1.
El Salvador
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El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. El Salvadors capital and largest city is San Salvador, as of 2015, the country had a population of approximately 6.38 million, consisting largely of Mestizos of European and Indigenous American descent. El Salvador was for centuries inhabited by several Mesoamerican nations, especially the Cuzcatlecs, as well as the Lenca, in the early 16th century, the Spanish Empire conquered the territory, incorporating it into the Viceroyalty of New Spain ruled from Mexico City. In 1821, the country achieved independence from Spain as part of the First Mexican Empire, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, El Salvador endured chronic political and economic instability characterized by coups, revolts, and a succession of authoritarian rulers. The conflict ended with a settlement that established a multiparty constitutional republic. El Salvador has since reduced its dependence on coffee and embarked on diversifying the economy by opening up trade and financial links, the colón, the official currency of El Salvador since 1892, was replaced by the U. S. dollar in 2001. As of 2010, El Salvador ranks 12th among Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index, however, the country continues to struggle with high rates of poverty, inequality, and crime. Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado named the new province for Jesus Christ – El Salvador, the full name was Provincia De Nuestro Señor Jesus Cristo, El Salvador Del Mundo, which was subsequently abbreviated to El Salvador. Tomayate is a site located on the banks of the river of the same name in the municipality of Apopa. The site has produced abundant Salvadoran megafauna fossils belonging to the Pleistocene epoch, at the same time, it is considered the richest vertebrate paleontological site in Central America and one of the largest accumulations of proboscideans in the Americas. Sophisticated civilization in El Salvador dates to its settlement by the indigenous Lenca people, theirs was the first, the Lenca were succeeded by the Olmecs, who eventually also disappeared, leaving their monumental architecture in the form of the pyramids still extant in western El Salvador. The Maya arrived and settled in place of the Olmecs, the Pipil were the last indigenous people to arrive in El Salvador. They called their territory Kuskatan, a Pipil word meaning The Place of Precious Jewels, backformed into Classical Nahuatl Cōzcatlān, the people of El Salvador today are referred to as Salvadoran, while the term Cuzcatleco is commonly used to identify someone of Salvadoran heritage. In pre-Columbian times, the country was inhabited by various other indigenous peoples, including the Lenca. Cuzcatlan was the domain until the Spanish conquest. Since El Salvador resided on the edge of the Maya Civilization. However, it is agreed that Mayas likely occupied the areas around Lago de Guija. Other ruins such as Tazumal, Joya de Cerén and San Andrés may have built by the Pipil or the Maya or possibly both
2.
Tourism
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Tourism is travel for pleasure or business, also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. Tourism may be international, or within the travellers country, Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a countrys balance of payments. Today, tourism is a source of income for many countries. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.03 trillion in 2011, the ITB Berlin is the worlds leading tourism trade fair. The word tourist was used by 1772 and tourism by 1811. It is formed from the tour, which is derived from Old English turian, from Old French torner, from Latin tornare, to turn on a lathe. Tourism is an important, even vital, source of income for many regions and it also creates opportunities for employment in the service sector of the economy associated with tourism. This is in addition to goods bought by tourists, including souvenirs, in 1936, the League of Nations defined a foreign tourist as someone traveling abroad for at least twenty-four hours. Its successor, the United Nations, amended this definition in 1945 and it includes movements for all purposes. In 1981, the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism defined tourism in terms of particular activities chosen and undertaken outside the home, in this context, travel has a similar definition to tourism, but implies a more purposeful journey. The terms tourism and tourist are sometimes used pejoratively, to imply a shallow interest in the cultures or locations visited, by contrast, traveler is often used as a sign of distinction. The sociology of tourism has studied the values underpinning these distinctions. International tourist arrivals reached 1.035 billion in 2012, up from over 996 million in 2011, the World Tourism Organization reports the following ten destinations as the most visited in terms of the number of international travellers in 2016. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.2 trillion in 2014, based upon air traffic, the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index reports the following cities as the top ten most popular destinations of international tourism worldwide. MasterCard reports the following cities as the top ten biggest earners on international tourism worldwide in 2015, as early as Shulgi, however, kings praised themselves for protecting roads and building waystations for travelers. During the Roman Republic, spas and coastal resorts such as Baiae were popular among the rich, pausanias wrote his Description of Greece in the 2nd century AD. In ancient China, nobles sometimes made a point of visiting Mount Tai and, on occasion, the Islamic hajj is still central to its faith and Chaucers Canterbury Tales and Wu Chengens Journey to the West remain classics of English and Chinese literature. The 10th- to 13th-century Song dynasty also saw secular travel writers such as Su Shi, under the Ming, Xu Xiake continued the practice
3.
Mass tourism
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Tourism is travel for pleasure or business, also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. Tourism may be international, or within the travellers country, Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a countrys balance of payments. Today, tourism is a source of income for many countries. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.03 trillion in 2011, the ITB Berlin is the worlds leading tourism trade fair. The word tourist was used by 1772 and tourism by 1811. It is formed from the tour, which is derived from Old English turian, from Old French torner, from Latin tornare, to turn on a lathe. Tourism is an important, even vital, source of income for many regions and it also creates opportunities for employment in the service sector of the economy associated with tourism. This is in addition to goods bought by tourists, including souvenirs, in 1936, the League of Nations defined a foreign tourist as someone traveling abroad for at least twenty-four hours. Its successor, the United Nations, amended this definition in 1945 and it includes movements for all purposes. In 1981, the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism defined tourism in terms of particular activities chosen and undertaken outside the home, in this context, travel has a similar definition to tourism, but implies a more purposeful journey. The terms tourism and tourist are sometimes used pejoratively, to imply a shallow interest in the cultures or locations visited, by contrast, traveler is often used as a sign of distinction. The sociology of tourism has studied the values underpinning these distinctions. International tourist arrivals reached 1.035 billion in 2012, up from over 996 million in 2011, the World Tourism Organization reports the following ten destinations as the most visited in terms of the number of international travellers in 2016. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.2 trillion in 2014, based upon air traffic, the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index reports the following cities as the top ten most popular destinations of international tourism worldwide. MasterCard reports the following cities as the top ten biggest earners on international tourism worldwide in 2015, as early as Shulgi, however, kings praised themselves for protecting roads and building waystations for travelers. During the Roman Republic, spas and coastal resorts such as Baiae were popular among the rich, pausanias wrote his Description of Greece in the 2nd century AD. In ancient China, nobles sometimes made a point of visiting Mount Tai and, on occasion, the Islamic hajj is still central to its faith and Chaucers Canterbury Tales and Wu Chengens Journey to the West remain classics of English and Chinese literature. The 10th- to 13th-century Song dynasty also saw secular travel writers such as Su Shi, under the Ming, Xu Xiake continued the practice
4.
Ecological conservation
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It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on natural and social sciences, and the practice of natural resource management. The conservation ethic is based on the findings of conservation biology, wilcox and Michael E. Soulé with a group of leading university and zoo researchers and conservationists including Kurt Benirschke, Sir Otto Frankel, Thomas E. Lovejoy, and Jared M. Diamond. The meeting was prompted by the concern over deforestation, disappearing species. Conservation biology and the concept of biological diversity emerged together, helping crystallize the modern era of conservation science, the inherent multidisciplinary basis for conservation biology has led to new subdisciplines including conservation social science, conservation behavior and conservation physiology. It stimulated further development of genetics which Otto Frankel had originated first but is now often considered a subdiscipline as well. The rapid decline of established biological systems around the means that conservation biology is often referred to as a Discipline with a deadline. Conservation biology is tied closely to ecology in researching the ecology of rare or endangered species. Conservation biologists work in the field and office, in government, universities, non-profit organizations, the topics of their research are diverse, because this is an interdisciplinary network with professional alliances in the biological as well as social sciences. Those dedicated to the cause and profession advocate for a response to the current biodiversity crisis based on morals, ethics. Conscious efforts to conserve and protect global biodiversity are a recent phenomenon, natural resource conservation, however, has a history that extends prior to the age of conservation. Resource ethics grew out of necessity through direct relations with nature and this social dilemma with respect to natural resource management is often called the Tragedy of the Commons. From this principle, conservation biologists can trace communal resource based ethics throughout cultures as a solution to communal resource conflict. For example, the Alaskan Tlingit peoples and the Haida of the Pacific Northwest had resource boundaries, rules and these rules were guided by clan elders who knew lifelong details of each river and stream they managed. There are numerous examples in history where cultures have followed rules, rituals, Conservation ethics are also found in early religious and philosophical writings. There are examples in the Tao, Shinto, Hindu, Islamic, in the bible, through Moses, God commanded to let the land rest from cultivation every seventh year. Before the 18th century, however, much of European culture considered it a view to admire nature. Wilderness was denigrated while agricultural development was praised, however, as early as AD680 a wildlife sanctuary was founded on the Farne Islands by St Cuthbert in response to his religious beliefs. Natural history was a preoccupation in the 18th century, with grand expeditions
5.
