I can’t believe that it’s already been two months since I left India. I haven’t made any blog updates and hardly any FB updates either! This doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing anything, it just means that too much is going on that I wouldn’t even know where to start…

The highlight of my visit back to the US so far has been the visit to Boston and DC and screening of The Mountains of the Monsoon at the Baird auditorium in the Smithsonian Museum – The premiere Natural History Museum in the United States. I don’t know if you’ve watched the second part of Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller – I haven’t, but I’m going to go watch it tonight!

Kamal Bawa – Distinguished Professor from the University of Massachusetts and Founder of ATREE – Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, spoke about biodiversity hotspots and in particular about the Western Ghats and the need for conservation across this critical landscape.

Professor Bawa’s talk was then followed by Cristina Mittermeier, Founder of the International League of Conservation Photographers who spoke about the importance of using images to help further conservation. The ILCP is at the front line of spreading conservation through education in particular through the use of imagery.  Watch the video – ILCP

Cristina Mittermeier - Founder of the International League of Conservation Photographers

And after that, the last and least accomplished – myself, did a quick behind the scenes introduction into the making of the documentary which included bits and pieces of everything from bloody leeches to elephants up-close.  This was followed by the screening of the BBC/Animal Planet documentary – The Mountains of the Monsoon. The auditorium had a lovely new projector so even though we played through a DVD, the image looked almost HD, just because the projection was so good. Anyhow, all in all the event turned out quite well and I’d like to thank all who were there, ATREE, ILCP, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and in particular to Debbie Rothberg who helped pull it all together at such short notice!