis’s talk to the top of this list.

5. Nalini Nadkarny on conserving the canopy

Nadkarny’s verbal intensity can be a bit much, especially by the end of this 16 minute talk, but it matches her passion for her subject: the importance of the canopy in forests around the world.

Nadkarny believes that the life of the tops of forests can tell us a lot about the health and future of these vital areas. But she also believes that most people could care less about the forest because they have little experience with it.

Rather than simply try to convince listeners by presenting them with scientific facts, she conveys this information through creative approaches, including distribution of TreeTop Barbies and scientist-artist collaborations she refers to as canopy confluences. These have resulted in dances, art installations, and urban youth rap.

I’m a big fan of making academic information accessible and engaging, so Nadkarny’s talk was inspiring.

You’ve got to sit through seven minutes of no-nonsense, fast-talking fact-dropping before you get to that, but the wait is worth it.

6. William Kamkwamba on harnessing the wind

I just love the absolute honesty and transparency of Kamkwamba as he talks about what it was like for him to be invited to give his first TED Talk in Tanzania. Kamkwamba, of Malawi, said: “Before that time, I had never been away from my home. I had never used a computer. I had never seen an internet. My English lost,” he says. “I wanted to vomit. I’d never been surrounded by so many azungu (white people).”

One of seven children, Kamkwamba was forced to drop out of school in the midst of a famine. Looking at his father and seeing the dry fields was “a future I couldn’t accept,” he said. So he changed it.

He taught himself English by looking at graphs and diagrams in physics books he borrowed from a library. And then he built a windmill, which generated both electric and water power. “People started queuing up at my house,” he explained, “to charge their mobile phone. I could not get rid of them. And the reporters came too, and the bloggers, which led to something called TED.”

And why did he agree to give a TED talk?

“Because maybe one day, you’ll watch this on the Internet” and will be inspired to “not give up on your dreams.”

Community Connection:

For some home-grown Matador inspiration, check out Ian MacKenzie’s Interview with Casey Kochmer on Taoist Travel.

Photo: Peter Gene

Nobody will grant you a degree for checking out these podcasts and video lectures, but you’ll be a bit smarter about the world after listening to them.

And bonus? They’re free.

1. Chomsky on Gaza

A lecture from America’s most and least favored intellectual (especially since the death of Howard Zinn), Chomsky’s lecture on Gaza, available as both a video lecture and a podcast, will take up about two hours of your day. That may seem like a lot of time, but breaking down the Gaza situation has taken plenty of other people years to understand and summarize.

Chomsky does a pretty good job of distilling the high (and low) points of the conflict, and though plenty of listeners will take issue with Chomsky’s political leanings and sympathies, it’s important–particularly in this conflict–to get a handle on all sides’ arguments.

2. Design as Activism

This nine part video lecture series presented by the University of California, Davis, may seem highly specialized for urban planners, but it appeals to my frustrated inner architect. Each video lecture ranges in length from 37 to 52 minutes, touching on topics like “Architecture and Social Change” and “Designing with Humanity: Using Design to Advocate for Change.”

The relevance of the series seems obvious, what with reconstruction efforts in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and in Haiti following the January 12 earthquake.

3. CSIS: Center for Strategic and International Studies’ podcasts

I was curious about the innocuous sounding CSIS and so I clicked through to their website to learn it’s a bipartisan policy group that’s a who’s who of older American white men receiving at least 43% of its funding from corporations.

That icky disclosure being made, I still find tremendous value in their podcasts, of which there are hundreds on topics as diverse as global energy, drug trafficking, the international economy, human rights, and health. Even if CSIS is the “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” as a friend said, it’s good to know what the wolf’s wearing, right?

4. Brown University’s “The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons”

With this week’s news that Iran is stepping up its nuclear program, now seems like a pretty good time to learn more about nuclear issues. There are 28 mini-lectures in this series, each of which maxes out at about two minutes in length.

The program includes both historical perspectives (“What was the Cuban Missile Crisis?”) and contemporary concerns (“What would happen in the Middle East if Iran had a nuclear weapon?”), as well as information that was obscure to me, like “Why did Brazil end its nuclear weapons program?”.

5. Open University’s International Development Series

Available as video lectures and podcasts, the Open University’s series on international development touches on poverty, education, health, environmental sustainability, and human rights, tackling these macro issues from a micro, hyper-local perspective, as in “London’s Greek Community.”

6. Yale University

I could spend hours listening to lectures on topics as specialized as “Issues in Jamaican Legal Reform,” “Censorship and Speech in Bangladesh,” and “Iraqi Women’s Ordeal Under Occupation.” Several hundred lectures offered completely free will keep you busy for a while.

Community Connection:

Looking for more learning resources? Check out our Focus Pages, where we’ve collected thousands of resources on topics like Language Learning, Study Abroad, and Travel Reading.

Image: XOZ

The news is so fresh that even the New York Times hasn’t published anything about it as I sit down to write this:

The United States Department of the Treasury has just announced it has decided to collaborate with international partners to extend total debt relief to Haiti, a policy which is consistent with US’s own debt relief, which occurred this past September.

Below is the full text of the Department’s press release:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the United States will work with its partners around the world to relieve all debts owed by Haiti to international institutions and to ensure grant financing to support Haiti’s reconstruction and recovery from the devastating earthquake in January.

“The earthquake in Haiti was a catastrophic setback to the Haitian people who are now facing tremendous emergency humanitarian and reconstruction needs, and meeting Haiti’s financing needs will require a massive multilateral effort,” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. “Today, we are voicing our support for what Haiti needs and deserves – comprehensive multilateral debt relief.”

Secretary Geithner also welcomed International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s call to provide full relief for Haiti’s outstanding IMF debt, including the $102 million emergency loan approved on January 27, 2010.

“We are committed to working quickly and closely with these institutions in a way that provides immediate grant assistance to help the Haitian people recover and rebuild,” Secretary Geithner continued. “I very much welcome the initiative taken on this issue by leaders in Congress, the IMF, and the MDBs and look forward to working with them to provide the critical support Haiti needs for recovery as well as to discussing this issue with my G-7 colleagues this weekend.”

Treasury announced that the U.S. intends to seek a commitment with other donors for the relief of Haiti’s debt to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Development Association (IDA) in a manner that provides direct and immediate grant support to Haiti.

In September 2009, the U.S. concluded an agreement with Haiti that eliminated 100 percent of the Haitian Government’s outstanding debt to the U.S. This action was taken following Haiti’s successful completion of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative process in June 2009.

Photo: Radio Nederland Wereldomroep

All of the people on this #FollowFriday list have played an important role in informing their followers about Haiti. Some approach their tweets from an historical perspective, others with an urgency informed by their on-the-ground experiences in Port-au-Prince and other Haitian cities.

Some share their stories visually, others mobilize people with their passionate, energetic words. All of them are worth following, though, because of their ongoing commitment to help the rest of the world understand and care about Haiti, and compel followers to take action.

Folks Who Provide Backstory and Insight

@Anita5446:
In her doctoral studies, Anne explores popular thought and the connections between Dominicans and Haitians in the 1800s, overwriting what has been too often an anti-Haitian story in the east. Somehow, she manages to distill all her knowledge into digestible 140 character bites that make sense even for a Haitian history novice.

She’s also an excellent source of information about news and cultural events related to the Caribbean and the diaspora.

@RAMHaiti:
If Richard Morse doesn’t follow you back, don’t take it personally. He’s too busy dropping knowledge on Twitter directly from Haiti.

Richard Morse is an anthropologist AND a new wave/punk musician. Though born in the US, his mother was Haitian, and he moved there more than 20 years ago.

If you could go back to three and a half weeks and read all of @RAMHaiti’s tweets, you’d have a crash course in Haitian history and a pretty damn good sense of what the challenges are on the ground right now.

Photographers

@jeffantebi

and

@jeremycowart:

Both of these photographers have been on the ground in Haiti since the quake and their photos serve as crucial visual documentation of disaster and recovery. Antebi had also worked in Haiti before the quake, and his photo essay, “Port-au-Prince Before the Quake,” was published on Matador a couple weeks ago. Cowart just returned from Haiti this week and may be sharing photos with Matador in the coming weeks.

Both photographers, while on the ground in Haiti, updated followers on what they were seeing through their lenses. Antebi has been releasing limited editions of his photos, with proceeds going to Haiti relief efforts.

Connectors and People Who Get Things Done

@MelyMello:
Toronto-based Melissa Elliott exemplifies the positive power of social media. Her day job with Blackbox Communications has her focused on messaging, and she’s brought all of her professional skills to bear on getting out the word about relief efforts and serving as a powerful connector of people with information, resources, and the ability and energy to help.

@ShaunKing:
Featured earlier this week on MatadorChange, Shaun King continues to give his all to cutting through red tape and getting aid to Haiti. He’s currently focused on helping get temporary shelters to Port-au-Prince.

@amadril:
Quite simply, a one-woman tweeter rounding up information and news that serves as a daily digest of what’s happening right now in Haiti.

@LouisOxfam:
Louis Belanger, Oxfam’s humanitarian media officer in New York, was on the ground in Haiti immediately following the quake. His tweets continue to inform about relief efforts, and not just those headed up by Oxfam. Belanger also maintains an excellent, informative Posterous blog with entries from aid workers and journalists in Haiti.

Other Recommendations:

In addition to my recommendations, Matador member AyeGotPassport has organized a list of Haiti tweeters worth following. She also mentions @lindsaybranham, @EstherHavens @ijeanson @jonathanolinger, all of whom she follows because “of their courage to do what they do and to provide support/encouragement in the process.”

Community Connection:

Who would you add to our list? Please let us know by leaving a Twitter handle and your reason for the pick in the comments.

Photo: artemuestra

The global economic crisis has hit most people and business sectors hard, but big oil says it’s feeling especially pinched.

The quarterly earning report for the last segment of 2009 came out for Chevron last week, and the news wasn’t good: Profit margins fell 37% to *just* $3.1 billion USD.

Shell hasn’t faired much better. In fact, its quarterly earnings report, released earlier this morning, reflected that the company is even worse off than Chevron, which is beleaguered by the Amazon lawsuit, the world’s largest class action environmental case.

Shell’s earnings plunged by more than 50%, leaving company execs with the not so enviable task of informing shareholders that earnings were *only* $12.52 billion USD.

Sure, the profit losses are a huge hit for these companies, but as international aid and advocacy group Oxfam notes, oil companies have operated on a “take the money and run” scheme for years, leaving people who live in oil-rich communities wondering where their profits are.

Check out this Oxfam video, then visit the organization’s website to learn how you can support their efforts:

Community Connection:

Read about two Matadorians’ experiences documenting oil companies’ work in Interview: The Filmmakers of “Crude Independence.”

Photo: Stanislaw Wojtkowiak

The day after the Haiti earthquake, I was reading a post “How to Help in Haiti” on the AFAR blog. The post excerpted from a piece on another blog, titled Six Ways You Can Help in Haiti.”

Number 6? “Learn more about Haiti.”

The advice seemed like a no-brainer, but what did most of us really know about Haiti on January 12?

If you were like me–needing to learn more about Haiti– here are three ways to get started:

1. Read everything you can by Edwidge Danticat.

Though she left Haiti to emigrate to the United States when she was 12, Edwidge Danticat has never been far from her home country. Haiti has been as much a presence in her books as it has in her entire body of work, which includes documentary film work with Jonathan Demme.

Danticat lost family members in the January 12 quake, including her cousin Maxo, about whom she wrote in this powerful essay in The New Yorker.

Start with the essay, then take the time to listen to Danticat speak in this interview with NPR, conducted the day after the quake. Finally, get a better feel for Danticat and for Haiti in this video:

2. Let Dr. Paul Farmer school you on Haitian history and public health.

In a video I watched of Dr. Farmer giving a lecture, the host took a full 3.5 minutes to introduce the physician, anthropologist, and founder of Partners in Health, an organization that’s been working in Haiti for over 20 years.

And with good reason.

The man who says that “Haiti has been my greatest teacher” has so much to teach the rest of us about the country where few travelers venture.

Farmer is both the subject
and author of several books, including Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor and On That Day, Everybody Ate: One Woman’s Story of Hope and Possibility in Haiti.

If you don’t have time to read any of his work, you can catch one of his lectures for free on iTunes. One excellent, relevant lecture, given in October 2009, is “Paul Farmer on Development: Creating a Just and Sustainable Future.” Farmer makes Haitian history accessible, and explains many of the existing public health challenges and best practices for responding to them.

3. Learn the language.

When you do travel to Haiti, your best opportunity for learning about the country and its culture will be by talking to its people. Be prepared for conversation by taking advantage of Pimsleur’s Haitian Kreyol language course, which is currently available for FREE, thanks to the publisher, Simon & Schuster.

According to Pimsleur, the course is a “stand-alone 10-lesson (5 hours) program, [that] teaches beginning language strategies for essential communication and traveling needs, plus an introduction to reading.”

I’ve just downloaded the course… if you do the same, let me know and we’ll practice!

Community Connection:

What other resources do you recommend for learning about Haiti? Share them in the comments.

Giving makes you feel good. Photo: Shahram Sharif

I fly a lot and have frequent flyer memberships with almost every U.S. airline and a few international carriers, but the process of redeeming my points for award travel is usually maddening and mind-numbing.

Between black-out dates, service fees, and multi-layover itineraries, I rarely use the points for award travel, and often wonder why I even bother to maintain these frequent flyer accounts.

Increasingly, airlines are offering ways to redeem frequent flyer miles (or kilometers) for other aspects of travel–lodging, car rentals– and even for magazine subscriptions.

Many airlines also offer numerous options for frequent flyers who want to donate their miles to a good cause. Here’s a comprehensive list of 109 ways to use your frequent flyer miles for good. The airlines included on this list are major carriers in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and South America. Future articles will cover the rest of the world’s major airlines.

U.S.-based Airlines

AirTran:
AirTran’s A+ Rewards program supports military leave programs and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Full details can be obtained by calling AirTran at 1-800-247-8726.

Alaska Airlines:

Photo: Kiwi Mikex

If you have miles with Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan, now would be an exceptional time to donate them. Between now and February 15, the airline is matching all donated miles mile for mile, and is giving these miles to charities working in Haiti.