Economic development
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Economic development is the process by which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people. The term has been used frequently by economists, politicians, and others in the 20th, the concept, however, has been in existence in the West for centuries. Modernization, Westernization, and especially Industrialization are other people have used while discussing economic development. Economic development has a relationship with the environment and environmental issues. Whereas economic development is a policy intervention endeavor with aims of economic and social well-being of people, economic growth is a phenomenon of market productivity, consequently, as economist Amartya Sen points out, economic growth is one aspect of the process of economic development. The scope of development includes the process and policies by which a nation improves the economic, political. The University of Iowas Center for International Finance and Development states that, Economic development is a term that economists, politicians, the concept, however, has been in existence in the West for centuries. Modernization, Westernisation, and especially Industrialisation are other people have used while discussing economic development. Economic development has a relationship with the environment. Although nobody is certain when the concept originated, some agree that development is closely bound up with the evolution of capitalism. Economic development can also be considered as a theory that documents the state of an economy at a certain time. According to Schumpeter and Backhaus, the changes in equilibrium state to document in economic theory can only be caused by intervening factors coming from the outside. Economic development originated in the period of reconstruction initiated by the United States. Their food is inadequate, they are victims of disease and their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a both to them and to more prosperous areas. For the first time in history humanity possesses the knowledge and the skill to relieve the suffering of these people, greater production is the key to prosperity and peace. And the key to production is a wider and more vigorous application of modem scientific. There have been several phases of development theory since 1945
6.
Human rights
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Human rights are moral principles or norms, which describe certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. They are applicable everywhere and at time in the sense of being universal. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on circumstances, for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture. The doctrine of human rights has been influential within international law. Actions by states and non-governmental organizations form a basis of public policy worldwide, the idea of human rights suggests that if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights. The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature, ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family is the foundation of freedom. All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. According to Jack Donnelly, in the ancient world, traditional societies typically have had elaborate systems of duties, conceptions of justice, political legitimacy, and human flourishing that sought to realize human dignity, flourishing, or well-being entirely independent of human rights. These institutions and practices are alternative to, rather than different formulations of, one theory is that human rights were developed during the early Modern period, alongside the European secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics. The most commonly held view is that the concept of human rights evolved in the West, for example, McIntyre argues there is no word for right in any language before 1400. One of the oldest records of rights is the statute of Kalisz, giving privileges to the Jewish minority in the Kingdom of Poland such as protection from discrimination. Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept of rights is intertwined with the modern sense of citizenship. The earliest conceptualization of human rights is credited to ideas about natural rights emanating from natural law, in particular, the issue of universal rights was introduced by the examination of extending rights to indigenous peoples by Spanish clerics, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions, additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms. These were followed by developments in philosophy of human rights by philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, hegel during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the term had been used by at least one author as early as 1742, in the 19th century, human rights became a central concern over the issue of slavery
7.
Biotic components
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Biotic components are the living things that shape an ecosystem. Biotic components usually include, Producers, i. e. autotrophs, e. g. plants, consumers, i. e. heterotrophs, e. g. animals, they depend upon producers for food. Decomposers, i. e. detritivores, e. g. fungi and bacteria, a biotic factor is any living component that affects the population of another organism, or the environment. This includes animals that consume the organism, and the food that the organism consumes. Biotic factors also include human influence, pathogens and disease outbreaks, each biotic factor needs energy to do work and food for proper growth. All species are influenced by factors in one way or another. For example, If the number of predators will increase, the food web will be affected. Similarly, when organisms have more food to eat, they will grow quicker and will be likely to reproduce. Pathogens and disease outbreaks, however, are most likely to cause a decrease in population size, humans make the most sudden changes in an environment. These changes are most likely to cause a decrease in the population of any species, biotic components are contrasted to abiotic components, which are non-living components that influence population size and the environment. Examples of abiotic factors are, temperature, light intensity, moisture and water levels, air currents, carbon dioxide levels, the factors mentioned above may either cause an increase or a decrease in population size, depending on the organism. For example, rainfall may encourage the growth of new plants, but too much of it may cause flooding, which may drastically decrease the population size
8.
Flora
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Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animal life is fauna, Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the gut flora or skin flora. The word flora comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, the distinction between vegetation and flora was first made by Jules Thurmann. Prior to this, the two terms were used indiscriminately, plants are grouped into floras based on region, period, special environment, or climate. Regions can be geographically distinct habitats like mountain vs. flatland, floras can mean plant life of a historic era as in fossil flora. Lastly, floras may be subdivided by special environments, Native flora, the native and indigenous flora of an area. The plants that are grown by humans. Traditionally this classification was applied to plants regarded as undesirable, many native plants previously considered weeds have been shown to be beneficial or even necessary to various ecosystems. The flora of an area or time period can be documented in a publication also known as a flora. Floras may require specialist botanical knowledge to use with any effectiveness, traditionally they are books, but some are now published on CD-ROM or websites. It is said that the Flora Sinensis by the Polish Jesuit Michał Boym was the first book that used the name Flora in this meaning, however, despite its title it covered not only plants, but also some animals of the region. A published flora often contains diagnostic keys, often these are dichotomous keys, which require the user to repeatedly examine a plant, and decide which one of two alternatives given best applies to the plant
9.
Fauna
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Fauna is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora, flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a collection of animals found in a specific time or place. Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. Fauna comes from the Greek names Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, all three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and panis is the Greek equivalent of fauna. Fauna is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner, the term was first used by Carl Linnaeus from Sweden in the title of his 1745 work Fauna Suecica. Cryofauna are animals that live in, or very close to, cryptofauna are the fauna that exist in protected or concealed microhabitats. Infauna are benthic organisms that live within the substratum of a body of water, especially within the bottom-most oceanic sediments. Bacteria and microalgae may also live in the interstices of bottom sediments, epifauna, also called epibenthos, are aquatic animals that live on the bottom substratum as opposed to within it, that is, the benthic fauna that live on top of the sediment surface at the seafloor. Macrofauna are benthic or soil organisms which are retained on a 0.5 mm sieve, studies in the deep sea define macrofauna as animals retained on a 0.3 mm sieve to account for the small size of many of the taxa. Megafauna are large animals of any region or time. Meiofauna are small invertebrates that live in both marine and fresh water environments. The term Meiofauna loosely defines a group of organisms by their size, larger than microfauna but smaller than macrofauna, one environment for meiofauna is between grains of damp sand. In practice these are metazoan animals that can pass unharmed through a 0.5 –1 mm mesh but will be retained by a 30–45 μm mesh, but the exact dimensions will vary from researcher to researcher. Whether an organism passes through a 1 mm mesh also depends upon whether it is alive or dead at the time of sorting, mesofauna are macroscopic soil invertebrates such as arthropods or nematodes. Mesofauna are extremely diverse, considering just the springtails, as of 1998, microfauna are microscopic or very small animals. Other terms include avifauna, which means bird fauna and piscifauna, which means fish fauna
10.
Cultural heritage
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Cultural heritage includes tangible culture, intangible culture, and natural heritage. Objects are a part of the study of history because they provide a concrete basis for ideas. Their preservation demonstrates a recognition of the necessity of the past, in The Past is a Foreign Country, David Lowenthal observes that preserved objects also validate memories. This unfortunately poses a danger as places and things are damaged by the hands of tourists, the required to display them. Similarly changing is the value each generation may place on the past, classical civilizations, and especially the Indian, have attributed supreme importance to the preservation of tradition. Its central idea was that institutions, scientific knowledge and technological applications need to use a heritage as a resource. Using contemporary language, we could say that ancient Indians considered, as social resources, ethics considered that what had been inherited should not be consumed, but should be handed over, possibly enriched, to successive generations. This was an imperative for all, except in the final life stage of sannyasa. What one generation considers cultural heritage may be rejected by the next generation, Cultural property includes the physical, or tangible cultural heritage, such as artworks. These are generally split into two groups of movable and immovable heritage, immovable heritage includes buildings, large industrial installations or other historic places and monuments. Moveable heritage includes books, documents, moveable artworks, machines, clothing, and other artifacts and these include objects significant to the archaeology, architecture, science or technology of a specified culture. The concept includes the ways and means of behavior in a society, and these include social values and traditions, customs and practices, aesthetic and spiritual beliefs, artistic expression, language and other aspects of human activity. The significance of artifacts can be interpreted against the backdrop of socioeconomic, political, ethnic, religious. Naturally, intangible heritage is more difficult to preserve than physical objects. These kind of heritage sites often serve as an important component in a countrys tourist industry, Heritage can also include cultural landscapes. As of 2011, there are 936 World Heritage Sites,725 cultural,183 natural, each of these sites is considered important to the international community. The underwater cultural heritage is protected by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage and this convention is a legal instrument helping states parties to improve the protection of their underwater cultural heritage. In additional, UNESCO has begun designating masterpieces of the Oral, international Institute for Conservation Much of heritage preservation work is done at the national, regional, or local levels of society
11.