Eight other charities receive miles from frequent flyers of Alaska Airlines; these include: Angel Flight West (providing transportation for medical patients); Dream Foundation (providing transportation for terminally ill patients and their families); Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Foundation; Hero Miles (providing transportation for military service people injured in war); The Make-a-Wish Foundation; Medical Teams International; The National Forest Foundation; and The Nature Conservancy.

American Airlines:
Two of the options for donating miles offered by American’s AAdvantage program are Donate Miles to Kids and Operation Hero Miles.

Operation Hero Miles helps members of the U.S. armed forces who have been injured or wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan by providing travel for families of these service men and women to visit their loved one being treated for injury at military hospitals around the globe.

Continental Airlines:
Continental’s OnePass program allows frequent flyers to donate miles to one of 14 charities, including: March of Dimes, Dream Foundation, M.D. Anderson (a cancer research center); UCP Wheels for Humanity; Golfers Against Cancer; The Ayuda Foundation; The Cleveland Clinic; CAREFORCE; the Make-a-Wish Foundation of America and Make-a-Wish Foundation International; AmeriCares; Healing the Children; the American Red Cross; and the Fisher House Foundation.

Delta:
Delta’s SkyMiles program offers the option to donate to 19 different charitable and conservancy organizations. The full list can be found on Delta’s SkyMiles site.

Photo: USAID IMAGES

The SkyMiles program is also running a limited-time promotion through which miles can be donated to organizations conducting relief work in Haiti.
donate miles to Haiti.

Frontier Airlines:
Frontier’s frequent flyer program, Early Returns, prefers that members donate miles in 1,000 mile increments to support one of five charities: The Fisher House Foundation, The Make-a-Wish Foundation of Colorado, Adoption Exchange, The Colorado Wildlife Heritage Foundation, and the El Jebel Shrine.

JetBlue:
At present, JetBlue’s “True Blue” frequent flyer program has no partnerships established that allow donation of miles.

Southwest Airlines:
Although Southwest supports a number of charities and environmental organizations, its Rapid Rewards program is not currently set up to transfer donated miles to charities.

Spirit Airlines:
Spirit Airlines FREE SPIRIT program does not currently allow donation of miles.

United Airlines:
United’s Mileage Plus program makes donating miles easy, using a simple online form.

With 27 options, you can support a cause you care about.

US Airways
US Airways offers five miles donation opportunities through its Dividend Miles program, including: Miles of Hope; the American Red Cross; Fisher House Foundation; the Make-A-Wish Foundation; and Mercy Medical Airlift.

Virgin America:
Virgin America’s frequent flyer program is called Elevate. The program does not currently have any charitable partners accepting donated miles.

Canadian Airlines

Air Canada

Photo: pfala

Air Canada’s Aeroplan program is currently permitting members to donate their miles to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, both of which are working on the ground in Haiti.

Eight other charities are partner organizations that accept donation of miles; these include Earth Day Canada, Engineers Without Borders, Kids’ Horizons, Doctors Without Borders, Schools Without Borders, The Stephen Lewis Foundation, Veterinarians Without Borders, and War Child Canada. You can choose which organization receives your miles.

In addition, you can choose to earmark your donated miles for Aeroplan’s carbon emissions offset program through Air Canada’s Green It Up initiative.

Mexican Airlines

AeroMexico
AeroMexico’s Club Premiere offers award travel and redemption of miles for loyalty partners’ services, and does not facilitate charity donations at present.

Mexicana
Mexicana’s Frecuenta program allows use of miles only for award flights or stays with hotel partners.

South American Airlines

Avianca:
Avianca’s Avianca PLUS program allows frequent f;yers to donate their miles to a children’s charity; however, the charity is not named on its website.

Copa:
Copa’s program, OnePass, offers 14 ways to donate miles.

LAN:

Photo: BriYYZ

LAN’s frequent flyer program, LANPASS, does not allow redemption of miles for anything other than award travel.

TAM:
TAM’s frequent flyer program, Fidelidade, does not allow redemption of miles for anything other than award travel.

Varig:
At present, Varig’s “SMILES” program does not allow redemption of miles for anything other than award travel.

Community Connection:

Thinking about changing your traveling habits? We give you a full run-down of how to travel by cargo ship and how to travel the world without flying.

Sarah Shourd; Screenshot taken from “A Mother’s Plea”

On August 2, 2009, we reported that Matador contributor Sarah Shourd was one of three Americans detained by Iranian officials after accidentally crossing the Iraq-Iran border while hiking in the mountains.

Since that time, Shourd’s family and the families of the other two hikers have established a strong online presence intended to raise awareness about the hikers’ detention and to call for their release.

In this video, released on December 19, 2009, Shourd’s mother addressed Iran’s Supreme Leader, calling upon him to show mercy and release the hikers:

January 31 marked six months of detention. The anniversary was a solemn one, of course, and one that the families acknowledged by redoubling their efforts to free the hikers.

In this video, siblings of the three hikers call upon viewers to send video responses to Shourd and her companions:

In addition to submitting a video response, here are four other ways you can help free the hikers:

1. Sign the Free the Hikers petition.
2. Write your elected representatives and encourage them to get involved.
3. Write a blog post to raise awareness of the situation among your readers.
4. Follow FTH on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.

Improvised tents at a camp in Port-au-Prince; Photo: UNICEF Sverige

Now, on top of all that, Shaun King is a one-man crusader (ok, with a few thousand passionate followers) for Haiti relief.

King, a frequent commentator on NPR, has been recognized by numerous media outlets and organizations as a leader to watch, particularly due to his skillful use of social media like Facebook and Twitter to bring together diverse people for a single, focused cause.

Shaun King; Photo via King’s blog

Since the quake, King has been using social media to mobilize the masses to take action, and his latest effort may be his boldest and most important one yet: he’s hoping to collect 10,000 tents for Haiti in 24 hours.

Nearly three weeks after the earthquake, thousands of Haitians are living in the street without any shelter. And with seasonal rains expected to start in about six weeks, the need to get people housed–albeit temporarily and in provisional shelters–is critical. Haiti’s President, Rene Preval, said in an interview with PBS Newshour last week that the country needs at least 200,000 tents.

King has secured transportation for the tents on a cargo ship that is leaving Miami for Haiti on Thursday, so he has set a goal for his followers on Twitter and Facebook: collect 10,000 tents by Wednesday. Details of the 10,000 tents drive are available on King’s blog.

I’ll be buying a tent tomorrow (BUY WATERPROOF!) and shipping it out via overnight mail. If you’re able to do the same, leave a note in the comments so we can track how many Matadorians are able to support King’s efforts.

Follow King on Twitter: @shaunking.

Community Connection:

Keep following updates about ways you can help Haiti on www.matadorchange.com.

An immunization clinic in Cambodia. Photo: Cambodia4Kids

Those of us living in the Western world have the luxury of indulging in debates about whether we should get vaccinated for common, deadly diseases.

For many people in developing countries, though, vaccines could–all debate aside–perform life-saving functions, particularly in areas where sanitation and public health services are in limited supply.

And many people in those areas don’t need to think about debating vaccines because they simply can’t afford to get them or they live in communities far from clinics where vaccines are administered.

Those are the people the Gates Foundation hopes to reach with its new vaccine initiative, announced last Friday at the Davos World Economic Forum.

The Gates Foundation announced that it would dedicate more than $10 billion USD to vaccines over the coming 10 years. “Why now?” asked Melinda Gates, the wife and philanthropic partner of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. “Because of the success we’ve seen” with the work they’ve done so far.

Among those successes are the eradication of polio from all but four countries in the world, the distribution of rotovirus vaccine (a diarrheal disease that kills babies and young children), and the ongoing research into the development of a malaria vaccine and an HIV/AIDS vaccine. At present, malaria kills more than 880,000 people every year.

“Our commitment isn’t enough to take full advantage of what needs to be done,” Bill Gates said at the press conference announcing the aid, inviting government, pharmaceutical, research and development, and private sector support to realize the full potential of what Gates calls “the decade of vaccines.”

According to the Gates Foundation, the vaccine project has the potential to save more than 8 million lives by 2020.

Watch the Gates’ full announcement of the initiative in this video:

What do you think about the Gates’ declaring the next 10 years “the decade of vaccines”? Do you support their vaccination project? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Community Connection:

Read more about the development of the malaria vaccine in In Search of a Malaria Vaccine: What Travelers Should Know.

Map of Haiti on the wall at the Haitian Consulate, NYC, Photos: Francisco Collazo

As the editor of MatadorChange–the Matador blog focused on social change, environmental awareness, and community building–I felt compelled to organize Matador’s response to the earthquake in Haiti. What follows below are hastily scribbled notes written on receipts, in a rain-soaked notebook, and on the back of my grocery list during one of the most intense weeks I’ve ever experienced.

**
1. Francisco is serving dinner when we hear about the earthquake in Haiti. The idea to use Twitter to mobilize a relief effort comes immediately.

2. I cared about the Sichuan earthquake. I cared about the Aceh tsunami. But there’s something about Haiti being in the Caribbean–closer to home, a place where I’ve spent a lot of time, a place I know well–that makes the disaster seem more concrete, less abstract, and more urgent.

3. We are in a waiting room at the Consulate. “My family is sleeping in their car because the house is falling down,” says a young woman–22 maybe?– whose hair is combed carefully into place, whose clothes are pressed. “Your big beautiful house?” the Consul says, his voice rising into the question.

The Consul

They are cousins. Hers is not a horror story within this palimpsest of disaster, but it’s terrible enough. Everyone’s suffering is individual, and, to that extent, is relative.

4. “A lady is crying in the hall,” Francisco whispers to me. “She just learned that she lost someone.”

5. “Logistics” is a word I’ll avoid using for a long time.

6. What’s more haphazard: disaster or disaster response?

7. I think of 9/11, of Katrina, of the pervasive sense of powerlessness so many people feel. What I want to do is help people feel they can contribute meaningfully.

8. The vultures are circling at the consulate. The fat man has medicine to send, but “Somebody’s gotta pay for it.” The other economic hit men, talking about bulldozers and helicopters, rub their hands together and talk about the “return on investment,” about “long-term gains.” One looks at me and sighs, “Bureaucracy is such a pain.” Does he expect me to empathize with him?

9. In a way, though, I do. Empathize with him, I mean. I want to say: “Fuck red tape. People are dying.”

10. I wish I could draw what this process looks like. It would look chaotic but ordered. For some reason, I get the sense it would be easier to explain and understand that way.

11. I’ve become so dependent on Twitter, I find myself writing #Haiti with a hash tag no matter where I’m writing.

12. The Consul says he is hungry. He says it as if he’s not in the middle of coordinating a response to a disaster. I’m not sure what to make of his seeming calm.

13. I take a nap with Francisco and Mariel. We sleep close together, as if disaster might touch us while we’re not awake. I dream of falling down a long, narrow flight of stairs. When I look up the symbolism of this dream, there are mixed messages: one, a fear of failure. The other, an object of envy. I don’t know what to make of this, but it leaves me unsettled.

14. More than 1,500 emails. I have sent more than 500 replies and my gmail is blocked. I set up a secondary account. It fills up quickly. So many people want to help. I am awed by this, am grateful. And slightly overwhelmed.

15. I’ve “met” some phenomenal people: Rene, in Chicago, who’s in contact with an organization that may take some of our volunteers. Daniel in Miami, who’s working on press. Jess and Carlos here in New York, handling our volunteer list and picking up donations, respectively. Jackie in Boston, who’s focused on collecting donations for babies and kids. Andrea in central Florida, who has tons of water (literally) ready to ship. And Matador members- Gabriela, Cathey, Allen, to name just a few– all pitching in in different ways. I think, as I always do in extraordinary situations, what could we do together beyond disaster?

16. Three days into this, and I’ve forgotten what I was doing before the quake. Francisco says I should take a shower. I’ve been sitting in front of the computer or on the phone for 13 hours today.

Vigil in a Haitian neighborhood in Brooklyn

17. Coordinating well-meaning people gets complicated. From the outside, it’s hard to see how much work it takes to put together something as simple as getting donations to a warehouse. Everyone wants an answer now. Answering now is not possible.

18. When it’s night, I don’t sleep well. My last thought is of the Bresma kids, sleeping in a yard. Under other circumstances, there might be something adventurous about that. Under these circumstances, it’s terrifying.

19. And that’s why I say to Francisco before we fall asleep one night–which night?– “I just can’t imagine. I’m torn up over it.” I can’t even say “the babies,” our 3.5 month old daughter sleeping soundly between us. “You’ve got to stop,” he says, reaching over and touching my hair. He means to stop thinking about it. It. The babies.

20. We have mobilized thousands of people to take tangible action. It’s exhilirating. It’s complicated.

21. It’s been two weeks and two days since the quake. I was waiting to end this with some hopeful note. So far, I’m not sure what that would be.

Mai Alyschild, RN volunteering in Haiti

Mai Alyschild retired from her job as a psychiatric nurse at San Francisco General Hospital when she turned 60.

That was five years ago.

Rather than join a bridge club or take up knitting, Alyschild began pursuing a different pastime: humanitarian work in the developing world.

Alyschild has conducted a study on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in rural Afghanistan; worked in Nairobi’s Kibera Hospital and AIDS Clinic; and has gained extensive experience in disaster relief, having provided medical assistance after an earthquake in Peru and a flood in Villahermosa, Mexico.

Alyschild, the mother of a friend of Brave New Traveler co-editor, Christine Garvin, has been on the ground in Haiti helping with earthquake relief efforts since January 21. She has been keeping a running journal of her impressions and experiences on Facebook, where her status updates give the rest of us an unedited, unscripted sense of what it’s like to be volunteering in Haiti right now:

Thursday, January 21: Oh.My.God

“We made it through the 7th level of hell (immigration bs/customs at the border). We were besieged by desperate hungry children at every turn….

…[W]e are …at the UN compound at the airport in Port-au-Prince. The Turkish NGO, Helping Hands, is feeding us dolmas and dates and grapes – after going hungry all day…. We will start work at the Hospital near the palace Nacional tomorrow.”