Recycling
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Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. It is an alternative to conventional waste disposal that can save material, Recycling can prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, thereby reducing, energy usage, air pollution, and water pollution. Recycling is a key component of waste reduction and is the third component of the Reduce, Reuse. There are some ISO standards related to recycling such as ISO15270,2008 for plastics waste, recyclable materials include many kinds of glass, paper, and cardboard, metal, plastic, tires, textiles, and electronics. The composting or other reuse of biodegradable waste—such as food or garden waste—is also considered recycling, materials to be recycled are either brought to a collection centre or picked up from the curbside, then sorted, cleaned, and reprocessed into new materials destined for manufacturing. However, this is difficult or too expensive, so recycling of many products or materials involves their reuse in producing different materials instead. Another form of recycling is the salvage of materials from complex products, either due to their intrinsic value. Recycling has been a practice for most of human history. In pre-industrial times, there is evidence of bronze and other metals being collected in Europe. Paper recycling was first recorded in 1031 when Japanese shops sold repulped paper, in Britain dust and ash from wood and coal fires was collected by dustmen and downcycled as a base material used in brick making. In 1813, Benjamin Law developed the process of turning rags into shoddy and mungo wool in Batley and this material combined recycled fibers with virgin wool. The West Yorkshire shoddy industry in such as Batley and Dewsbury lasted from the early 19th century to at least 1914. Industrialization spurred demand for materials, aside from rags, ferrous scrap metals were coveted as they were cheaper to acquire than virgin ore. Railroads both purchased and sold scrap metal in the 19th century, and the steel and automobile industries purchased scrap in the early 20th century. Many secondary goods were collected, processed and sold by peddlers who scoured dumps and city streets for discarded machinery, pots, pans, and other sources of metal. By World War I, thousands of such peddlers roamed the streets of American cities, beverage bottles were recycled with a refundable deposit at some drink manufacturers in Great Britain and Ireland around 1800, notably Schweppes. New chemical industries created in the late 19th century both invented new materials (e. g. Bakelite and promised to transform valueless into valuable materials, new and better paths are opened to reach the goals desired. Recycling was a highlight throughout World War II, during the war, financial constraints and significant material shortages due to war efforts made it necessary for countries to reuse goods and recycle materials
12.
Energy conservation
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Energy conservation refers to the reducing of energy consumption through using less of an energy service. Energy conservation differs from efficient energy use, which refers to using less energy for a constant service, driving less is an example of energy conservation. Driving the same amount with a higher mileage vehicle is an example of energy efficiency, Energy conservation and efficiency are both energy reduction techniques. Energy conservation is a part of the concept of sufficiency, even though energy conservation reduces energy services, it can result in increased environmental quality, national security, personal financial security and higher savings. It is at the top of the energy hierarchy. It also lowers energy costs by preventing future resource depletion, some countries employ energy or carbon taxes to motivate energy users to reduce their consumption. Carbon taxes can allow consumption to shift to power and other alternatives that carry a different set of environmental side effects. Meanwhile, taxes on all energy consumption stand to reduce energy use across the board, the State of California employs a tiered energy tax whereby every consumer receives a baseline energy allowance that carries a low tax. As usage increases above that baseline, the tax is increasing drastically, such programs aim to protect poorer households while creating a larger tax burden for high energy consumers. One of the ways to improve energy conservation in buildings is to use an energy audit. This is normally accomplished by trained professionals and can be part of some of the programs discussed above. In addition, recent development of smartphone apps enable homeowners to complete relatively sophisticated energy audits themselves, building technologies and smart meters can allow energy users, business and residential, to see graphically the impact their energy use can have in their workplace or homes. Advanced real-time energy metering is able to help save energy by their actions. In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store and this is called passive solar design or climatic design because, unlike active solar heating systems, it doesnt involve the use of mechanical and electrical devices. The key to designing a passive building is to best take advantage of the local climate. Elements to be considered include window placement and glazing type, thermal insulation, thermal mass, passive solar design techniques can be applied most easily to new buildings, but existing buildings can be retrofitted. In the United States, suburban infrastructure evolved during an age of easy access to fossil fuels. Zoning reforms that allow greater urban density as well as designs for walking and bicycling can greatly reduce energy consumed for transportation, consumers are often poorly informed of the savings of energy efficient products
13.
Water conservation
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Population, household size, and growth and affluence all affect how much water is used. Factors such as climate change have increased pressures on water resources especially in manufacturing. Many US cities have implemented policies aimed at water conservation. Energy conservation as water pumping, delivery and wastewater treatment facilities consume a significant amount of energy, in some regions of the world over 15% of total electricity consumption is devoted to water management. Habitat conservation where minimizing human water use helps to preserve freshwater habitats for wildlife and migrating waterfowl. The key activities that benefit water conservation are as follows, Any beneficial reduction in loss, use. Avoiding any damage to water quality, improving water management practices that reduce the use or enhance the beneficial use of water. One strategy in water conservation is rain water harvesting, digging ponds, lakes, canals, expanding the water reservoir, and installing rain water catching ducts and filtration systems on homes are different methods of harvesting rain water. Harvested and filtered rain water could be used for toilets, home gardening, lawn irrigation, another strategy in water conservation is protecting groundwater resources. When precipitation occurs, some infiltrates the soil and goes underground, Water in this saturation zone is called groundwater. Some examples of sources of groundwater contamination include storage tanks, septic systems, uncontrolled hazardous waste, landfills, atmospheric contaminants, chemicals. An additional strategy to water conservation is practicing sustainable methods of utilizing groundwater resources, groundwater flows due to gravity and eventually discharges into streams. Excess pumping of groundwater leads to a decrease in groundwater levels, ground and surface waters are connected and overuse of groundwater can reduce and, in extreme examples, diminish the water supply of lakes, rivers, and streams. In coastal regions, over pumping groundwater can increase saltwater intrusion which results in the contamination of water supply. Sustainable use of groundwater is essential in water conservation, a fundamental component to water conservation strategy is communication and education outreach of different water programs. Developing communication that educates science to land managers, policy makers, farmers, Water conservation programs involved in social solutions are typically initiated at the local level, by either municipal water utilities or regional governments. Common strategies include public outreach campaigns, tiered water rates, or restrictions on water use such as lawn watering. Cities in dry climates often require or encourage the installation of xeriscaping or natural landscaping in new homes to reduce water usage
14.
Global warming
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Global warming and climate change are terms for the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature of the Earths climate system and its related effects. Multiple lines of evidence show that the climate system is warming. The largest human influence has been emission of gases such as carbon dioxide, methane. These findings have been recognized by the science academies of the major industrialized nations and are not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing. Future climate change and associated impacts will differ from region to region around the globe, anticipated effects include warming global temperature, rising sea levels, changing precipitation, and expansion of deserts in the subtropics. Warming is expected to be greater over land than over the oceans and greatest in the Arctic, with the retreat of glaciers, permafrost. Effects significant to humans include the threat to security from decreasing crop yields. Possible societal responses to global warming include mitigation by emissions reduction, adaptation to its effects, building systems resilient to its effects, most countries are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, whose ultimate objective is to prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change. Public reactions to global warming and concern about its effects are also increasing, a global 2015 Pew Research Center report showed a median of 54% consider it a very serious problem. There are significant regional differences, with Americans and Chinese among the least concerned, the global average surface temperature shows a warming of 0.85 °C in the period 1880 to 2012, based on multiple independently produced datasets. Earths average surface temperature rose by 0. 74±0.18 °C over the period 1906–2005, the rate of warming almost doubled for the last half of that period. The rest has melted ice and warmed the continents and atmosphere, the average temperature of the lower troposphere has increased between 0.12 and 0.135 °C per decade since 1979, according to satellite temperature measurements. The warming that is evident in the temperature record is consistent with a wide range of observations. The probability that these changes could have occurred by chance is virtually zero, temperature changes vary over the globe. Since 1979, land temperatures have increased about twice as fast as ocean temperatures, ocean temperatures increase more slowly than land temperatures because of the larger effective heat capacity of the oceans and because the ocean loses more heat by evaporation. Since the beginning of industrialisation the temperature difference between the hemispheres has increased due to melting of sea ice and snow in the North. Average arctic temperatures have been increasing at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world in the past 100 years, the thermal inertia of the oceans and slow responses of other indirect effects mean that climate can take centuries or longer to adjust to changes in forcing. Some of this warming will be driven by past natural forcings which are still seeking equilibrium in the climate system
15.