Friday, January 22: Greetings from UN Hospital

Photo: The US Army

“I no sooner got my scrubs on this morning at 6am when I was immediately coopted by the UN hospital here on the airport grounds… they were desperate for nurses… over 100 pt’s in the post-op recovery tent and 45 in the Pedi/Kids tent…(eek) and a full surgical theatre… with choppers airlifting in more pt’s every 1/2 hr from ground zero with gangrenous open wounds.

I was assigned vitals, wound care and hydration/nutrition… wound care was a bit daunting but the other nurses and I all pulled together and no one died…

[W]orked 12 hours running my ass off…and there was never enough time…everyone hollering “Doctora” “Doctora!” at me…. (This place makes “Mash” look like a 4-star hospital).

We even conscripted carpenters to ma[ke] us more OR surgery tables… as we needed them!
One funny thing: a team of Scientologists showed up to feed the Dr.s and Nurses hot chicken soup (bless them).
I may be here for awhile.”

Saturday, January 23: Day 3 at UN Hosp Hell City

“It is NOT getting any better…. The CDC would shut us down in a heartbeat for (absent) infection precautions… but what can we do??…. I want to scream at all the voyeuristic media hanging around, ‘Go home and send us nurses!’”

Sunday, January 24: 3-dot journalism

“passing soup across the cracked lips of a 96 yr old Creole woman…
one constancy intrudes: the whup-whup-whup of incoming choppers
and your gut tenses, wondering What now??

Untenses in the brief respites around coffee urns with colleagues
14 lenguas…two phrases in common:
‘What do you need?…How can I help?’

One certainty: I am where I need to be
You’d have to drag me away from here

Every moment you are ‘in the moment’
paying attention to the need in front of you.”

Monday, January 25: UN Hosp…

“Checking charts: (well, ‘charts’ is a bit of a stretch…stapled together sheets of paper)
‘TB positive’…’sickle-cell crisis’…’Hypertensive’…’rule out Typhoid’…’chicken pox isolation.’

Earthquake survivor, Photo: UN Development Programme

How many ways can the human body crump [sic] on you aside from earthquake trauma?

Don’t ask.”

Tuesday, January 26: How long have I been here?? IT FEELS LIKE A MONTH.

“Received ‘NO Code’ patient in advanced AIDS with advanced tetanus… prognosis: 24 hrs. Family at bedside
I gave him care and had a translator explain that this was their time to say goodbyes….

…[T]his is going to be Hell for the foreseeable future….

Tuesday, January 26: Reality bites

…Tonight a Haitian band came in and played some rousing gospel music and the patients families got up off the floor and began dancing and shouting in all the available open spaces…it was a sight to behold. Somehow they find it in their heart to be joyful for just being alive in the face of such dire adversity.

There is surely a lesson there for all of us….

Wednesday, January 27: Stress rears its ugly head

“I resorted to sneaking food from the mess to patients families who are here overnight without much to eat. Officially we have ‘only enough for patients and staff’ but there are cargoloads of donated food/supplies coming in every day marked ‘For the people of Haiti’ (I didn’t see any marked ‘for patients and staff only’).”

Wednesday, January 27: Greetings from (now) an armed camp

Previously known as the UN Hospital.
“The Army has taken it upon themselves and in a matter of 8 hours pounded posts in and hung a 6 foot chain link fence around the hospital to prevent locals and looters from coming into our camp.

I asked one: ‘Is that to keep the nurses in here from fleeing this scene?’ He laughed out loud.

Big problem: Cargoloads of donated items flown in in crates and dumped on our doorstep but no time or personnel to go thorough [sic] them and find what we need and get it on shelves… too busy with the need in front of us.”

Community Connection:

Another perspective on Haiti in this post-quake period is provided by students at the local film institute in the town of Jacmel. Check out MatadorTV’s video: After the Earthquake: A Compilation of Cine Institute Coverage.

Photo: takomabibelot

In case you missed it–which is entirely possible, given that mainstream media made a quick mention of it and moved on to the next big thing–the US Supreme Court handed down an alarming ruling in a critical case last week concerning the role of corporate America’s influence in American politics.

In brief, the justices ruled in a 5-4 decision that the US government can neither prohibit nor control corporations’ political spending in elections. In a rather astonishing leap of (il)logic, the majority decision stated that spending is a form of speech, and as such, spending can’t be controlled by the government because imposing controls would be a violation of the First Amendment.

Well, money does talk, but as Justice John Stephens expressed in his 90-page dissenting opinion, corporate speech (made possible by deep pockets) and the speech of individual Americans aren’t exactly equivalent.

With this in mind, we argue there are at least five reasons why last week’s Supreme Court decision means the end of democracy as we know it:

1. Because it’s an alarming precedent for illogical judicial analysis.

The judicial branch of federal government plays a crucial role in Americans’ lives.

It affects our education, our relationships, and our bodies.

It’s precisely because it’s so powerful that Americans depend upon its decisions to be rooted in the most thoughtful and careful analysis of the law possible.

And in this decision, such analysis was absent.

As MatadorTrips co-editor Hal Amen observed, “I don’t believe relaxing campaign spending restrictions has anything to do with free speech.”

The fact that the Court made a case otherwise sets an alarming precedent for this Court with respect to its ability to analyze legal matters logically.

2. Because it shows just how pervasive the corporatocracy is…

Corporate lobbyists already exert almost unimaginable influence over politics, law, and daily life in the United States.

Graphic: OpenSecrets

They determine everything from what kids eat for lunch in public school cafeterias to what warnings the EPA can compel manufacturers to attach to their products.

And corporate interests have long shaped our foreign policy, from Latin America to the Middle East.

Do we really need more of their meddling? Do they really need any more power?

3. and emboldens them even more.

If you thought the arrogance of corporate America had reached unsurpassable heights (see AIG and big banks’ bonus fiascos), then just wait. Corporate America just got a big blank check, signed by the Supreme Court.

4. Because it further exposes the hypocrisy of American “democracy” to the rest of the world.

As we continue our world tour for democracy, claiming that we’re going to liberate “oppressed” countries from their self-interested “dictators,” we might want to take a minute to reformulate our elevator speech, because the jig is up: the self-interested party is corporate America.

5. Because it means that the little guy just got even smaller.

It used to be that anyone who met the requirements of office could aspire to public service through politics. Exhibit A? Jimmy Carter.

This was a hallmark of American politics.

No longer.

Unless you’re a friend of big business, forget your political aspirations.

Community Connection:

What’s your opinion of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Chris Mburu, recipient of educational assistance, Harvard grad, & UN human rights lawyer; Photo from A Small Act

A few months ago, an acquaintance was talking with me about Mexican children whose education she sponsors. She obviously felt good about the effects she believed her quarterly donations were having in the lives of a few kids; she spoke energetically, smiling a lot, describing the changes she imagined had been brought into their lives as the result of her modest contribution.

I didn’t say much, just listened. Honestly, I was skeptical about the kind of situation she was describing. While I’m an advocate of micro-loans, I’ve always been suspicious of supposed educational sponsorship programs. Unlike a micro-loan administered by an organization like Kiva, educational assistance programs are often far less transparent.

And so it was with interest that I read an article in last Sunday’s New York Times about an exceptional outcome in a case where a woman living in Sweden paid $15 USD per quarter for a Kenyan boy’s school fees… and he went on to become a Harvard graduate and human rights lawyer working for the United Nations.

Their story is told in the documentary “A Small Act,” which debuted at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival last week. Here’s the trailer:

The film will be shown on HBO later this year.

Community Connection:

Want to learn more about what happens to your donations? Read two viewpoints on micro-loans: Why We Need Micro-loans Instead of Slum Tourism and Hand Up or Help Out?: The Case Against Micro-loans.

Photo: courtneyrae312

Allen Burt, a long-time Matador member and contributor, describes himself as a “former business consultant turned vagabond and social entrepreneur” in his Matador profile, so we’re not surprised he has organized a fundraiser for Haiti.

Burt, who’s also one of the co-founders of Library for Laos, invites Matador members and readers to the Hope 4 Haiti Happy Hour, which will be held in Chicago this Friday.

Here are all the details:

Date: Friday, January 29
Location: Hi-Tops: 2462 N. Lincoln Avenue (between Altgeld & Montana Streets) , Chicago
Time: 8-10 PM
Deal: From 8-10 PM, $30 all-you-can-drink domestic drafts and well drinks, as well as $2 shots and $5 bombs. From 10pm to close, it’s $3 “you-call-its” with your wristband. Appetizers will also be served.
Proceeds: 100% OF MONEY COLLECTED WILL GO TO SAVE THE CHILDREN

Save the Children has worked in Haiti since 1978 and currently has more than 200 staff on the ground in the country. It has set up and staffed a mobile health clinic in Leogane and Jacmel, and is working urgently to prevent public health crises among infants and children in the aftermath of the quake.

Charity Navigator gives Save the Children a four star rating, noting that the organization allocates 91.7% of funds raised to actual services (the remainder are used for administrative and additional fund raising costs).

Anonymous donors will match the first $600 of donations.

Even if you can’t attend the event, donations are being accepted through the fund raising website set up for the event. Donations will also be taken at the door on Friday night.

Community Connection:

Read about other ways money is being raised for Haiti: Help for Haiti: Big Music Gets in on the Act

Feature photo & photo above of Michael Franti, by feverblue

What do an American Hasidic Jewish rapper and an African-American roots-hip-hop-funk-jazz-folk-rocker adopted and raised by Finnish American couple have in common?

An unshakable belief that music can and should inspire.

That and the fact that they’re both musicians who make our #MusicMonday list of the Internet’s most inspirational music videos.

Here are our favorites… who would you add?

1. Matisyahu: “One Day”, picked by BNT editor, Ian MacKenzie

“‘One Day’ is meant to be an anthem of hope. The song [is] a prayer for peace which Matisyahu hopes will be a source of inspiration for people struggling to open their hearts and stay positive.”

2. Michael Franti & Spearhead: “Hey World (Don’t Give Up)”, picked by BNT editor, Ian MacKenzie

“The music that Franti makes and his dedication to greater understanding on a global level, are not two aspects of his life, but very much one and the same.”

3. Playing for Change, Various Artists: “Stand by Me”, picked by Matador intern, Nancy Harder

Even if you burned out on this song years ago, you’ve gotta love the spirit of the musicians who contributed to this video, and the whole idea behind the Playing for Change project.

4. Wyclef Jean, “Hold On”, picked by MatadorChange editor, Julie Schwietert

Wyclef Jean’s musical message to quake survivors in his home country, Haiti.

5. Bjork, “Declare Independence”, picked by contributing editor, Paul Sullivan

It’s worth noting that one of Paul’s other selections was Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”. Um, Paul, what does *that* inspire?

Community Connection:

Looking for more music? Paul Sullivan keeps you stacked with free beats from around the world in his “#MusicMonday: 50 Music Sites That Matter.”

Photo: United Nations Development Programme

Earlier this week, a Matador member wrote to say:

“I’ve been finding myself wanting to fly out & lend a hand for the tsunami, Katrina & now this, but I just don’t have the experience & feel I would only be in the way. I was wondering what you might suggest for getting the training I might need to be able to do the work I want to do to help.”

If you’ve been wondering how to get disaster training, here are a few resources that will prepare you to help:

1. American Red Cross Disaster Training

If you want to get started with your disaster training right away, the American Red Cross has a comprehensive introductory course online– and it’s free.

The course consists of three modules, which familiarize you with the Red Cross and its role in disaster response; the specific skills and actions required of disaster response volunteers; and the opportunities for volunteering with your local Red Cross chapter.

While in-person disaster training courses provide better opportunities for question and answer, as well as interaction with other learners and seasoned disaster response experts, the ARC online course seems like a solid way to begin learning some basic disaster relief principles.

If you do prefer in-person training, many Red Cross chapters offer classes at their local offices.

2. FEMA Emergency Management Training

Though many Americans are likely to argue that FEMA–the Federal Emergency Management Agency– could benefit from some training itself in light of its poor response to Hurricane Katrina, the agency offers independent study courses that cover a range of disasters, including earthquakes.

Specialized topics include how to respond to emergencies involving animals, hazardous materials, and pandemics.

The courses are self-paced, delivered online, and are free. You can even earn college credit for your coursework.

3. Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services Training Program

“Trained volunteers are effective volunteers,” says the Salvation Army, which has been providing disaster response and relief services for more than 100 years.

Like FEMA, the Salvation Army offers courses focusing on specific aspects of disaster, such as “Psychological First Aid” and “Emotional and Spiritual Care in Disaster Operations.” They also offer an “Intro to Disaster Services” class for new volunteers.

These classes take place at Salvation Army locations around the United States. Check the schedule of trainings to see if there’s a location near you.

4. The National Center for Disaster Preparedness

Students pay thousands of dollars a year to attend Columbia University, but you can access the university’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness courses–offered through its highly respected Mailman School of Public Health– for free.

Online webinars offered by the NCDP go far beyond your basic disaster preparedness and response curricula offered by the other organizations… these topics are high-tech: “Geospatial Intelligence, Social Data, and the Future of Public Health Preparedness and Response.” Having organized Matador’s social media response to the Haiti earthquake, I’m all about this course: “Learning Networks of People & Places from Mobile Data.”

Seriously, dig into this website. Columbia’s offering some highly specialized knowledge delivered by world-renowned scholars.

5. Centers for Disease Control

Need to deepen your knowledge and skills about bioterrorism attacks, bombings, or other chemically-related emergencies? The CDC is your one-stop shop in these areas. Download courses for free–in English AND in Spanish– on their website.

Most of these resources are focused on learners based in the United States. If you’re from another country, what resources are available to you locally? Share them in the comments!

Community Connection:

Learn more about disasters and disaster relief in these articles from our archives:

Disaster Aid: Killing with Kindness?

How to Survive Travel Disasters: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina

Photo courtesy of Amazon Watch

MatadorChange has been following the ongoing saga of Chevron’s shenanigans since last May, when our colleagues at the environmental group Amazon Watch forwarded us a letter from Emergildo Criollo, a representative of the Ecuadorean community of Cofan, which has been devastated by Chevron’s oil extraction activity.

We’ve written several articles about Chevron and other big oil interests, including Shell, since that time, and we’ve been following developments in what has been called the largest class action environmental lawsuit in history.