Halichoerus grypus
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The grey seal is found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is a seal of the family Phocidae or true seals. It is the species classified in the genus Halichoerus. Its name is spelled gray seal in the US, it is known as Atlantic seal. The name H. g. grypus was therefore transferred to the Baltic subspecies, and the name H. g. atlantica resurrected for the Atlantic subspecies. It is a seal, with bulls in the eastern Atlantic populations reaching 2. 5–3.3 m long and weighing 170–310 kg. Individuals from the western Atlantic are often larger, males reaching 400 kg. It is distinguished from the seal by its straight head profile, nostrils set well apart. Gray seals lack external ear flaps and characteristically have large snouts, bull Greys have larger noses and a less curved profile than common seal bulls. Males are generally darker than females, with patches and often scarring around the neck. Females are silver grey to brown with dark patches, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the grey seal breeds in several colonies on and around the coasts. In the German Bight, colonies exist off the islands Sylt and Amrum, in the Western North Atlantic, the grey seal is typically found in large numbers in the coastal waters of Canada and south to about New Jersey in the United States. In Canada, it is seen in areas such as the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, the Maritimes. The largest colony in the world is at Sable Island, NS, in the United States its found year round off the coast of New England, in particular Maine and Massachusetts, and slightly less frequently in the Middle Atlantic States. Archaeological evidence confirms grey seals in southern New England with remains found on Block Island, Marthas Vineyard and near the mouth of the Quinnipiac River in New Haven and its natural range now extends much further south than previously recognized with confirmed sightings in North Carolina. Also, there is a report by Farley Mowat of historic breeding colonies as far south as Cape Hatteras, an isolated population exists in the Baltic Sea, forming the H. grypus balticus subspecies. Besides these very large colonies, many smaller ones exist. Such colonies include one on the Carrack rocks in Cornwall, during the winter months grey seals can be seen hauled out on rocks, islands, and shoals not far from shore, occasionally coming ashore to rest
16.
Estonia
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Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia, across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia consists of a mainland and 2,222 islands and islets in the Baltic Sea, covering 45,339 km2 of land and water, and is influenced by a humid continental climate. The territory of Estonia has been inhabited since at least 6500 BC, in 1988, during the Singing Revolution, the Estonian Supreme Soviet issued the Estonian Sovereignty Declaration in defiance of Soviet rule, and independence was restored on 20 August 1991. Estonia is a parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties. Its capital and largest city is Tallinn, with a population of 1.3 million, it is one of the least-populous member states of the European Union, Eurozone, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, OECD and Schengen Area. Estonia is a country with an advanced, high-income economy that is among the fastest growing in the EU. Its Human Development Index ranks very highly, and it performs favourably in measurements of economic freedom, civil liberties, the 2015 PISA test places Estonian high school students 3rd in the world, behind Singapore and Japan. Citizens of Estonia are provided with health care, free education. Since independence the country has developed its IT sector, becoming one of the worlds most digitally advanced societies. In 2005 Estonia became the first nation to hold elections over the Internet, in the Estonian language, the oldest known endonym of the Estonians was maarahvas, meaning country people or people of the land. The land inhabited by Estonians was called Maavald meaning Country Parish or Land Parish, one hypothesis regarding the modern name of Estonia is that it originated from the Aesti, a people described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania. The historic Aesti were allegedly Baltic people, whereas the modern Estonians are Finno-Ugric, the geographical areas between Aesti and Estonia do not match, with Aesti being further down south. Ancient Scandinavian sagas refer to a land called Eistland, as the country is called in Icelandic. Early Latin and other ancient versions of the name are Estia and Hestia, esthonia was a common alternative English spelling prior to 1921. Human settlement in Estonia became possible 13,000 to 11,000 years ago, the oldest known settlement in Estonia is the Pulli settlement, which was on the banks of the river Pärnu, near the town of Sindi, in south-western Estonia. According to radiocarbon dating it was settled around 11,000 years ago, the earliest human inhabitation during the Mesolithic period is connected to Kunda culture, which is named after the town of Kunda in northern Estonia. At that time the country was covered with forests, and people lived in communities near bodies of water
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Biodiversity
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Biodiversity, a contraction of biological diversity, generally refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. One of the most widely used definitions defines it in terms of the variability within species and it is a measure of the variety of organisms present in different ecosystems. This can refer to genetic variation, ecosystem variation, or species variation within an area, biome, terrestrial biodiversity tends to be greater near the equator, which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productivity. Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth, and is richest in the tropics and these tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 10 per cent of earths surface, and contain about 90 percent of the worlds species. Marine biodiversity tends to be highest along coasts in the Western Pacific, there are latitudinal gradients in species diversity. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots, and has been increasing through time, the number and variety of plants, animals and other organisms that exist is known as biodiversity. It is a component of nature and it ensures the survival of human species by providing food, fuel, shelter, medicines. The richness of biodiversity depends on the conditions and area of the region. All species of plants taken together are known as flora and about 300,000 species of plants are known to date, all species of animals taken together are known as fauna which includes birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, insects, crustaceans, molluscs, etc. Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions, more than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037 and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living on Earth. The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, there are microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia. Other early physical evidence of a substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old meta-sedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland. More recently, in 2015, remains of life were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. According to one of the researchers, If life arose relatively quickly on Earth, then it could be common in the universe
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Cultural diversity
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Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural decay. The phrase cultural diversity can also refer to having different cultures respect each others differences, the phrase cultural diversity is also sometimes used to mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. Globalization is often said to have an effect on the worlds cultural diversity. There are many societies that emerged around the globe differed markedly from each other. Cultural diversity can be seen as analogous to biodiversity, firstly, like most evolutionary accounts of human nature, the importance of cultural diversity for survival may be an un-testable hypothesis, which can neither be proved nor disproved. In the same manner that the promotion of poverty in underdeveloped nations as cultural diversity is unethical and it is unethical to promote all religious practices simply because they are seen to contribute to cultural diversity. Particular religious practices are recognized by the WHO and UN as unethical, including female genital mutilation, polygamy, child brides, with the onset of globalization, traditional nation-states have been placed under enormous pressures. Today, with the development of technology, information and capital are transcending geographical boundaries, in particular, the growth of the mass media industry has largely impacted on individuals and societies across the globe. Although beneficial in some ways, this increased accessibility has the capacity to affect a societys individuality. With information being so easily distributed throughout the world, cultural meanings, as a result, the strength of identity of individuals and societies may begin to weaken. Nowadays, communication between different countries becomes more and more frequent, and more and more students choose to study overseas for experiencing culture diversity. Their goal is to broaden their horizons and develop themselves from learning overseas, for example, according to Fengling, Chen, Du Yanjun, and Yu Mas paper Academic Freedom in the Peoples Republic of China and the United States Of America. They pointed out that Chinese education more focus on traditionally, teaching has consisted of spoon feeding, chinas traditional system of education has sought to make students accept fixed and ossified content. And In the classroom, Chinese professors are the laws and authorities, on another hand, in United States of America education American students treat college professors as equals. Also American students are encouraged to debate topics, the free open discussion on various topics is due to the academic freedom which most American colleges and universities enjoy. Discussion above gives us an idea about the differences between China and the United States on education. But we cannot simply judge which one is better, because each culture has its own advantages and features, thanks to those difference forms the culture diversity and those make our world more colorful. Especially, with current process of global economics, people who owned different perspectives on cultures stand at a competitive position in current world
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Ecosystem
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An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles, as ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can be of any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces. Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun and it generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbon from the atmosphere. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and they also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, other external factors include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic entities—invariably, they are subject to disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can have different characteristics simply because they contain different species. The introduction of species can cause substantial shifts in ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are controlled by them and are often subject to feedback loops. Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of species present, although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external factors like climate. Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance, classifying ecosystems into ecologically homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is no single, agreed-upon way to do this. The term ecosystem was first used in 1935 in a publication by British ecologist Arthur Tansley, Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment. He later refined the term, describing it as The whole system, including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment. Tansley regarded ecosystems not simply as natural units, but as mental isolates, Tansley later defined the spatial extent of ecosystems using the term ecotope. G. Raymond Lindeman took these ideas one step further to suggest that the flow of energy through a lake was the driver of the ecosystem. Most mineral nutrients, on the hand, are recycled within ecosystems. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, external factors, also called state factors, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem
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Sustainability