Amazon Watch notified us recently that Chevron has a new CEO. On January 1, 2010, John Watson, Chevron board member, was appointed head of the company.

With more than 30 years of his career invested in Chevron, environmentalists critical of the appointment wonder whether Watson can really lead the way in cleaning up the company… not to mention the countries and communities it has harmed.

On It’s Getting Hot in Here, a youth climate action blog, writer Nick Magel observed:

“…John Watson is the very man [who] orchestrated Chevron’s takeover of Texaco, and with it the 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water and 17 million gallons of crude oil deliberately dumped in Ecuadorian rainforest communities. Given Watson’s intimate understanding of Chevron’s toxic legacy there is no question he knows what is necessary to clean up their mess and compensate the communities that have been living with the effects of Chevron’s contamination for decades.”

Magel went on to issue a challenge, asking “Will Watson build a tenure on human rights or legal fights?”

Amazon Watch has released a video of Ecuadorean people who ask Watson to take charge and lead Chevron in a new direction. You can watch that video below, and then read on to learn about the petition campaign led by Amazon Watch and how you can get involved:

The petition being led by Amazon Watch reads as follows:

Dear Mr. Watson:

As the new CEO of Chevron, climate change and the environmental and human rights impacts of Chevron’s operations are the two issues that will define your tenure at the helm of one of the world’s largest oil companies. Chevron has fallen behind other businesses and many political leaders already taking a leadership position on climate change. Furthermore, your company is drawing increasing criticism for failing to rectify its massive human rights and environmental disaster in Ecuador. Taking the following steps will demonstrate a true commitment to environmental responsibility and respect for human rights – which will only strengthen your company’s future.

We the undersigned call on Chevron CEO John Watson to:

Clean up Chevron’s toxic legacy in Ecuador, compensate affected communities for health and environmental impacts, and provide affected people real access to health care and potable water.

Develop a global environment and human rights policy that will prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Adopt aggressive strategies to provide clean energy to a carbon-constrained world.

To sign the petition, visit ChevronToxico.

Community Connection:

Educate yourself about oil! What Cuba Taught Us About Peak Oil is just one article from our archives that addresses oil as a dwindling resource.

Photo: United Nations Development Programme

The tone of email messages from people who want to help in Haiti echoes the tone of those already on the ground in Haiti: Why are we still in a holding pattern? Why does everything take so long to get moving? People need us!

It’s a tone tinged with equal parts urgency and exasperation, as well, I think, of a sense of hopelessness or uselessness. “I have skills!” people write me, attaching their resumes and enumerating the experiences they have that make them qualified to volunteer in Haiti. “But I have half a warehouse full of water! And people are dying of thirst!” writes another, asking how we can help him get pallets of bottled water to Haiti.

The answer is: We can’t. Not right now.

For anyone who continues to watch or listen to the news out of Port-au-Prince, rescue and relief efforts there continue to move at a pace that no one finds satisfactory. From a distance, it’s easy to criticize the organization (or lack thereof, it seems to us) of whoever’s in charge (Is anyone in charge?).

But among the many lessons I’ve learned in the past week of organizing Matador’s relief effort, it’s that the coordination of many people for a complex project with acute needs is a task that requires input and action from many different people and agencies. While the bureaucracy of this all just seems unbearable, we have to deal with the system we have right now… and work damn hard to fix it once Haiti has some real relief.

So what do all these observations mean for our efforts? A lot. Here’s the latest:

1. Volunteers ARE needed, though often under strict conditions.

Over the weekend and early this week, we have been in touch with on the ground partners who continue to screen potential volunteers to serve in Haiti. Partners in Health has already received a list of volunteers with medical credentials who contacted Matador last week. If they are in need of your assistance, Partners in Health will contact you directly.

If you are a medical professional who did NOT sign up with Matador last week, please visit Partners in Health’s website to fill out this online volunteer form.

For other volunteer opportunities, please complete this online form, and Matador’s partner organizations will contact you directly if they need you. Please do not contact Matador about volunteer requests or submissions, as these are currently being handled by the partner organizations.

2. Donation sites need volunteers for sorting and packing.

Some aid organizations are calling for an end to material donations, as it is difficult to ship them at this time. However, sites that have been accepting donations do need assistance sorting and packing donated items. If you are in the New York City area and would like information about sorting and packing, please email me at julie[at]matadornetwork[dot]com for a list of sites. Please put SORTING AND PACKING NYC in the subject line.

3. NYC area volunteers are needed for an event tomorrow.

The Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs is hosting a panel discussion of humanitarian disaster relief experts on the Haiti earthquake. Panelists will speak on the state of the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, the progress on the ground and how individuals can get involved in the relief efforts. The IIHA is looking for volunteers to staff the event, which is Thursday afternoon. If you are interested in volunteering for this very important and timely event, please email Jenna Felz TODAY at felz@fordham.edu.

4. Decide if you’re in this for the long haul.

I said this the other day, but the message bears repeating: Haiti will need help for a long time to come. If you’re not able to play a direct role now, please be patient; the opportunity will arise for you to do so at a time when many people will have moved on. Your help will be even more valuable then.

Community Connection:

Matador Life editor Leigh Shulman examines our response to the Haiti earthquake in her article Five Elements of Running a Successful Social Media Campaign for Emergency Relief.

A sidewalk shrine set up in front of a Haitian restaurant in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Photo: Francisco Collazo

[Editor's Note: Due to scheduled maintenance of the MatadorNetwork, we were unable to publish this update last night.]

Many readers have written to say how frustrated they are that they can’t be on the ground in Haiti, that it’s painful for them to sit at home, watching the rescue effort on TV, and “doing nothing.”

But as independent journalist Ned Sublette wrote today in his daily email digest, Nedslist, “Watching disaster porn on TV is my definition of powerless.”

There’s something all of us can do, and there’s no need to feel powerless. Here are a few options, all of which are being spearheaded by Matador members or readers who responded to our initial call for volunteers. Read on… you’ll likely feel more clear about your own role in the recovery effort, and you’ll definitely be inspired.

1. Donation sites in New York City are being verified.

I spent today verifying the donation sites that are on the list provided by the Haitian Consulate. Only one of four sites visited is actively accepting donations, and that is Roland Realty, which is located at 907 Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn. You can drop off donations of non-perishable food, clothing, and small household items at Roland.

Matador will be coordinating a sorting and packing day with American Airlines, The Society for the Advancement of People, and Roland Realty next week. More details to follow in future updates.

2. Matador contributor Gabriela Garcia announces opportunities to help in Miami. Other opportunities are announced in central Florida.

For anyone in the Miami area: We are taking donations of medical supplies, food, and blankets (clothing and building materials will be accepted later on as the warehouses are overwhelmed and the most items are going out first). The first shipment leaves Monday aboard the USS Comfort.

The drop off location is 7230 NW Miami Court in Little Haiti. Donations are being accepted on Sunday from 9am-3pm and Monday from 1pm-5pm.

Andrea Brown of central Florida reached out to Matador as a coordinator for local donation efforts in the Orlando area. Please follow her on Twitter (@aharbrown) for updates in that region.

3. Matador is sharing the information of medically qualified volunteers with Partners in Health.

Partners in Health has been working in Haiti for more than 20 years. We have been in touch with PiH since Wednesday and have agreed to share our list of volunteers with medical credentials with PiH.

More than 180 people who responded to Matador’s initial volunteer request, in addition to 70 Haitian American doctors who contacted Matador, will have their information made available to PiH. If you are among these people, please DO NOT contact PiH directly, as they are overwhelmed with calls. If they need your assistance, they will follow up with you directly.

Other volunteers without medical experience will remain on our volunteer list for a future trip to Haiti to assist in recovery efforts.

4. A Matador volunteer arrived in Port-au-Prince and reports he was able to get supplies to Bresma orphanage.

Vladimir Tilus was one of the first readers to respond to Matador’s call for volunteers. A former serviceman with experience serving in Port-au-Prince, Vladimir was determined to return to the city to assist in rescue efforts.

He reported that he arrived in Port-au-Prince last night. This afternoon, we asked Vladimir if he could try to deliver water and food to the children of the Bresma orphanage, as they had run out of water completely and food was running low. At 10:37 EST tonight, Vladimir wrote to say that he had reached the orphanage and was able to deliver both water and food. Though the kids are not out of danger yet, these critical supplies will help them hang on a bit longer.

We will continue to keep you posted with updates as new information is available.

Thank you for your continued support.

Haitians wait in line for water. Photo: UN Development Programme

There are three important updates to share this evening, so let’s just get right to it.

1. All volunteer information submitted to Matador is being reviewed by relief agency partners to match skills to need.

We have been collaborating with relief agency partners to match volunteers with service opportunities. All prospective volunteers need to submit their information using this online form. The organizations will review volunteer applications and follow up if your skills match needs for upcoming projects in Haiti.

Initial priority will be given to volunteers with medical/nursing skills; proof and verification of all credentials will be required.

We are not able to respond to individual inquiries about volunteering at this time due to the volume of volunteers who have expressed interest in offering their time and service.

Please note: Volunteer opportunities are not likely to be immediate. The Port-au-Prince airport remains clogged with international military planes and an influx of volunteers is still not feasible at this time. You will be contacted if a volunteer opportunity is identified for you.

2. Matador continues to work with American Airlines and other local organizations and businesses to coordinate donation efforts in New York City.

Over the weekend, we will be working with local donation centers approved by the Haitian Consulate to determine how volunteers can assist with sorting and packing items for shipping. Details will be provided as they become available.

We’re grateful to American Airlines, the Association for the Social Advancement of People, and Caribbean Cargo & Packaging for their collaboration.

3. Matador members in other cities are coordinating local efforts in their communities.

As information is available about these opportunities, we will announce them here.

Thank you for your continued support. We are in contact with volunteers on the ground in Port-au-Prince, and will be sharing direct reports as they become available.

UN forces performing rescue operations in Haiti. Photo: UN Development Programme.

[Special Note 1/14/10 @2:15 EST]

We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and willing volunteers. Thank you.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as we learn more.

Here’s the update as of January 14, 2010, 7:30 PM EST

I’m writing after having spent the better part of today at the Haitian Consulate of New York City, where I met with the Consul and representatives from American Airlines to discuss how Matador and the immense energy of those of you who have reached out can best be directed to help Haiti intelligently and meaningfully.

The highlights of that meeting are as follow:

1. The on-the-ground situation in Haiti and basic infrastructure cannot support an influx of volunteers at this point.

American flew two planes of equipment from San Juan, Puerto Rico into Port-au-Prince yesterday. The American representatives indicated that the airport, while open, may not be structurally sound and the control tower needs repairs. In addition, commercial planes are having difficulty landing, as aid and military planes are taking up a great deal of space at the airport. They do not have an immediate timetable for flying people into Port-au-Prince.

In addition, the Consul indicated that fresh water and other aspects of infrastructure are not sufficiently intact to be able to support an influx of volunteers. Although it’s difficult to watch the destruction and need that undeniably exist on the ground right now, the Consul considers a mass deployment of volunteers to be an action that would complicate current efforts.

2. American will prioritize delivery of medication and medical supplies.

Immediate flights will deliver medication and medical supplies. Commercial carriers are limited in their ability to deliver other items because of TSA and packaging regulations.

3. American will be collaborating with Matador to organize the collection of donated goods in New York City.

Most relief efforts need to be organized locally at this point. Matador will be collaborating with American to collect, sort, and pack donated goods in New York City. We are currently speaking with another NYC organization about the logistics of shipping those goods. We will continue working directly with the Consul to determine which organization will receive and distribute the goods in Haiti.

Additional information will be provided about the NYC collection effort after a logistics meeting tomorrow afternoon.

4. If you are not in New York City, you can still help.

In addition to donating money to the trusted organizations indicated at the opening of this article, you can reach out to your local Consulate to determine how you can best direct your efforts. As Matador members organizing efforts in other US cities are able to coordinate with their local Consulates, we will post their information here. Such efforts are currently underway in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Miami.

5. Be patient.

My mom has a saying: “Hurry up and wait.”

It’s hard to sit still and watch the news of such devastation and not feel compelled to help. Hundreds of the messages we have received start by saying “I have to go to Haiti to help.” Matador will continue working on organizing a trip; however, all of our contacts and organizations with direct contact to Port-au-Prince have indicated that the time for that trip is not now. We will maintain our list of volunteers and provide information about on-the-ground opportunities as they arise.

Feature photo by US Army Africa. Photo above by Julien Harneis

[Special Note 1/14/10 @2:15 EST]

We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and willing volunteers. Thank you.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as we learn more.

I went to bed last night (this morning, was it? Yes, I think so) with a full heart and a million thoughts, reaching over to the notebook by the bed every few minutes to make another note.

So many Matador members have volunteered hours of time to organize volunteer lists. Hundreds of you that had never heard of Matador before the earthquake have emailed, called, or tweeted offers to help.

We are doing everything we can to provide specific, concrete opportunities for you to help.

While we continue to discuss logistics about a trip to Haiti, please know that we are working on several other aid and relief projects, too, and will be posting information about how you can help, so check here often.

Here’s the morning update:

1. We will be talking with our contacts in organizations that are on the ground in Haiti to continue discussing needs and logistics.

As of 3:00 AM EST this morning, the last aid organization representative I spoke with cautioned that sending in volunteers–even those with specific and much needed-skills– right now may cause more harm than good. The organizations are still trying to assess their needs and capacity to handle volunteers. Safety is a serious concern, as is availability of fresh water.

Until they can determine what kind of help they need and the best way to provide it, international and domestic aid organizations are sending this consistent message: PLEASE BE PATIENT. They are struggling to get organized and to communicate their needs. Haiti will need our help for a long time, so don’t expend all of your energy right now.

2. I will be conveying the resources Matador has been able to organize to the Haitian Consulate in New York City this morning.

The New York City consulate is the key organizer in the US Northeast to mobilize all efforts. Updates will be posted here as they are available.

3. You can help immediately by donating to one of the orgs listed above.

Also, please check Wyclef Jean’s website www.yele.org to learn about how you can donate money.

4. We are working with amazing individuals all over the US to coordinate donations of goods.

If you are in New York City, we may begin pick ups of donated goods as early as today. If you have a substantial number of items to pick up, please email me at: julie@matadornetwork.com (Subject Line: NYC DONATIONS).