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In ecology, sustainability is the property of biological systems to remain diverse and productive indefinitely. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of biological systems. In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems, the organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains, ecology, economics, politics and culture. Sustainability science is the study of development and environmental science. Sustainability can also be defined as a process characterized by the pursuit of a common ideal. An ideal is by definition unattainable in a time and space. However, by persistently and dynamically approaching it, the results in a sustainable system. Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival of humans, ways of reducing negative human impact are environmentally-friendly chemical engineering, environmental resources management and environmental protection. Information is gained from green chemistry, earth science, environmental science, Ecological economics studies the fields of academic research that aim to address human economies and natural ecosystems. Moving towards sustainability is also a challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles. The name sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere, sustain can mean “maintain, support, or endure”. ”The 2005 World Summit on Social Development identified sustainable development goals, such as economic development, social development and environmental protection. This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing, in fact, the three pillars are interdependent, and in the long run none can exist without the others. The three pillars have served as a ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years. Standards which today explicitly refer to the bottom line include Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade. Some sustainability experts and practitioners have illustrated four pillars of sustainability, one such pillar is future generations, which emphasizes the long-term thinking associated with sustainability. There is also an opinion that considers resource use and financial sustainability as two pillars of sustainability. Sustainable development consists of balancing local and global efforts to meet human needs without destroying or degrading the natural environment. The question then becomes how to represent the relationship between those needs and the environment, a study from 2005 pointed out that environmental justice is as important as sustainable development
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Indigenous peoples
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Groups are usually described as indigenous when they maintain traditions or other aspects of an early culture that is associated with a given region. Not all indigenous peoples share such characteristics, Indigenous societies are found in every inhabited climate zone and continent of the world. Estimates put the population of indigenous peoples from 220 million to 350 million. The adjective indigenous is derived from the Latin word indigena, which is based on the root gen- to be born with a form of the prefix in in. Any given people, ethnic group or community may be described as indigenous in reference to some particular region or location that they see as their tribal land claim. Other terms used to refer to indigenous populations are aboriginal, native, original, james Anaya, former Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has defined indigenous peoples as living descendants of pre-invasion inhabitants of lands now dominated by others. They are culturally distinct groups that find themselves engulfed by other settler societies born of forces of empire, throughout history, different states designate the groups within their boundaries that are recognized as indigenous peoples according to international or national legislation by different terms. Their ability to influence and participate in the policies that may exercise jurisdiction over their traditional lands. The presence of external laws, claims and cultural mores either potentially or actually act to constrain the practices and observances of an indigenous society. These constraints can be observed even when the society is regulated largely by its own tradition. They may be imposed, or arise as unintended consequence of trans-cultural interaction. They may have an effect, even where countered by other external influences. This definition has some limitations, because the definition applies mainly to pre-colonial populations, the primary impetus in considering indigenous identity comes from the post-colonial movements and considering the historical impacts on populations by the European imperialism. Greek sources of the Classical period acknowledge the existence of indigenous people. These peoples inhabited lands surrounding the Aegean Sea before the subsequent migrations of the Hellenic ancestors claimed by these authors, the disposition and precise identity of this former group is elusive, and sources such as Homer, Hesiod and Herodotus give varying, partially mythological accounts. However, it is clear that cultures existed whose indigenous characteristics were distinguished by the subsequent Hellenic cultures, greco-Roman society flourished between 250 BC and 480 AD and commanded successive waves of conquests that gripped more than half of the globe. The rapid and extensive spread of the various European powers from the early 15th century onwards had an impact upon many of the indigenous cultures with whom they came into contact. The Canary Islands had an indigenous population called the Guanches whose origin is still the subject of discussion among historians, the United Nations estimates that there are over 370 million indigenous people living in over 70 countries worldwide
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Informed consent
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Informed consent is a process for getting permission before conducting a healthcare intervention on a person. A health care provider may ask a patient to consent to receive therapy before providing it, Informed consent is collected according to guidelines from the fields of medical ethics and research ethics. An informed consent can be said to have been based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the facts, implications. Adequate informed consent is rooted in respecting a person’s dignity, to give informed consent, the individual concerned must have adequate reasoning faculties and be in possession of all relevant facts. Some acts can take place because of a lack of informed consent, in cases where an individual is provided insufficient information to form a reasoned decision, serious ethical issues arise. Such cases in a trial in medical research are anticipated and prevented by an ethics committee or Institutional Review Board. Informed Consent Form Templates can be found on the World Health Organization Website for practical use, Consent may be implied within the usual subtleties of human communication, rather than explicitly negotiated verbally or in writing. In some cases consent cannot legally be possible, even if the protests he does indeed understand. There are also structured instruments for evaluating capacity to give informed consent, thus, there is always a degree to which informed consent must be assumed or inferred based upon observation, or knowledge, or legal reliance. This especially is the case in sexual or relational issues, in medical or formal circumstances, explicit agreement by means of signature—normally relied on legally—regardless of actual consent, is the norm. This is the case with certain procedures, such as a do not resuscitate directive that a patient signed prior to their illness. Brief examples of each of the above, A person may verbally agree to something from fear, perceived social pressure, the person requesting the action may honestly be unaware of this and believe the consent is genuine, and rely on it. Consent is expressed, but not internally given, understanding needed for informed consent is present but is, in fact, not present. A person signs a release form for a medical procedure. Unless he can show actual misinformation, the release is usually persuasive or conclusive in law, in formal circumstances, a written consent usually legally overrides later denial of informed consent. For an individual to give informed consent, three components must be present, disclosure, capacity and voluntariness. Capacity pertains to the ability of the subject to understand the information provided and form a reasonable judgment based on the potential consequences of his/her decision. Voluntariness refers to the right to freely exercise his/her decision making without being subjected to external pressure such as coercion, manipulation
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Natural environment
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The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some part of Earth and this environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather, and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a system in the desert. Though many animals build things to provide an environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams. People seldom find absolutely natural environments on Earth, and naturalness usually varies in a continuum, more precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. If, for instance, in a field, the mineralogic composition and the structure of its soil are similar to those of an undisturbed forest soil. Natural environment is used as a synonym for habitat. For instance, when we say that the environment of giraffes is the savanna. Earth science generally recognizes 4 spheres, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere as correspondent to rocks, water, air, and life respectively. Some scientists include, as part of the spheres of the Earth, Earth science, is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. There are four major disciplines in sciences, namely geography, geology, geophysics. These major disciplines use physics, chemistry, biology, chronology, the Earths crust, or lithosphere, is the outermost solid surface of the planet and is chemically and mechanically different from underlying mantle. It has been generated greatly by igneous processes in which magma cools, beneath the lithosphere lies the mantle which is heated by the decay of radioactive elements. The mantle though solid is in a state of rheic convection and this convection process causes the lithospheric plates to move, albeit slowly. The resulting process is known as plate tectonics, volcanoes result primarily from the melting of subducted crust material or of rising mantle at mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes. An ocean is a body of saline water, and a component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earths surface is covered by ocean, a body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans. More than half of area is over 3,000 meters deep
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Economics
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Economics is a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work, consistent with this focus, textbooks often distinguish between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics examines the behaviour of elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy and issues affecting it, including unemployment of resources, inflation, economic growth, and the public policies that address these issues. Economic analysis can be applied throughout society, as in business, finance, health care, Economic analyses may also be applied to such diverse subjects as crime, education, the family, law, politics, religion, social institutions, war, science, and the environment. At the turn of the 21st century, the domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism. The ultimate goal of economics is to improve the conditions of people in their everyday life. There are a variety of definitions of economics. Some of the differences may reflect evolving views of the subject or different views among economists, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue for the publick services. Say, distinguishing the subject from its uses, defines it as the science of production, distribution. On the satirical side, Thomas Carlyle coined the dismal science as an epithet for classical economics, in this context and it enquires how he gets his income and how he uses it. Thus, it is on the one side, the study of wealth and on the other and more important side, a part of the study of man. He affirmed that previous economists have usually centred their studies on the analysis of wealth, how wealth is created, distributed, and consumed, but he said that economics can be used to study other things, such as war, that are outside its usual focus. This is because war has as the goal winning it, generates both cost and benefits, and, resources are used to attain the goal. If the war is not winnable or if the costs outweigh the benefits. Some subsequent comments criticized the definition as overly broad in failing to limit its subject matter to analysis of markets, there are other criticisms as well, such as in scarcity not accounting for the macroeconomics of high unemployment. The same source reviews a range of included in principles of economics textbooks. Among economists more generally, it argues that a particular definition presented may reflect the direction toward which the author believes economics is evolving, microeconomics examines how entities, forming a market structure, interact within a market to create a market system
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Costa Rica
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It has a population of around 4.5 million, of whom nearly a quarter live in the metropolitan area of the capital and largest city, San José. Costa Rica was sparsely inhabited by people before coming under Spanish rule in the 16th century. Since then, Costa Rica has remained among the most stable, prosperous, following a brief civil war, it permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming one of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army. Costa Rica is a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. The country has consistently performed favourably in the Human Development Index, placing 69th in the world as of 2015 and its rapidly developing economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism. Costa Rica is known for its environmental policies, being the only country to meet all five UNDP criteria established to measure environmental sustainability. Costa Rica officially plans to become a country by 2021. In 2012, it became the first country in the Americas to ban recreational hunting, historians have classified the indigenous people of Costa Rica as belonging to the Intermediate Area, where the peripheries of the Mesoamerican and Andean native cultures overlapped. More recently, pre-Columbian Costa Rica has also described as part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area. The oldest evidence of occupation in Costa Rica is associated with the arrival of various groups of hunter-gatherers about 10,000 to 7,000 years BCE in the Turrialba Valley. The presence of Clovis culture type spearheads and arrows from South America opens the possibility that, in this area, agriculture became evident in the populations that lived in Costa Rica about 5,000 years ago. They mainly grew tubers and roots, for the first and second millennia BCE there were already settled farming communities. These were small and scattered, although the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as the livelihood in the territory is still unknown. The earliest use of pottery appears around 2,000 to 3,000 BCE, shards of pots, cylindrical vases, platters, gourds and other forms of vases decorated with grooves, prints, and some modelled after animals have been found. The impact of indigenous peoples on modern Costa Rican culture has been small compared to other nations. Costa Rica was described as the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America by a Spanish governor in 1719, for all these reasons, Costa Rica was, by and large, unappreciated and overlooked by the Spanish Crown and left to develop on its own. Costa Rica became a democracy with no oppressed mestizo or indigenous class. It was not long before Spanish settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil, like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain
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Ecuador
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Ecuador also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres west of the mainland. What is now Ecuador was home to a variety of Amerindian groups that were incorporated into the Inca Empire during the 15th century. The territory was colonized by Spain during the 16th century, achieving independence in 1820 as part of Gran Colombia, Spanish is the official language and is spoken by a majority of the population, though 13 Amerindian languages are also recognized, including Quichua and Shuar. The capital city is Quito, while the largest city is Guayaquil, in reflection of the countrys rich cultural heritage, the historical center of Quito was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. Cuenca, the third-largest city, was declared a World Heritage Site in 1999 as an outstanding example of a planned. Ecuador has an economy that is highly dependent on commodities, namely petroleum. The country is classified as a medium-income country, Ecuador is a democratic presidential republic. The new constitution of 2008 is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable Rights of Nature, Ecuador is also known for its rich ecology, hosting many endemic plants and animals, such as those of the Galápagos Islands. It is one of 17 megadiverse countries in the world, various peoples had settled in the area of the future Ecuador before the arrival of the Incas. They developed different languages while emerging as unique ethnic groups, even though their languages were unrelated, these groups developed similar groups of cultures, each based in different environments. Over time these groups began to interact and intermingle with each other so that groups of families in one area became one community or tribe, with a similar language and culture. Many civilizations arose in Ecuador, such as the Valdivia Culture and Machalilla Culture on the coast, the Quitus, each civilization developed its own distinctive architecture, pottery, and religious interests. Eventually, through wars and marriage alliances of their leaders, a group of nations formed confederations, one region consolidated under a confederation called the Shyris, which exercised organized trading and bartering between the different regions. Its political and military came under the rule of the Duchicela blood-line. The native confederations that gave them the most problems were deported to distant areas of Peru, Bolivia, similarly, a number of loyal Inca subjects from Peru and Bolivia were brought to Ecuador to prevent rebellion. Thus, the region of highland Ecuador became part of the Inca Empire in 1463 sharing the same language, in contrast, when the Incas made incursions into coastal Ecuador and the eastern Amazon jungles of Ecuador, they found both the environment and indigenous people more hostile. Moreover, when the Incas tried to subdue them, these indigenous people withdrew to the interior, as a result, Inca expansion into the Amazon basin and the Pacific coast of Ecuador was hampered. The indigenous people of the Amazon jungle and coastal Ecuador remained relatively autonomous until the Spanish soldiers, the Amazonian people and the Cayapas of Coastal Ecuador were the only groups to resist Inca and Spanish domination, maintaining their language and culture well into the 21st century
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Nepal
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Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. Nepal is divided into 7 provinces and 75 districts and 744 local units including 4 metropolises,13 sub-metropolises,246 municipal councils and 481 village and it has a population of 26.4 million and is the 93rd largest country by area. Bordering China in the north and India in the south, east, Nepal does not border Bangladesh, which is located within only 27 km of its southeastern tip. It neither borders Bhutan due to the Indian state of Sikkim being located in between, Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the worlds ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the capital and largest city. It is a nation with Nepali as the official language. The territory of Nepal has a history since the Neolithic age. The name Nepal is first recorded in texts from the Vedic Age, the era which founded Hinduism, in the middle of the first millennium BCE, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born in southern Nepal. Parts of northern Nepal were intertwined with the culture of Tibet, the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal became known as Nepal proper because of its complex urban civilization. It was the seat of the prosperous Newar confederacy known as Nepal Mandala, the Himalayan branch of the ancient Silk Road was dominated by the valleys traders. The cosmopolitan region developed distinct traditional art and architecture, by the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal and later formed an alliance with the British Empire, the country was never colonized but served as a buffer state between Imperial China and Colonial India. In the 20th century, Nepal ended its isolation and forged ties with regional powers. Parliamentary democracy was introduced in 1951, but was suspended by Nepalese monarchs in 1960 and 2005. The Nepalese Civil War resulted in the proclamation of a republic in 2008, modern Nepal is a federal secular parliamentary republic. Nepal is a nation, ranking 144th on the Human Development Index in 2016. The country struggles with the transition from a monarchy to a republic and it also suffers from high levels of hunger and poverty. Despite these challenges, Nepal is making progress, with the government declaring its commitment to elevate the nation from least developed country status by 2022
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Madagascar
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Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, and previously known as the Malagasy Republic, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Southeast Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar, and numerous smaller peripheral islands, consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot, over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The islands diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by the encroachment of the growing human population. The first archaeological evidence for human foraging on Madagascar dates to 2000 BC, human settlement of Madagascar occurred between 350 BC and AD550 by Austronesian peoples arriving on outrigger canoes from Borneo. These were joined around AD1000 by Bantu migrants crossing the Mozambique Channel from East Africa, other groups continued to settle on Madagascar over time, each one making lasting contributions to Malagasy cultural life. The Malagasy ethnic group is divided into 18 or more sub-groups of which the largest are the Merina of the central highlands. Until the late 18th century, the island of Madagascar was ruled by an assortment of shifting sociopolitical alliances. Beginning in the early 19th century, most of the island was united and ruled as the Kingdom of Madagascar by a series of Merina nobles, the monarchy collapsed in 1897 when the island was absorbed into the French colonial empire, from which the island gained independence in 1960. The autonomous state of Madagascar has since undergone four major constitutional periods, since 1992, the nation has officially been governed as a constitutional democracy from its capital at Antananarivo. However, in an uprising in 2009, president Marc Ravalomanana was made to resign. Constitutional governance was restored in January 2014, when Hery Rajaonarimampianina was named president following a 2013 election deemed fair, Madagascar is a member of the United Nations, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie and the Southern African Development Community. Madagascar belongs to the group of least developed countries, according to the United Nations, Malagasy and French are both official languages of the state. The majority of the population adheres to traditional beliefs, Christianity, ecotourism and agriculture, paired with greater investments in education, health, and private enterprise, are key elements of Madagascars development strategy. As of 2017, the economy has been weakened by the 2009-2013 political crisis, in the Malagasy language, the island of Madagascar is called Madagasikara and its people are referred to as Malagasy. The islands appellation Madagascar is not of origin, but rather was popularized in the Middle Ages by Europeans. On St. Laurences Day in 1500, Portuguese explorer Diogo Dias landed on the island, polos name was preferred and popularized on Renaissance maps. At 592,800 square kilometres, Madagascar is the worlds 47th largest country, the country lies mostly between latitudes 12°S and 26°S, and longitudes 43°E and 51°E. Neighboring islands include the French territory of Réunion and the country of Mauritius to the east, as well as the state of Comoros, the nearest mainland state is Mozambique, located to the west
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Antarctica
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It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres, it is the fifth-largest continent, for comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km in thickness, Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is a desert, with precipitation of only 200 mm along the coast. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89.2 °C, though the average for the quarter is −63 °C. Anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. The continent, however, remained neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of easily accessible resources. In 1895, the first confirmed landing was conducted by a team of Norwegians, Antarctica is a de facto condominium, governed by parties to the Antarctic Treaty System that have consulting status. Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, and thirty-eight have signed it since then, the treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, prohibits nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, supports scientific research, and protects the continents ecozone. Ongoing experiments are conducted by more than 4,000 scientists from many nations, the name Antarctica is the romanised version of the Greek compound word ἀνταρκτική, feminine of ἀνταρκτικός, meaning opposite to the Arctic, opposite to the north. Aristotle wrote in his book Meteorology about an Antarctic region in c.350 B. C, marinus of Tyre reportedly used the name in his unpreserved world map from the 2nd century A. D. Before acquiring its present geographical connotations, the term was used for locations that could be defined as opposite to the north. For example, the short-lived French colony established in Brazil in the 16th century was called France Antarctique, the first formal use of the name Antarctica as a continental name in the 1890s is attributed to the Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew. Antarctica has no population and there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century. Explorer Matthew Flinders, in particular, has credited with popularising the transfer of the name Terra Australis to Australia. Cook came within about 120 km of the Antarctic coast before retreating in the face of ice in January 1773. The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica can be narrowed down to the crews of ships captained by three individuals, according to various organisations, ships captained by three men sighted Antarctica or its ice shelf in 1820, von Bellingshausen, Edward Bransfield, and Nathaniel Palmer
30.