UPDATES WILL BE POSTED HERE.

Haitian Consul General of New York, Felix Augustin, giving press conference today. Photo by Francisco Collazo

[Special Note 1/14/10 @2:15 EST]

We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and willing volunteers. Thank you.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as we learn more.

You are amazing!

As of 7:00 PM EST, we’ve received more than 900 offers of help from people around the world who want to offer their time, skills, and energy to help Haiti.

And those offers are still coming in.

Your support was so overwhelming that my email was shut down by a spam alert (thanks to Matador contributor Carina Port for getting that worked out) and we had to set up a dedicated email account: matadorhaiti@gmail.com.

Until around noon today, I was able to respond personally to everyone who emailed their offers; however the sheer volume of email, phone, Twitter, and Facebook messages has become so enormous that I’ll have to communicate with most of you through this site. We’ll be updating it as often as we can, so please check back regularly.

As of 7:30 PM EST, here’s the latest news we have to offer you:

JetBlue has not committed to sending a plane of Matador-organized volunteers… yet.

Although New York’s Haitian Consul General Felix Augustin praised JetBlue for being the first airline to offer flights of emergency relief supplies and volunteers (which you can see in the video shot by Francisco Collazo at this afternoon’s press conference), JetBlue has not made a decision regarding Matador’s specific request. JetBlue’s community relations department is working closely with the Haitian Consulate in NYC, as well as established aid organizations, to determine the current and specific needs on the ground in Port-au-Prince, and to discern how everyone who is interested can be of the most help.

JetBlue has put Matador in touch with the Red Cross.

Matador will not take volunteers into Haiti without a confirmed volunteer placement with an established aid or service organization in Haiti. I have emailed JetBlue’s contact at the Red Cross, but have not yet received a response.

Matador continues to work with other organizations and individuals to discuss logistics.

I have been in touch with representatives at Partners in Health (thanks to Matador contributor Alyssa Martino for that lead) and other organizations in Haiti. At this time, these organizations do not yet have reliable, consistent contact established with their workers on the ground in Port-au-Prince to be able to determine exact needs. Until the specific needs are determined, we’re in a holding pattern. We’re aware that a poorly planned project could do more harm than good, and we won’t go into Haiti unprepared.

In the meantime, we will continue to collect names, contact information, and skills of volunteers who are interested.

I will be contacting the Haitian Consulate in the morning to convey that 900+ volunteers stand ready to travel to Haiti to provide assistance, and will be in conversation with them about the best way we can help meet existing needs.

We will continue to provide information and updates for those who want to help in other ways.

1. If you would like to make a donation, the Haitian Consulate of New York has established an account with Chase Manhattan Bank: account number 761-549-039.

2. If you have responded to our call for donations, THANK YOU! Keep collecting and email us at matadorhaiti@gmail.com with the subject line DONATIONS. Let us know where you are and we will be in touch about coordinating collection of your donated goods. Please be patient; there are only a handful of us working on this project, so it may take us a bit to respond.

We’ve all got to pace ourselves.

Don’t lose this initial wave of incredible energy. Haiti needs help today, but it will also need help next month and six months from now. As the Consul General said at today’s press conference, “We always needed something.” The need now is greater than ever, and we’ll respond to it as soon as we have all of the logistics hammered out to do so.

Thanks to the many people helping out behind the scenes- from Chicago to Miami and here in NYC- your work is so important. Keep it up!

Photo: Schnitke

[Special Note 1/14/10 @2:15 EST]

We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and willing volunteers. Thank you.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as we learn more.

Plans are coming together for a trip of Matador volunteers to go to Haiti to assist in earthquake recovery and relief.

Whether you’ve already contacted us to express your interest in going, or whether you want to help from home, here’s a list of the items we want to take with us. Consider starting a collection among your friends and family members. Every donation makes a difference.

Baby formula (dry/powder)

Baby wipes

Baby bottles

Diapers

Baby clothes

Toiletries (shampoo, soap, toothpaste)

Hand sanitizer

Vitamins

First aid kits

Over the counter medicines

Socks

Blankets

Mosquito repellent

Flashlights

Batteries

Candles

Flip flops

T-shirts, pants, lightweight jackets

Non perishable food that’s not in cans (seal-paks of tuna, for example)

There are dozens more items; this is just a starter list. Think flat, lightweight, easily packable.

Interested in sending your donations to Haiti with Matador? Email matadorhaiti@gmail.com.

[Special Note 1/14/10 @1:54 EST] We are working to connect qualified volunteers with reputable and well established NGOs on the ground. If you are someone wanting desperately to help but don’t have these qualifications, we strongly encourage you to donate to the following:

- UNICEF. Go online to unicefusa.org/haitiquake or call (800) 4UNICEF.

- Red Cross. Go online to redcross.org, or call (800) REDCROSS.

- Direct Relief International. Donate online at directrelief.org.

- Mercy Corp. Go online to mercycorps.org or mail checks to Haiti Earthquake Fund, Dept. NR, PO Box 2669, Portland, Ore. 97208 or call (888) 256-1900

Photo: RJ Bejil

Here’s the latest:

When I went to bed at 4 AM this morning, I’d already responded to 70 people who’d reached out to say “I want to go help Haiti.”

When I woke up an hour ago, my inbox had 130 new messages.

Everyone’s looking for a way to help Haiti; they just need someone or some group–like Matador–to organize it.

I’ll be updating you all day with developments related to the trip, and will be posting ways you can help even if you can’t travel with us.

The big update is this:

I’ve just gotten off the phone with JetBlue representatives, who are working on logistics. We should have an update this afternoon around 5 PM EST.

If you’re on Twitter, retweet this message:

Critical #Haiti update: @JetBlue is currently working on logistics. Stay tuned. THANK YOU @JetBlue. We can do this!

In the meantime, I’d like to share some of the volunteers’ stories with you:

“I am arriving to Puerto Plata on Friday for a previously planned vacation with my boyfriend. We are willing to join your group to volunteer if it is safe and feasible (we have a car) so I look forward to seeing how that plan comes together.”

“I have no idea where to even start but I did a quick google search and I have a HUGE feeling in my heart that I need to get to Haiti as soon as possible to do whatever I can to help these people. I have little money, but I have been a dairy farmer my whole life and I am more than able to work long and hard for these people.”

“Please keep me posted on possible volunteer opportunities in Haiti. My husband and I are adopting a little boy named Jeffry from Haiti, and had the opportunity to travel there in September. The people of Haiti and the country itself hold a piece of my heart. I have a current passport and am willing and able to do whatever I can. Thanks for your care and concern for Haiti!”

“Hi, my name is Joanne, and I am very saddened by this terrible and devastating event that has happened yesterday. I wouldn’t want anything more than to go to Haiti and help as much as I can. I am CPR certified and have almost complete training as an EMT. Please keep me up to date about possibly going over to help. Thank you.”

I’ll be updating again after talking with JetBlue this afternoon and will post within the hour about supplies that we’ll be collecting.

If you’ve emailed me about volunteering and haven’t heard back from me yet, I WILL be in touch. Hang in there!

Thank you for your amazing show of support. Haiti, I hope you’re ready for Matador!

Photo: ingro.comagenciadenoticias2.0

[UPDATE AS OF 1/13/2010 at 11:55 EST is that we're in the process of partnering with Red Cross on the ground and are waiting to hear from Jet Blue this afternoon. Please continue to show your support by tweeting: Critical #Haiti update: @JetBlue is currently working on logistics. Stay tuned. THANK YOU @JetBlue. We can do this!]

[UPDATE AS OF 1/13/2010 at 11:49 EST is HERE]
Earlier today, an earthquake registering 7.0 on the Richter scale struck the capital of Haiti, with a series of aftershocks as strong as 5.5 rattling Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. As of this writing [9:45 PM EST], the full scope of damage has not been determined; however, the collapse of a hospital and extensive structural devastation suggests that the death toll may be high.

We’ve already been contacted by Matador readers and community members who want to know how they can help.

At present, we are working to coordinate a trip to Haiti via the Dominican Republic for Matador readers and members who want to contribute as volunteers in the post-earthquake recovery. It’s a huge effort and will depend to a large extent on the goodwill and quick response time of travelers and travel industry leaders.

Logistics include arranging transportation and lodging, as well as determining the best organization to partner with in order to contribute our time and skills. These details are being worked on right now.

Specifically, Matador is encouraging JetBlue to provide transportation to Hispaniola (the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic) via a Twitter campaign. Our request is being taken to JetBlue’s corporate relations department for their consideration.

In the meantime, we need your help. Here’s what you can do:

1. Spread the word via Twitter

Though JetBlue’s resident Twitter peep has agreed to carry our request to corporate relations, we want to show JetBlue we have a critical mass of people willing and ready to volunteer. If we can fill a plane, will JetBlue fly us there? It doesn’t hurt to ask, right?

Retweet this message:

@JetBlue: If @MatadorNetwork could fill a plane with volunteers, would you fly them to Santo Domingo to help #quake vics in #Haiti?

2. Help us fill a plane!

Could you travel to Haiti to help quake victims? Email me at matadorhaiti@gmail.com to let me know you’d like to be kept up to date about our volunteer project efforts.

And ask your contacts if they’re interested by retweeting this message:

Are you interested in joining @MatadorNetwork to help #quake victims in #Haiti? DM us!

Post a status message on Facebook:

Are you interested in joining MatadorNetwork.com to help earthquake victims in Haiti? Email Julie @ matadorhaiti@gmail.com for more information.

3. Share your contacts and on-the-ground knowledge of the region.

We’ll need lots of help to pull this trip off. If you can help by sharing contacts in Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince who could help with local transportation, food, and lodging, please direct them to matadorhaiti@gmail.com. If you have contacts in the US who could provide much-needed relief supplies, share the same email with them.

4. Spread the word.

If you have a blog or write for a news outlet, spread the word about the way we’re using social media to coordinate this trip. Queries can be directed to me: matadorhaiti@gmail.com.

Photo: hdptcar

This weekend marked the fifth anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that finally forced an end to Sudan’s seemingly endless civil war, the longest running conflict in Africa.

The country is now at a critical crossroads: within the next year, it must resolve differences between the north and south or formally divide the country into two distinct nations.

Though mainstream media haven’t given as much attention to this story as it needs, artists and musicians from around the world lent their talent to the cause of peace in order to draw more awareness to current events in Sudan:

January 9 has come and gone, but you can still take action.

Read this quick primer on recent and current events in Sudan to get a sense of what’s been going on, then click back to Sudan365’s website and consider signing this petition, which calls upon key world leaders to provide the diplomatic support needed to uphold peace in Sudan.

Community Connection:

Are you a traveler who has spent significant time in Sudan? Consider becoming one of our Africa destination experts.

Pete and Andrea; Photo via Wedding Cans

Lots of Matadorians care about the environment. And lots of us have had budget weddings.

But I think we’re all going to be bested by Pete and Andrea.

The Spokane, Washington couple are planning to pay for their wedding by recycling 400,000 aluminum cans.

On their website, Wedding Cans, Pete and Andrea explain the motives behind this unusual way of funding nuptials:

[E]ven simple weddings cost more than a few dollars. We don’t really have much extra cash sitting around, since we’re just starting out. Add that to the fact that environmental responsibility plays a big part in our lives, and we hatched the crazy plan. Pay for the wedding – with recycling. Aluminum recycling is one of the most sustainable and useful forms of recycling. We’re shooting for 400,000 aluminum cans – approximately 5 tons of empty cans. We would like to get married on July 31 – which gives us 7 months to hit the goal.

For neighbors in Spokane, Pete and Andrea teamed up with a local recycler so folks can drop off cans and earmark their earnings for the wedding. For folks elsewhere, Pete and Andrea suggest taking your cans to a local recycling center and kicking a portion of your proceeds to their project after you treat yourself to a coffee or a microbrew.

Read all about the project on their website after you check out this video:

Community Connection:

Maybe you don’t want to collect cans, but if you do want to plan a budget wedding, MatadorTrips’ co-editor, Carlo Alcos, offers plenty of practical advice in A Budget Traveler’s Guide to Wedding Planning.

Daily life in Dubai*. Photo: Lara Dunston

By the time the evening news broadcast on Monday, I was already over the Burj.

I’d seen no fewer than four TV spots with snazzy graphics comparing the height of the Burj to the heights of the Empire State Building, the Willis Tower, the Eiffel Tower.

I’d heard too many redundant comments about Dubai’s wealth (former) and debt (current), too many “analyses” about the “seeming paradox” of a strictly religious people surrounded by such opulent, ostentatious gluttony.

The news cycle may only be 24 hours these days, but sometimes those 24 hours can really seem to drag along.

And so it was that Monday night, right before I signed off the computer for the evening, I banged out an exasperated tweet:

“You know what I don’t care about? The Burj, that’s what.”

Lots of stuff we throw out on Twitter’s blank wall doesn’t stick, but this tweet did.

Matador member Eloren agreed with me, tweeting:

“@collazoprojects Agree.. So fed up of hearing about it. I don’t see what’s to be so proud of? Tsss.”

And Aussie expat journalist Caitlin Fitzsimmons agreed, too:

“@collazoprojects I know! My husband was trying to tell me about it tonight.”

One person didn’t agree, however, and that was travel writer Lara Dunston, who I respect for her professionalism and her genuine and generous support of colleagues, including myself. An expat who has called Dubai home for more than 10 years, Lara tweeted back politely, but firmly:

“@collazoprojects The people who care about the Burj are the people who live there & love the place, and for whom it’s symbolic of so much…”

“@collazoprojects …which is why I care about it; I think we must feel the way Aussies felt when the Opera House or Harbour Bridge opened”

And just like that, with two tweets, I realized that maybe I *did* care about the Burj.

The problem was that mainstream media had totally overlooked the story that Lara was alluding to in two simple tweets.

She elaborates in her description of the photo that appears at the top of this article:

The pic is of Dubai Creek, the historical centre of the city and lifeblood of Dubai, taken from the wharf at Bur Dubai Souq. There’s something happening down here 24 hours a day, but I love it most in the evening when, with the fairy lights are on the dhows (wooden boats in the background)…. This is the first part of Dubai I ever visited when we moved to the UAE in 1998 and it’s still my favorite part….