Gross domestic product
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
31.
Jungle tourism
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Jungle tourism is a subcategory of adventure travel defined by active multifaceted physical means of travel in the jungle regions of the earth. Although similar in respects to adventure travel, jungle tourism pertains specifically to the context of region, culture. Other regions include jungle territories in Africa, Australia, and the South Pacific, the majority of jungle tour operators are concentrated in what is known as the Mayan World or Ruta Maya. The Mayan World encompasses five different countries that hosted the entirety of the Mayan Civilization, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, most tours consist of visits to popular Mayan archaeological sites such as Tikal, Guatemala, Chichen Itza, and Copan. These day visits will usually consist of a tour of a heavily tourist-concentrated Mayan. Tikal and Chichen Itza are prime examples of popular day-visit sites, such sites involve a tour guide, designated either by the state government or by a private company, for the tourists. These tour guides are trained professionals, certified to take large parties of fifty through heavily populated archaeological sites. Nicaragua and Costa Rica are also popular destinations for this type of adventure travel and these tours involve much more preparation, time and funding to explore as they are usually in very remote and generally inaccessible regions of the Mayan jungles. These ruins and sites are reached by alternative and physically taxing means of such as bicycle, canoe. This is what essentially differentiates jungle tourism from any sort of adventure travel tours. There are several tour operators that will employ the use of machetes during tours, another difference is that the majority of tour operators that travel deep into the Central and South American jungle will cap the number of persons traveling in the group at ten to fifteen. This is done to minimize the impact on the jungle flora, ecotourism Encyclopedia of Tourism, pp. 341–342
32.
Greenwash
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While greenwashing is not new, its use has increased over recent years to meet consumer demand for environmentally friendly goods and services. Many corporate structures use greenwashing as a way to public perception of their brand. The structuring of corporate disclosure is often set up so as to maximize perceptions of legitimacy, however, there is a growing body of social and environmental accounting research finds corporate posturing and deception in the absence of external monitoring and verification. Westervelt noted that, in most cases, little or no effort toward reducing energy waste was being made by these institutions—as evidenced by the lack of cost reduction this practice effected. Westervelt opined that the objective of this green campaign on the part of many hoteliers was, in fact. Westervelt thus labeled this and other outwardly environmentally conscientious acts with a greater, the origin of this phrase has been attributed to environmental activist and author Barry Commoner. Similarly, introduction of a Carbon Emission Trading Scheme may feel good, for example, Bank of America subsidiary MBNA offers an Eco-Logique MasterCard for Canadian consumers that rewards customers with carbon offsets as they continue using the card. Customers may feel that they are nullifying their carbon footprint by purchasing polluting goods with the card, however, only 0.5 percent of purchase price goes into purchasing carbon offsets, while the rest of the interchange fee still goes to the bank. In the mid 1960s, the movement gained momentum. This popularity prompted many companies to create a new green image through advertising, jerry Mander, a former Madison Avenue advertising executive, called this new form of advertising ecopornography. The first Earth Day was held on April 22,1970 and this encouraged many industries to advertise themselves as being friendly to the environment. Public utilities spent 300 million dollars advertising themselves as clean green companies and this was eight times more than the money they spent on pollution reduction research. In 1985, the Chevron Corporation launched one of the most famous greenwashing ad campaigns in history, Chevrons People Do advertisements were aimed at a hostile audience of societally conscious people. Two years after the launch of the campaign, surveys found people in California trusted Chevron more than other oil companies to protect the environment. In the late 1980s The American Chemistry Council started a program called Responsible Care, the loose guidelines of responsible care caused industries to adopt self-regulation over government regulation. In 1991, a study published in the Journal of Public Policy, another study found that 77% of people said the environmental reputation of company affected whether they would buy their products. One fourth of all household products marketed around Earth Day advertised themselves as being green, in 1998 the Federal Trade Commission created the Green Guidelines, which defined terms used in environmental marketing. The following year the FTC found that the Nuclear Energy Institute claims of being environmentally clean were not true, the FTC did nothing about the ads because they were out of their jurisdiction
33.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
34.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
35.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
36.
Thenmala
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Thenmala is a tourist place near Punalur town, Kollam district in Kerala, India. Thenmala is the first planned eco-tourism destination in India, the Thenmala dam was built across Kallada River. Thanmala is derived from Malayalam names of Then meaning Honey and Mala meaning Mountain, Thenmala is famous for being the shooting location in Malayalam and Tamil movies. Thenmala attracts foreign and domestic tourists with a host of attractions, boating on the lake, a rope bridge, trekking, mountaineering, biking and a musical fountain. Thenmala is approachable both from Trivandrum and Punalur by road, Punalur is famous for Suspension Bridge made by British, is an architectural marvel that has withstood the test of time. The waterfall called Palaruvi is a prime attraction nearby, also nearby is a deer rehabilitation center where visitors can see deer in a forest setting and have a peep into a traditional tree house used by forest dwellers to escape harm from wild animals. There are few hotels in Thenmala, the only classified hotel is at Punalur, which is 19 Km drive from Thenmala. Other places near Thenmala are Kulathupuzha, Anchal, Punalur, Kamukumchery, themala is 72 km from Thiruvananthapuram and 16 km from Palaruvi Falls. Nedumpara is a place located 7 Km from Thenmala. Harrisons Malayalam Limited has an estate in this place named as Isfield Estate. One of the highest peak of the village is located in Nedumpara, ambanad hills is just 8 km from Nedumpara
37.
Kerala
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Kerala historically known as Keralam, is an Indian state in South India on the Malabar Coast. It was formed on 1 November 1956 following the States Reorganisation Act by combining Malayalam-speaking regions, spread over 38,863 km2, it is bordered by Karnataka to the north and northeast, Tamil Nadu to the east and south, and the Lakshadweep Sea to the west. With 33,387,677 inhabitants as per the 2011 Census, Malayalam is the most widely spoken language and is also the official language of the state. The region has been a prominent spice exporter since 3000 BCE, the Chera Dynasty was the first prominent kingdom based in Kerala, though it frequently struggled against attacks by the neighbouring Cholas and Pandyas. In the 15th century, the spice trade attracted Portuguese traders to Kerala, after independence, Travancore and Cochin joined the Republic of India and Travancore-Cochin was given the status of a state in 1949. In 1956, Kerala state was formed by merging Malabar district, Travancore-Cochin, Hinduism is practised by more than half of the population, followed by Islam and Christianity. The culture is a synthesis of Aryan and Dravidian cultures, developed over millennia, under influences from other parts of India, the production of pepper and natural rubber contributes significantly to the total national output. In the agricultural sector, coconut, tea, coffee, cashew, the states coastline extends for 595 kilometres, and around 1.1 million people in the state are dependent on the fishery industry which contributes 3% to the states income. The state has the highest media exposure in India with newspapers publishing in nine languages, mainly English, Kerala is one of the prominent tourist destinations of India, with backwaters, beaches, Ayurvedic tourism and tropical greenery as its major attractions. The name Kerala has an uncertain etymology, One popular theory derives Kerala from Kera and alam is land, thus land of coconuts, this also happens to be a nickname for the state due to abundance of coconut trees and its use by the locals. The word Kerala is first recorded in a 3rd-century BCE rock inscription left by the Maurya emperor Ashoka, the inscription refers to the local ruler as Keralaputra, or son of Chera. This contradicts the theory that Kera is from coconut tree, at that time, one of three states in the region was called Cheralam in Classical Tamil, Chera and Kera are variants of the same word. The word Cheral refers to the oldest known dynasty of Kerala kings and is derived from the Proto-Tamil-Malayalam word for lake, the earliest Sanskrit text to mention Kerala is the Aitareya Aranyaka of the Rigveda. It is also mentioned in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the two Hindu epics, the Skanda Purana mentions the ecclesiastical office of the Thachudaya Kaimal who is referred to as Manikkam Keralar, synonymous with the deity of the Koodalmanikyam temple. Keralam may stem from the Classical Tamil cherive-alam or chera alam, the Greco-Roman trade map Periplus Maris Erythraei refers to Keralaputra as Celobotra. According to Hindu mythology, the lands of Kerala were recovered from the sea by the warrior sage Parasurama. Parasurama threw his axe across the sea, and the water receded as far as it reached, according to legend, this new area of land extended from Gokarna to Kanyakumari. The land which rose from sea was filled with salt and unsuitable for habitation, so Parasurama invoked the Snake King Vasuki, out of respect, Vasuki and all snakes were appointed as protectors and guardians of the land
38.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
39.