There were only a handful of shopping malls in the city then, Burj Al Arab had not yet opened and there were no crazy manmade island developments. It cost less than 20 cents to cross the Creek on an abra (the main boat in the pic) then and now it costs around 30 cents. For many people who live in this area, this is the real Dubai.

When Terry and I lived in the city full-time (ie. before we put our things in storage and decided to live out of our suitcases four years ago), we would walk down here to the Creek several evenings a week…. Friday (like Sunday in the Western world) is liveliest when everyone seems to be down there shopping in the souqs. We saw this side of Dubai far more often than we ever saw the sumptuous shopping malls or extravagant five star hotels, which would only be when we’d go shopping and go out on weekends.

For most people in the city, as in any city, the luxe side represented by the media isn’t the side the locals experience every day. The difference is that with New York, Paris or Sydney, the media also makes an effort to discover and report on the everyday life of the city too – in Dubai they’re not interested. And I could write a novel about why that’s so.…

The Burj is more than snazzy graphics and a gasp-inducing fireworks show.

And that’s precisely why I was “over” the Burj before I really knew anything about it.

All the coverage was from the outside looking in: “Look how Dubai bested us!”

Nobody but Lara, it seemed, was inside looking out. It took a travel writer’s two tweets to make me aware why I found mainstream media coverage of the Burj so tiresome:

It lacked the human element.

Thanks to Lara for restoring it.

Community Connection:

Read other Matador editors’ takes on the Burj. Hal Amen’s Dubai, the UAE, and the World’s Tallest Building can be found on MatadorTrips, and Tim Patterson’s Could the Burj Kahlifah Collapse? is on MatadorAbroad.

Learn more about Lara in this article from our archives: What’s In Your Backpack, Lara Dunston, Travel Writer?

Protesters in solidarity with gay Ugandans. Photo: riekhavoc

Uganda’s Minister of Ethics and Integrity seems to be a very busy man.

In late 2008, Minister James Nsaba Buturo announced that the government was going to step up its efforts to manage “quality of life crimes” that threatened the integrity and well-being of all Ugandans.

Women known or thought to be prostitutes would have their names published in newspapers or on the Internet, and broadcast on television news. (Convenient, as Buturo is also the Minister of Information and Broadcasting).

Buturo also proposed the resuscitation of an Idi Amin-era law banning mini skirts, which, the Minister said:

“can cause an accident when you are… in a car. Men while driving gaze out when they see these women and this causes accidents.”

Oh dear.

But the bee that’s really been buzzing in Buturo’s bonnet is homosexuality, and the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 was intended to quash this “emerging…threat to the traditional heterosexual family” by making homosexuality punishable by death.

Under the law, homosexuality would be defined broadly, including not just sexual acts or identity, but also activities the government considers to be supportive of homosexuality, such as the distribution of literature or other “pornographic material.”

Buturo and the government supported the imposition of a death penalty for gays until the United Nations and other world governments expressed their outrage and their intent to withhold aid and other support. This week, the government announced it would dial down the punishment. Instead of death, gays are eligible to be imprisoned for life.

All of this is troubling enough, but what’s more disturbing to me is the fact that three Americans appear to have played a significant role in helping the Ugandan government craft the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The men–one a “reformed” gay man who leads “healing” workshops and the other two, missionaries–gave talks to thousands of Ugandans at a three day conference last year; they were presented as American experts on homosexuality.

According to Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times, “police officers, teachers and national politicians” were in the audience, and the effect of the conference was the setting in motion of “what could be a very dangerous cycle.”

Reverend Kapya Kaoma, a minister from Zambia who was interviewed by Gettleman, observed, “What these people [the missionaries] have done is set the fire they can’t quench.” Gettleman cited Kaoma as adding, “the three Americans ‘underestimated the homophobia in Uganda’ and ‘what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.’”

Though the missionaries claim to have been horrified that their conference led to the crafting of such an aggressive bill– one is even quoted as saying something to the effect of “Some of the best people I’ve met are gay.”–their eagerness to present to a group of people about whom they obviously knew little, if anything, is problematic because they weren’t even able to imagine the potential consequences.

If you’re concerned about this issue and would like to keep track of events and make your own opinion heard, here are a few steps you can take:

1. Subscribe to the blog Gay Uganda, a personal blog maintained by a gay Ugandan. The first person perspective of this blog is paired with up to date information about developments regarding the bill.

2. E-mail members of the Ugandan government to express your concern about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. Contact information can be found on the Ugandan government’s website.

Community Connection:

Wondering how homosexuality is treated in other parts of the world? Read about India’s decriminalization of homosexuality.

Photo: Marc van der Chijs

Compared to paddler David Miller, rock climber Abbie Mood, and runner Sarah Menkedick, I’m probably the most sedentary member of the Matador team, but even I know that climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro is no Sunday stroll.

But this little tidbit from ABC News, in which it’s reported that five celebrities will be doing a Summit on the Summit “charity climb” of Africa’s tallest mountain, makes the arduous trek seem exactly that.

Emile Hirsch (of “Into the Wild”), Jessica Biel (of, well, you know), Lupe Fiasco, Isabel Lucas and Elizabeth Gore will step off on Thursday, aiming to reach the summit in an effort to “use star power to help raise awareness about the need for clean water worldwide.” Fans of these celebrities can follow the climb and donate “as little as a dollar” to raise money for the cause.

Exhibit A; Arranged by Hal Amen

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for celebs using their status to do good. And anyone with 20-20 vision can see (Exhibit A) that Biel has a body that’s in way better shape than mine. But climbing Kilimanjaro takes a bit more skill and effort than putting together a charity ball, designing a reusable bag for Whole Foods, or even running the New York City Marathon… especially if they’re shooting video and Tweeting at the same time, as they apparently intend to do.

Curiously absent from the article and from the Summit on the Summit website is information about how (or whether) the stars have trained for the ascent.

Though I wish them the best of luck and hope they raise a ton of money in the name of clean water, I’m curious to see how they handle the climb.

Community Connection:

Matador member CaliforniaKid7 intends to summit Kilimanjaro this year. Read about his 2010 resolution in Summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2010.

A front page article in The New York Times caught my eye last Friday:

“Lower Prices Aid In Conservation: Some See Silver Lining to Dip in Real Estate.”

Writer Leslie Kaufman explained:

“[There's] a green lining of sorts in a credit crisis that has depressed real estate prices, prompted foreclosures and derailed development projects across the nation.”

Plummeting real estate prices have made it possible for conservationists to buy land that was out of their reach just a year ago.

Kaufman continued:

“[P]urchases by conservationists and state and local governments assure that thousands of acres will be put aside in perpetuity for parks, watershed protection or simply preservation of open space.”

We reached out to four photographers who have documented some of the spaces described in Kaufman’s article and asked them to share their work with MatadorChange readers.

1.The Florida Everglades. Photo by Michael Pancier
Although the Florida Everglades comprise the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, this World Heritage Site, International Biosphere Reserve, and Wetland of International Importance is threatened by draining and development. Such activity has undermined the native plant and wildlife species, as well as the stability of this entire ecosystem. At risk species include manatees, the American crocodile and American alligator, and the Florida panther.

2.New Jersey Marshes. Photo by Mario Burger
If you ever take NJ Transit from New York City to Newark’s Liberty International Airport, you’ll ride through New Jersey’s marshlands. Though New Jersey’s nickname is the Garden State, its marshes have long been abused as dump sites. Many of the marshes are part of the state’s brownfield clean up program (local officials have their work cut out for them: the state has more than 10,000 brownfield sites), but conservationists argue that the state needs to expand its protected marsh program as well, as marshes are important breeding grounds for migratory birds.

3.Boise, Idaho. Photo by Pulok Pattanayak
Big city folks like myself think of places like Boise, Idaho as nothing but open land. As the Idaho Conservation League points out, though, even seemingly pristine places are threatened by all sorts of human activity. The Boise River, for instance, is currently at risk of pollution by a proposed open pit mine–the world’s largest.

4.Jamaica Bay, Queens, New York. Photo by Paul Grebanier
Yes, that’s the New York City skyline you see in the background. The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge currently consists of 9,155 acres and is home to more than 325 bird species. Who’d have thought salt marsh, upland field and woods, and fresh and brackish water ponds could all be found within New York City limits? The wildlife refuge is part of Gateway National Recreation Area, a park that offers biking, surfing, fishing, and camping.

Community Connection:

Why should we care that preservationists, environmental conservationists, and land trusts protect large tracts of land? Read Matador senior editor David Miller’s Notes on Finding a New Home River for a few thoughts on the subject.

Photo via Sovereign Mind Radio

By his own count, John Perkins has lived at least four lives: one as an economic hit man (EHM); one as the CEO of an alternative energy company; one as a reformed EHM and whistle blower who has become an expert on indigenous cultures, shamanistic healing, and sustainability; and one as an author who writes about all of these topics.

Perkins’ most recent book, Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded–and What We Need to Do to Remake Them explores all of these lives and continues expanding upon the insights shared in his earlier books, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World.

Perkins spent the 1970s as the Chief Economist of a major international consulting firm. In this capacity, Perkins was tasked with the responsibility of convincing the governments of developing nations to agree to high interest loans provided by bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in order to enrich U.S. businesses and advance the diplomatic, defense, and economic interests of the American government.

As Chief Economist–a fancy name, Perkins says, for an economic hit man–Perkins saw the damage his work was wreaking on the environment and on human communities. Eventually, his guilt led him to leave that work behind, though he maintained a vow of silence about it. It was only after the September 2001 terrorist attacks that Perkins decided to talk publicly about his experiences as an economic hit man.

And he began to actively atone for the damage his work had caused by going back to communities in countries where he had worked–especially Ecuador–in order to begin repairing them.
*
I first spoke with John Perkins in September 2008 after reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I spoke with him again a couple weeks ago.

It seemed an especially fitting time. With the close of one year (and one decade) and the beginning of another, and after 12 months of particularly turbulent world politics– the massacre of indigenous people in Bagua, Peru; the continuing political unrest in Iran; and the coup in Honduras– I wanted to ask John how his experiences as an economic hit man and the knowledge he has acquired over his “four lives” could help us all understand the world better and how we can use our own lives to be the change we want to see in the world.

The first step, Perkins says, is “to change our dreams.”

By way of explanation, Perkins recounted a conversation with members of the indigenous Shuar community in Ecuador:

“More than anything, it’s your dream [that's standing in the way of true progress....] When you give energy to a dream, it happens. [But you've] given energy to a nightmare that’s destroying the world. The way to change it is to change the dream.”

A few months back, in another article, I asked readers, “What’s your exquisitely absurd dream?” With Perkins’ advice about changing the dream, and with the fresh start offered by a new year and a new decade, it’s worth asking the question again.

What dreams do you want to change? What new dreams can you give energy to and make happen in 2010? Share your dream in the comments below.

You can listen to my entire, unedited interview with Perkins here.

Community Connection:

For some more thoughts on change, read Christine Garvin’s article, “Change Is Not a Four Letter Word.”

I knew wildlife trafficking was a problem, but I didn’t realize just how much of a problem until I read this article by Charles Bergman in the November 2009 issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

According to Bergman and NGOs like the Coalitions Against Wildlife Trafficking (CAWT), animals stolen from their natural habitats and sold on the international black market represent a $10 billion business. Traffickers poach and then sell animals for food, medicine, pets, religious rituals, and private collections.

The threat of wildlife trafficking isn’t just species depletion or even eventual extinction. When animals are removed from their natural habitats, their absence disrupts the local ecosystem, and their introduction into a new environment results in problems related to non-native and invasive species.

Here are a few animals–from pocket sized to portly– prized by wildlife traffickers. Captions include text from Bergman’s article, as well as statistics from CAWT and TRAFFIC.

1. Butterflies Butterflies and other insects may be fragile, but they’re especially easy to traffic because of their small size. Butterflies are often sold to private collectors looking to expand their exotic menageries. Photo: e3000

2. Chicks Birds represent one of the biggest sources of income for traffickers, and Central and South America are high bird trafficking zones. As Bergman noted, “Ecuador–about the size of Colorado–has about 1,600 species of birds; the entire continental US has about 900.” Photo: oldcockatoo

3. Hummingbird According to Bergman, “two to five million wild birds, from hummingbirds to harpy eagles, are traded illegally worldwide every year.” Photo: hickoryhollow113

4. Turtle Turtles are sold for food, as pets, for medicine, and for their shells, which are turned into decorative items. Photo: notsogoodphotography

5. Snake Not every trafficker has the courage to hunt down and bag the world’s most venomous snakes, but those who do are paid handsomely for their efforts; snakes are sold for medicine, their skins, and as pets to exotic snake collectors. Photo: travlinman43

6. Monkey Monkeys may be harder to conceal, but experienced poachers know the pay-off is worth it: primates of all types are a hot commodity on the illicit wildlife underground. Bergman writes, “Wildlife trafficking is thought to be the third most valuable illicit commerce in the world, after drugs and weapons…according to the U.S. State Department.” Photo: individuo

Community Connection:

Concerned about animals and the impact of your travels on non-human communities? Read From Elephant Tourism to Elephant Voluntourism to learn how you can use your travel experiences to help protect animals.

Photo: Francisco Collazo

Yesterday, I wrote: “[A] tropical island is only paradise for people who come for a short, pleasant visit, not for the people who live there day in and day out.” Read on if you’re wondering why.

Number of years since being bought by the United States: 92

Photo: Francisco Collazo

Amount of money paid by the US for St. Thomas (along with St. Croix and St. John): $25 million USD

Current population: Just over 50,000

Current minimum wage (as of late July 2009): $7.25

Average monthly electricity bill (for a family of 2 that runs air conditioning at night): $300.00 + (Yes, you read that correctly)

Average weekly wages for a St. Thomas resident (as of last quarter of 2008): $673.00

Total number of St. Thomas residents employed in the last quarter of 2008: 23,900

Guardsman in Iraq. Photo: National Guard

Number of St. Thomas National Guardsmen who have served in Iraq & Afghanistan since 2001 (total number reflects National Guardsmen from St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John): 500

Number of St. Thomas National Guardsmen who have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan in the line of duty since 2001 (total number reflects National Guardsmen from St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John): at least one dozen

Number of St. Thomas National Guardsmen who have ever been able to vote for President of the country they serve: ZERO. Due to the terms of its status as a US territory, St. Thomas residents are citizens of the United States but do not have the right to vote in federal elections.

Number of people who have told me “Things aren’t what they used to be.” 7

Community Connection:

Want to learn more about the Caribbean? Read “Hope, Change, and Yes, We Can in St. Kitts.”

The author on her balcony at the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands; Photo: Francisco Collazo

Yesterday, the public relations firm Diamond PR sent nine travel writers to nine Marriott properties it represents in seven different locations in the Caribbean and Mexico. I’m one of them.

The purpose, of course, is the same as any other press trip: to expose writers who have a large audience of readers to its clients’ properties in the hopes that what those writers blog/tweet/Facebook about their experience will stimulate interest in the destinations and the properties.

If you’re a regular reader of my work, that preceding paragraph might seem incongruous with what you know about my writing. I’m not one for lavishing praise on anyone or anything unless it truly impresses me, which is tough (if you’ve got doubts about this, just check out this doozy of a book review).

And higher-end travel isn’t exactly my niche. If I had to narrow down my interests–which is tough–they’d fit more or less comfortably into the categories of political, cultural, social, and environmental movements, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.

And finally, if you know me personally, you know that the word “paradise” isn’t one that makes a frequent appearance in my vocabulary… mainly because I lived in “paradise” (Puerto Rico) for 2.5 years and know that a tropical island is only paradise for people who come for a short, pleasant visit, not for the people who live there day in and day out.

So what am I doing on this trip?

There are at least two answers.

1. Though I don’t write often about higher end travel–and though it’s not my travel style when I’m footing the bill– I won’t deny that I enjoy it. I like high thread counts, I like sleeping under a duvet even better than I like saying “duvet,” and I like eating dishes that have overwrought, absurdly detailed names like: Sofrito Marinated Filet Mignon with roasted poblano crema, manchego cheese, chile-toreado salsa, and house-made cilantro-corn tortillas, garnished with cilantro petals.

A frou-frou appetizer in Oaxaca. Photo by author

And if something on those travels–a hotel or inn, a meal, an experience–impresses me, I have no problem writing about it, though it won’t be here on Matador.

2. But at the end of the day, I have to admit that I only know the difference between the salad fork and the entree fork, I don’t like to dress up, and I choose my wine based on whether I like the looks of the label, not because I really know anything about terroir.

And when it comes right down to it, I’m more comfortable with the people providing a service rather than those receiving it.

That’s the real reason I’m in St. Thomas this week.

*
A few years ago, when I lived in Puerto Rico, I jumped to the cause of some locals who’d set up (illegal) residence on a beach in Carolina. “La playa no se vende!” read banners spray painted and hung limpidly between sea-salt speckled tents.

“The beach is not for sale.”

Marriott was allegedly planning to extend its domain to a public beach, gobbling up the sand and closing it off to everyone except hotel guests. Of course, I was on the locals’ side.

The problem was, I didn’t really know anything about the issue and I hadn’t talked with either side.
*

A worker in St. Kitts takes a break. Photo by author

Since that time, I’ve been working on a long-term photojournalism project about the effects of big hospitality corporations on local communities, specifically in areas of the Caribbean where local industries have collapsed in the past 20 or so years.

From the outside, it’s easy to be on the side of those people on the beach. Like anything, though, once you hang around for a while and start listening to people’s stories, the “truth” is a lot more complex.
*
So, long story short, I’m not in St. Thomas because I hope to experience a little slice of paradise and bring it back to you… though if I do have some incredible peak moment, you can read about it on my own blog.

I’m here because I’m always looking for the back story, the untold story, the stories of people who are overlooked. .

And if you follow my writing, that’s the ever-present thread that informs my work… no matter where I am.

The very cold & very windblown author in front of an iceberg in Chilean Patagonia. While posing for the photo, a large chunk of the berg sheared off and began floating away.

Maybe you’ve been following news coming out of the international climate change conference in Copenhagen, which wraps up later this week. With the end of talks slated for December 18, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said earlier today that world leaders “face a defining moment in history” as they decide whether to commit their countries to serious, significant environmental protection policies related to climate change.

Many observers are pessimistic about that possibility, as talks about climate change have gotten stuck on issues related to the divide between rich and poor nations.

If that’s not discouraging enough, there’s been disturbing evidence that the climate change problem is accelerating at a pace that’s even faster than we once thought.

Last week, the international news outlet France 24 reported that a “monster iceberg” has been spotted drifting toward–of all places–Australia. The 12 mile long slab broke off a larger berg about a year ago and has been making a slow but steady drift toward Australia.

If you’re curious about what that might look like–and what implications it might have–check out this 2008 video of a Newfoundland iceberg collapse, found by Eva Holland and reposted on World Hum last week:

Community Connection:

Want to see what climate change looks like around the world? Check out Abbie Mood’s article, Explore Climate Change With Google Earth.

Feature photo: ABA; Photo above: littledan77

“The public execution is… a hearth in which violence bursts again into flame.”- Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

The words of the French philosopher Michel Foucault are charged with a passion and urgency uncharacteristic of “objective” academic texts. In his classic work, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault explained that the hallmark of modern “justice” is that it is ultimately meted out far from public view.

The horrors of punishment become private, even anonymous… the person who throws the execution switch remains anonymous to everyone but himself. And, being beyond our line of sight, the person being punished is effectively silenced.

*
I’m not a soft-on-crime bleeding heart: I believe people who commit heinous crimes should be held accountable for their actions.

But I also believe that there’s more than enough evidence to suggest that the death penalty is not an adequate form of accountability. There’s the Innocence Project’s report documenting at least 17 cases of death row sentencing of people who were wrongly convicted.

And then there was Republican Governor George Ryan’s commutation of sentences of all 167 death row inmates in Illinois in 2003. It was a decision, Ryan said, that he knew would draw serious criticism, but the possible burden of that decision was one he would bear willingly because the administration of the death penalty was simply too flawed to be morally or constitutionally legitimate.

Rarely, though, does the public hear from death row inmates themselves.

Napoleon Beazley was just 17 years old when he murdered John Luttig in 1994. On May 28, 2002, Beazley was executed by the state of Texas. In his final statement he reflected upon the death penalty as an effective form of justice:

The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was senseless. But the person that committed that act is no longer here – I am.

I’m not going to struggle physically against any restraints. I’m not going to shout, use profanity or make idle threats. Understand though that I’m not only upset, but I’m saddened by what is happening here tonight. I’m not only saddened, but disappointed that a system that is supposed to protect and uphold what is just and right can be so much like me when I made the same shameful mistake.

If someone tried to dispose of everyone here for participating in this killing, I’d scream a resounding, “No.” I’d tell them to give them all the gift that they would not give me…and that’s to give them all a second chance.

I’m sorry that I am here. I’m sorry that you’re all here. I’m sorry that John Luttig died. And I’m sorry that it was something in me that caused all of this to happen to begin with.

Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of justice…Tonight, we tell our children that in some instances, in some cases, killing is right.

This conflict hurts us all, there are no SIDES. The people who support this proceeding think this is justice. The people that think that I should live think that is justice. As difficult as it may seem, this is a clash of ideals, with both parties committed to what they feel is right. But who’s wrong if in the end we’re all victims?

In my heart, I have to believe that there is a peaceful compromise to our ideals. I don’t mind if there are none for me, as long as there are for those who are yet to come. There are a lot of men like me on death row – good men – who fell to the same misguided emotions, but may not have recovered as I have.

Give those men a chance to do what’s right. Give them a chance to undo their wrongs. A lot of them want to fix the mess they started, but don’t know how.

The problem is not in that people aren’t willing to help them find out, but in the system telling them it won’t matter anyway. No one wins tonight. No one gets closure. No one walks away victorious.

Community Connection:

To learn more about American “justice,” read How the US Prison System Has Become Big Business.

For a look at life inside a prison, check out Photo Essay: Going Inside Brazil’s Prisons.

Photo: CarbonNYC

Hanukkah doesn’t seem to pose the same kinds of environmental problems that Christmas does, what with the latter’s cut and artificial trees and excess waste in the form of wrapping paper, ribbons, and bows.

But that doesn’t mean that Hanukkah can’t be greener.

Though most menorahs lit at home feature candles, public menorahs often blaze with the glow of electric light.

Two Yeshiva University physics students wanted to “green” these public menorahs, so they invented a wind-powered menorah, which they tested out this evening to mark the first night of Hanukkah.

From the New York Times City Blog:

“Their menorah is four feet wide and four feet tall, made of plastic and spray-painted gold. The lights are nine compact fluorescent bulbs. A cable connects them to a car battery. Another cable connects the battery to a wind turbine with a two-foot propeller…. The propeller turns a generator that generates current to charge the batteries. They provide a constant current and voltage to the compact fluorescent bulbs, which give more light on less power than incandescent bulbs.”

As Mark Stauber, one of the student inventors, remarked:

“In the miracle of the menorah, they got back to the temple and there was only enough oil for one night, but they made it last eight days…. I see an analogy with the world’s fight for sustainable energy, to take that and make it last as long as we’re going to need it.”

Happy Hanukkah.

With the global water crisis, can you really buy bottled water in good faith? These facts that might make you think twice before buying bottled water.

Community Connection:

Read 40 Shocking Facts About Water to learn more about water use around the world.

Feature Photo: khym54

Bhopal, Photo: openDemocracy

That’s the last line of the first paragraph of writer Suketu Mehta’s op-ed about the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster, published in yesterday’s New York Times.

In that paragraph, Mehta’s describing the difference between his son’s kindergarten class in Mumbai–where servants cleaned up after the kids–to the same child’s first grade classroom in Brooklyn, “where the teachers made the children tidy up at the end of the day.”

In elementary school, at least, Americans get it right: We have to take responsibility for our actions. We have to clean up after ourselves.

But what happens, Mehta insinuates, between that fundamental lesson of childhood and our supposed maturity into adulthood?

The anecdote is a lead-in to Mehta’s meditation on the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster. The short version of that story is this: the American chemical company, Union Carbide, had a pesticide plant in India that belched out a poisonous chemical cloud over Bhopal.

Four thousand people were killed instantly, and according to Mehta:

“An additional 15,000 people have since died from the aftereffects, and 10 to 30 people are said to die every month from exposure to the hundreds of tons of toxic waste left over in the former factory.”

That news would be devastating enough to any sentient being, but what Mehta goes on to note–and how it all ties in with his opening anecdote about the “wonderful American tradition”–is the real kicker: Union Carbide (subsequently bought by Dow) never cleaned up the contamination.

It’s disgusting, but hardly surprising and definitely not an anomaly. This year alone, we’ve written here on Change about a string of similar incidents, mostly perpetrated by big oil.

It’s easy to finger wag or wring one’s hands or bitch about mega-corporations’ greed and irresponsibility. But none of that does much–if any–good. And in some ways, we’re complicit with their actions.

“What’s missing in the whole sad story,” Mehta concludes, “is any sense of a human connection between the faceless people who run the corporation and the victims.”

He goes on to tell a story about a woman from Bhopal who wrote a letter to Union Carbide after losing her husband and her son to the company’s negligence:

“[P]ut your hand on your heart and think…if you are a human being, if this happened to you, how would your wife and children feel?”

Mehta says the woman never received a response. That’s not surprising either.

It’s tempting to read Mehta’s op-ed or other accounts of the Bhopal disaster, shake our heads, and move on. We always do… it’s our normal, default position, a self-protective action to keep us from totally breaking under the weight of the world’s problems.

But what if, instead, we decided not simply to move on? We can’t, perhaps, change the corporatocracy. But what we can do, every single day, is think about how our own personal choices and actions affect other people.

We can clean up after ourselves.

Community Connection:

Read about other corporations’ take the money and run actions around the world:

Chevron’s Greenwashing Ad Campaign

First Person Dispatch From the Chevron Protest

The Salvation Army bell ringer?

That’s so old-school.

This year, people and organizations raising money for charity and community development projects are using the power of Twitter to raise money and awareness.

Here are a few of those projects from travel bloggers we admire:

@Travellerspoint: The Hippo Rollers Project

Maybe you’re broke this holiday season. That’s ok– there’s still a project you can support.

The Travellerspoint travel community will donate a certain number of hippo rollers to African communities for each milestone reached in their crowdsourced wiki travel guide. All you have to do is write: Travellerspoint will buy the hippo rollers.

What is a hippo roller?

According to Travellerspoint, “a hippo roller is a large drum that can hold 90 litres (24 gallons) of water and can be pushed along the ground, making it much easier to transport clean drinking water. It’s a simple technology that has the capacity to make a huge difference in places where water is scarce.”

Read all about the Hippo Rollers Project here.

@travelinggreen: Adopt a Koala

A big supporter of the Matador community, @travelinggreen is a green travel and green living blogger at traveling greener. The site has lots of green gift ideas for the holidays; one of them is the Adopt a Koala program.

@MatadorNetwork: Brave New Travelers Youth Scholarship Fund

We’ve just announced the launch of our fundraising campaign for the 2010 Brave New Travelers Youth Scholarship Fund, which will send as many as 15 inner city students abroad for the first time. No problem if you’re strapped for cash: we’ll accept donations as low as $1.00.

@nerdseyeview, @deliciousbaby: Passports with Purpose

This is the second year that the founders of Passports with Purpose have used Twitter to raise money for a pet project: this year, they’re building a school in Cambodia. Matador has donated free tuition to our travel writing program at Matador U; read all about it in this article.

@joanna_haugen: Karikuy-Haugen Machu Picchu Porters’ Fund

We recently profiled Matador associate editor JoAnna Haugen’s Karikuy-Haugen Machu Picchu Porters’ Fund. There’s no better time than the holidays to help JoAnna realize her goals for this ambitious project. Read about the fund and learn how you can contribute by visiting her blog.

Community Connection:

Do you know about a project we missed? Leave your Twitter handle and some basic details in the comments section below.

Photo: Ed Yourdon

I was really at wit’s end last week, when not just one but both of my laptops died the night before a trip. “I’m going to walk over to Staples to check out laptop prices,” I told my husband, who reminded me that we weren’t exactly in the market for making a big purchase.

He fancies himself something of a handy man, so he logged on to YouTube and entered the search phrase: “laptop battery hack.” He found this video, then bought replacement Lithium batteries and a soldering kit for about $20.00. Thirty minutes later, voila: a laptop battery almost as good as new… and for a price that was a lot more comfortable than the cost of a new laptop.

Community Connection:

There’s another reason why the battery hack trick is good: it keeps dead batteries out of landfills. To get some perspective on where your e-waste goes, check out the photo essay, “Intolerable Beauty: Chris Jordan Photographs American Mass Consumption.”

Photo: Franco

For 52 years, the U.S. Marine Corps has sponsored Toys for Tots, an annual charity drive in which toys are collected for needy children.

People who want to participate in Toys for Tots can take a gift to one of their local drop off centers, which are usually located at toy stores.

One San Francisco strip club has gotten in on this year’s Toys for Tots campaign, potentially generating interest among a new group of gift givers. The Market Street Cinema is offering free admission AND a free lap dance to patrons who bring in an unwrapped toy.

There are all sorts of jokes I could make, but I actually think the campaign is a great idea. I’d love to know about other non-traditional venues participating in holiday charity drives. If you’ve heard a good story, drop me a line at julie@matadornetwork.com.

Community Connection:

How much could one piece of paper cost? Feature photo: Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Photo: Bekathwia

A few years back, I took a tour of the United Nations.

I stopped by the information desk and noticed a stack of booklets, each stamped with the date. The UN publishes information about its proceedings and resolutions in a daily brief that rivals the page count of many towns’ newspapers. Produced in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, any official UN document requires the work of many minds and hands.

It also requires a lot of money.

According to an article published in The New York Times a couple weeks ago, “it costs the United Nations an average of

$2,473 per page

to create every single document in its six official languages….”

Outside contractors could produce the same page for what seems like a bargain basement price in comparison: $450.

Obviously, the UN can’t keep its members in the dark about what’s going on with respect to decisions related to peace-keeping, aid, and development missions around the world. The cost of being uninformed is just too high.

But with a single UN committee producing more than 10,000 pages of documents a year, the organization is facing a few tough questions: What information is truly critical, how can it be presented in the most concise way possible, and who needs it?

Is there a solution to this costly form of communication? What are your thoughts about documents costing an eye-popping $2,473 per page? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Community Connection:

In addition to its peace-keeping, aid, and development operations, the UN performs vital functions like designating World Heritage sites, a status which confers protection on important historical sites around the world.

Read about 13 of Asia’s Most Spectacular World Heritage Sites or check out Hal Amen’s round up of Overlooked World Heritage Sites.

Would practicing poverty really help the world’s poor? Photo: Let Ideas Compete

Over on the Guardian’s environmental blog, a debate is raging.

On one side–and he’s pretty much a one-man team–is writer Tom Hodgkinson, who argues that “far more sensible than a ‘make poverty history’ campaign would be a ‘make wealth history’ campaign. “It is, after all,” he says, “the wealthy people who do all the damage.”

In his rather convoluted defense of this somewhat interesting, albeit totally unlikely to ever be realized idea, Hodgkinson grumbles that we’re all too divorced from the land, ourselves, and each other. We’re too tech dependent– “addicted” is the word he uses (though, curiously, he’s sharing his thoughts on a blog… I’ll leave you to ponder that one)– too consumerist.

We’re destroying the planet, he suggests, though we could save it, maybe, “[i]f we lived poor for just one day of the week….” In addition to “instantly reduc[ing] pollution by a seventh,” we–the world’s wealthy– “would rediscover the simple pleasures, such as cards, chess, backgammon, draughts, talking, dancing and playing music.”

I’m all for reducing consumption, unplugging more frequently, and spending quality time with the people I love. But I’m not sure I buy Hodgkinson’s argument that a “make wealth history” campaign would solve the world’s problems or make the world any more just for the poor, especially when he doesn’t really describe what such a campaign might entail besides harking back to the supposed “good ole’ days” before Blackberrys and iPhones.

I’m not the only one at odds with Hodgkinson–check out the comments section of his post.
What do YOU think? Share your thoughts in our comments section below.

Community Connection:

“Does traveling abroad = less conspicuous consumption at home?” asks Matador Abroad editor Sarah Menkedick.

A wind farm in Scotland; Photo: beltzner

Last month, I drove from New York to Boston.

Along the way, I noticed a couple wind turbines dotting the landscape, their blades turning slowly in the coastal breeze. I wondered how much energy they produce.

According to this 2006 Boston Globe article, a single modern-day windmill generates a lot more energy than I thought: One turbine is capable of powering an entire town’s streetlights and traffic lights.

Wind turbines haven’t taken off in the U.S. yet, but it’s hard to understand why with news like this: wind farms in Spain generate more than 50% of the country’s electricity needs.

In fact, the total output of Spain’s wind farms exceeds the energy generation capacity of 11 nuclear power plants.

If this is the case in Spain, which takes third place in the top 10 list of countries using wind power, then imagine what’s going on in Denmark, which claims the top spot on that list. It gained that position, says TIME journalist Bryan Walsh, because it had the “political and public will to decide that it wanted to be a leader.”

With the conversation about the imminence of peak oil intensifying, maybe it’s time for other countries to exercise that same kind of will to explore the power of wind energy.

Community Connection:

Learn more about peak oil in these articles:

What Cuba Taught Us About Peak Oil

Interview with Derek Wallace from OrganicReform.org

Photo: mamaloco

Let’s keep this short and sweet.

The world’s honeybee population is declining.

No one knows exactly why.

More research is needed to determine the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Haagen-Dazs, which sources ingredients that are pollinated by honeybees, has donated half a million dollars to honeybee research over the past two years, and launched an awareness campaign intended to get consumers involved in saving the honeybees.

There are a few different ways you can take action, but one step you can take right now is to use your Twitter account to raise money for honeybee research.

For every tweet that’s marked with the hashtag #HelpHoneyBees between now and 11:59 PM EST tomorrow night, Haagen-Dazs will donate $1.00 to research efforts at the University of California, Davis.

Learn more about the “twitcause” here.

Photo: Lisa Brewster

The latest twitstorm blew through the travel writing universe over the weekend, leaving the blogosphere breathless–but certainly not speechless–over the quantity and quality of mudslinging that can be done in 140 characters.

I daresay the majority of us following the #followmeatsea hashtag on Saturday and Sunday didn’t give a damn about the spa treatments, fruity drinks, or lavish meals that bloggers on the Princess Cruise Twitter press trip were enjoying and then thumb-diddling about online. I mean, really: who wants to hear about someone else’s free trip while they’re sitting at home up north, slogging away at work? I’m just saying.

As several of us following the twitstorm admitted, we couldn’t look away. Some colleagues even suggested we all go make some popcorn and pull up a virtual chair in this online theater.

The twitstorm was about this: A travel blogger following the hashtag from home raised the issue of the environmental impact of cruise ships. Unfortunately, her phrasing was charged with a certain holier-than-thou tone. What ensued was an hours-long joust of keyboards between said blogger and the bloggers on the cruise, tempered with an occasional observation from those of us on the sidelines.

Before long, the whole exchange–which could have been an excellent opportunity for thoughtful discussion–devolved into a mutually defensive and embarrassingly immature display in which each party clearly wanted to have the final say.

In the midst of the storm, a couple of bloggers on the trip declared they’d speak to cruise ship representatives in order to provide a definitive answer about the environmental impact of cruise liners. They tweeted about their 5.5 hour tour of the ship, remarked about the GPFs (gallons per flush) of cruise toilets (“better than home!”), and insisted that “NO SOLID WASTE [read: poop] goes off a cruise ship!” Princess even, reportedly, “turns its old cooking oil into biofuel.”

Some onlookers were content, saying they “can’t wait to hear the REAL enivronmental facts” from the bloggers who were determined to resolve the matter once and for all.

All of which is well and good, I guess, but the whole exchange leaves me with a few questions:

*Is a 5.5 hour tour of the cruise ship led by people who clearly have a stake in presenting the ship in the best light really going to produce compelling evidence about the “REAL environmental impact” of cruising?

*Were any of the bloggers on the trip concerned about the environmental impact of cruise liners before the issue was raised by someone who wasn’t on the trip?

*Should travel writers care, ultimately, about their own environmental impact?

*And if the answer to that question is yes, how do we figure out what our true environmental impact is?

As I’ve written elsewhere, I’m not opposed to press trips. I’m not envious of the bloggers on this trip–I’ve never been interested in going on a cruise. I wouldn’t have been the least bit interested in #followmeatsea if it hadn’t turned into a disturbing yet fascinating real-time case study about the intersection of comped travel, social media, and environmental issues. Were any of the bloggers on this trip concerned about the environmental footprint of the trip before they eagerly signed on to cruise around the Caribbean on Princess’ dime?

Should travel writers care about their environmental impact? Should travelers?

My own opinion is an unequivocal yes. What’s yours? I hope you’ll share it–politely, please–in the comments.

Community Connection:

Missed the other recent twitstorm about travel writing ethics? You can read all about it here.

Photo: jsgphoto

And once the bottle is open, you know what to do.

Once you’re finished, you can recycle the bottle or get creative. Here are 10 ways to reuse wine bottles:

1. Turn it into a candle holder.
Every cheesy Italian restaurant you’ve ever visited has the red and white checked oilcloth, topped with a Chianti bottle that’s living its second life as a candle holder. This DIY project requires zero skills: buy a taper candle, shove it in the bottle. There, that was easy.

2. Use it as a flower vase.
This one falls into the super-easy category, too. Scrape off the label (soak in warm, soapy water first) and voila, you have a ready made vase, perfect for a single long-stemmed flower, like a Gerber daisy.

3. Make a dish soap dispenser.
All you need to do for this project is buy a pour spout and pop it into the bottle’s mouth. You can buy a pour stop at any kitchen supply store.

4. Store olive oil, vinegar, simple syrup, or salad dressing.
If you buy a couple of those pour spouts, you can reuse your wine bottles for all sorts of kitchen purposes.

5. Create a garden path.
If you’ve got lots of old wine bottles, you can turn them upside down and “plant” them in the dirt to turn them into a pretty garden path.

Photo: Francisco Collazo

6. Make some windchimes.
Wine bottles can be melted and flattened into wind chimes. The Flat Bottle Company can take your bottles and flatten them, giving the bottles new life.

7. Let it water plants.
Fill the bottle, tip it upside down, and stick it into your potted plants at an angle. The slow drop will keep your plants hydrated.

8. Channel your creative side.
Turn a bunch of bottles into a folk art piece, like this curious bottle tree, found in a garden in Mississippi.

9. Make a lamp.
Using the wine bottle as a base, buy a lamp kit and turn the bottle into a DIY light source.

10. And don’t throw out the corks!
You can make bulletin boards and photo holders out of the corks.

Community Connection:

Reduce, reuse, recycle. What about upcycling? Learn all about it here.

Photo: Tulane Public Relations

In fact, you hold much more influence over your school now then you did when you were a student on campus.

Every college and university wants to keep alumni happy; they’re crucial to building and sustaining a school’s endowment. But even if you’ve never contributed a dime to your alma mater’s annual fund, you can still let them know your future support is dependent upon them demonstrating their commitment to the environment.

Here are five steps you can take as an alum to help your alma mater go green:

1. Request that all communications be paperless.
How many letters do you receive each year asking you for money? Let your alma mater know that you won’t even consider making a contribution if you continue to receive requests through the mail. Call your alumni relations office and request that future communications be sent via email. If you do plan to make a contribution, ask if it’s possible to do so electronically.

2. Designate your contributions for green initiatives.
Most schools permit alumni to designate how their contribution will be earmarked. If you want to send a message about your environmental values to your alma mater, let them know that your contribution should be applied toward the construction of green dorms or a scholarship for a student studying environmental science.

3. Praise positive steps.
University administrators are like anyone else: they like acknowledgment of their good work. If your alma mater, like mine, is really taking the lead on environmental stewardship, send the president a letter and let him or her know how proud you are of their leadership.

4. Offer your skills.
Alumni who want to stay involved in their alma mater often serve on alumni boards, help organize reunions, or maybe even mentor current students. But your involvement doesn’t have to be limited to these activities. If you have a unique skill set, offer it to your school. Know how to install solar panels? Plan and plant a garden? Talk with your alumni office about how you might be able to give back by sharing what you know.

5. Stay in touch.
Keep up with the environmental and sustainability projects your alma mater is implementing. Check your school’s website or alumni magazine or newspaper to learn about current and planned projects.

Community Connection:

Still a student? Check out five ways you can help your school go green here.

Hey guys, let’s get rid of those trays! Photo: Totsie14

Earlier this week, I received a copy of the alumni magazine from my undergrad alma mater, Emory University.

Believe it or not, it’s always an interesting read, and it’s often packed with inspiring stories. This issue included a handful of articles about some programs that students and staff have implemented to expand environmental awareness on campus and in the Atlanta community while reducing the university’s carbon footprint.

These projects seemed pretty adaptable, and set me to thinking about how they could be replicated on other campuses. Here are five ways you can help your college go green if you’re a student. Tomorrow, I’ll offer five ways you can help your college go green if you’re an alum.

Current students can:

1. Talk with the campus dining director about trayless eating…
When I was an undergrad, students would crowd their trays with an entree plate, a bread plate, a salad bowl, a soup bowl, a glass, and a dessert dish. They’d eat too much (remember the freshman 15?), waste too much, and generate a lot of plates to wash.

Consider this: The dining hall introduced a trayless system in January. Throughout the spring semester, students had to carry their plates individually to the table and, when finished, to the wash area.

The result? A 14,587-pound reduction in food waste compared to the same period a year earlier. Water consumption also decreased significantly, as there were no trays that needed to be washed.

There’s no data about students’ waistlines, however.

2. And while you’re at it, talk to them about composting.
Though food waste declines when a trayless serving system is introduced, plenty of food is still thrown out. As an alternative, ask if it’s possible for the dining hall to set up a disposal area where uneaten food can be collected in preparation for composting.

3. Advocate for a campus garden.
At Emory, the overall sustainability goal is to purchase 75% local or sustainably grown foo