Oxford English Dictionary
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The Oxford English Dictionary is a descriptive dictionary of the English language, published by the Oxford University Press. The second edition came to 21,728 pages in 20 volumes, in 1895, the title The Oxford English Dictionary was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in ten bound volumes. In 1933, the title The Oxford English Dictionary fully replaced the name in all occurrences in its reprinting as twelve volumes with a one-volume supplement. More supplements came over the years until 1989, when the edition was published. Since 2000, an edition of the dictionary has been underway. The first electronic version of the dictionary was available in 1988. The online version has been available since 2000, and as of April 2014 was receiving two million hits per month. The third edition of the dictionary will probably appear in electronic form, Nigel Portwood, chief executive of Oxford University Press. As a historical dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary explains words by showing their development rather than merely their present-day usages, therefore, it shows definitions in the order that the sense of the word began being used, including word meanings which are no longer used. The format of the OEDs entries has influenced numerous other historical lexicography projects and this influenced later volumes of this and other lexicographical works. As of 30 November 2005, the Oxford English Dictionary contained approximately 301,100 main entries, the dictionarys latest, complete print edition was printed in 20 volumes, comprising 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages. The longest entry in the OED2 was for the verb set, as entries began to be revised for the OED3 in sequence starting from M, the longest entry became make in 2000, then put in 2007, then run in 2011. Despite its impressive size, the OED is neither the worlds largest nor the earliest exhaustive dictionary of a language, the Dutch dictionary Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal is the worlds largest dictionary, has similar aims to the OED and took twice as long to complete. Another earlier large dictionary is the Grimm brothers dictionary of the German language, begun in 1838, the official dictionary of Spanish is the Diccionario de la lengua española, and its first edition was published in 1780. The Kangxi dictionary of Chinese was published in 1716, trench suggested that a new, truly comprehensive dictionary was needed. On 7 January 1858, the Society formally adopted the idea of a new dictionary. Volunteer readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages illustrating word usage onto quotation slips, later the same year, the Society agreed to the project in principle, with the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. He withdrew and Herbert Coleridge became the first editor, on 12 May 1860, Coleridges dictionary plan was published and research was started
40.
Environmental impact assessment
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Environmental assessment is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or concrete projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. Environmental assessments may be governed by rules of administrative procedure regarding public participation and documentation of decision making, the purpose of the assessment is to ensure that decision makers consider the environmental impacts when deciding whether or not to proceed with a project. Environmental impact assessments commenced in the 1960s, as part of increasing environmental awareness, EIAs involved a technical evaluation intended to contribute to more objective decision making. In the United States, environmental impact assessments obtained formal status in 1969, EIAs have been used increasingly around the world. The number of Environmental Assessments filed every year has vastly overtaken the number of more rigorous Environmental Impact Statements, an Environmental Assessment is a mini-EIS designed to provide sufficient information to allow the agency to decide whether the preparation of a full-blown Environmental Impact Statement is necessary. EIA is an activity that is done to find out the impact that would be done before development will occur and these EIAs consider activities related to extraction of raw materials, ancillary materials, equipment, production, use, disposal and ancillary equipment. Genetically modified plants - Specific methods available to perform EIAs of genetically modified organisms include GMP-RAM, fuzzy logic - EIA methods need measurement data to estimate values of impact indicators. However, many of the environment impacts cannot be quantified, e. g. landscape quality, lifestyle quality, instead information from similar EIAs, expert judgment and community sentiment are employed. Approximate reasoning methods known as fuzzy logic can be used, a fuzzy arithmetic approach has also been proposed and implemented using a software tool. At the end of the project, an audit evaluates the accuracy of the EIA by comparing actual to predicted impacts, the objective is to make future EIAs more valid and effective. The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol is a specific method for checking the quality of Environmental and Social assessments. The history of EIA in Australia could be linked to the enactment of the U. S. National Environment Policy Act in 1970, which made the preparation of environmental impact statements a requirement. In Australia, one might say that the EIA procedures were introduced at a State Level prior to that of the Commonwealth, with a majority of the states having divergent views to the Commonwealth. One of the states was New South Wales, whose State Pollution Control Commission issued EIA guidelines in 1974. At a Commonwealth level, this was followed by passing of the Environment Protection Act in 1974, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 superseded the Environment Protection Act 1974 and is the current central piece for EIA in Australia on a Commonwealth level. Overlap between federal and state requirements is addressed via bilateral agreements or one off accreditation of state processes, in addition to this, the EPBC Act aims at providing a streamlined national assessment and approval process for activities. The Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts assess the process and this is primarily due to the division of powers between the States and the Federal government and due to which the Australian Government environment minister cannot overturn a state decision. There are strict civil and criminal penalties for the breach of EPBC Act, EIA provisions within Ministerial Authorities in the ACT are found in the Chapters 7 and 8 of the Planning and Development Act 2007
41.
Kayaking
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Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving across water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the position of the paddler. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits facing forward, legs in front, using a paddle to pull front-to-back on one side. Most kayaks have closed decks, although sit-on-top and inflatable kayaks are growing in popularity as well, kayaks were created thousands of years ago by the Inuit, formerly known as Eskimos, of the northern Arctic regions. They used driftwood and sometimes the skeleton of whale, to construct the frame of the kayak, the main purpose for creating the kayak, which literally translates to hunters boat was for hunting and fishing. The kayaks stealth capabilities, allowed for the hunter to sneak up behind animals on the shoreline, by the mid-1800s the kayak became increasingly popular and the Europeans became interested. German and French men began kayaking for sport, in 1931, a man named Adolf Anderle became the first person to kayak down the Salzachofen Gorge, this is where the birthplace of modern-day white-water kayaking is believed to have begun. Kayak races were introduced in the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, in the 1950s fiberglass kayaks were developed and commonly used, until 1980s when polyethylene plastic kayaks came about. Kayaking progressed as a sport in the U. S. until the 1970s. Now, more than 10 white water kayaking events are featured in the Olympics, kayaks can also be classified by their design and the materials from which they are made. Each design has its specific advantage, including performance, manoeuvrability, stability, kayaks can be made of metal, fibreglass, wood, plastic, fabrics, and inflatable fabrics such as PVC or rubber, and more recently expensive but feather light carbon fiber. Each material also has its specific advantage, including strength, durability, portability, flexibility, resistance to ultraviolet, for example, wooden kayaks can be created from kits or built by hand. Stitch and glue, plywood kayaks can be lighter than any other material except skin-on frame, inflatable kayaks, made from lightweight fabric, can be deflated and easily transported and stored, and considered to be remarkably tough and durable compared to some hard-sided boats. There are many types of kayaks used in water and white water kayaking. The sizes and shapes vary drastically depending on type of water to be paddled on. The second set of essentials for kayaking is an off-set paddle where the blades are tilted to help reduce wind resistance while the other blade is being used in the water. These vary in length and also depending on the intended use, height of the paddler and often. Proper clothing such as a dry suit, wet suit or spray top also help protect kayakers from cold water or air temperatures, sit on top kayaks place the paddler in an open, shallowly-concave deck above the water level
42.
Dolphins
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Dolphins are a widely distributed and diverse group of aquatic mammals. They are a grouping within the order Cetacea, excluding whales and porpoises. The dolphins comprise the extant families Delphinidae, Platanistidae, Iniidae, and Pontoporiidae, there are 40 extant species of dolphins. Dolphins, alongside other cetaceans, belong to the clade Cetartiodactyla with even-toed ungulates and their closest living relatives are the hippopotamuses, having diverged about 40 million years ago. Dolphins range in size from the 1.7 m long and 50 kg Mauis dolphin to the 9.5 m and 10 t killer whale, several species exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that the males are larger than females. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers, though not quite as flexible as seals, some dolphins can travel at 55.5 km/h. Dolphins use their conical shaped teeth to capture fast moving prey and they have well-developed hearing which is adapted for both air and water and is so well developed that some can survive even if they are blind. Some species are adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water, although dolphins are widespread, most species prefer the warmer waters of the tropic zones, but some, like the right whale dolphin, prefer colder climates. Dolphins feed largely on fish and squid, but a few, like the killer whale, feed on large mammals, male dolphins typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them, mothers of some species fast and nurse their young for a relatively long period of time. Dolphins produce a variety of vocalizations, usually in the form of clicks, Dolphins are sometimes hunted in places like Japan, in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. Besides drive hunting, they face threats from bycatch, habitat loss. Dolphins have been depicted in cultures worldwide. Dolphins occasionally feature in literature and film, as in the film series Free Willy, Dolphins are sometimes kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks, but breeding success has been poor and the animals often die within a few months of capture. The most common dolphins kept are killer whales and bottlenose dolphins, the name is originally from Greek δελφίς, dolphin, which was related to the Greek δελφύς, womb. The animals name can therefore be interpreted as meaning a fish with a womb, the name was transmitted via the Latin delphinus, which in Medieval Latin became dolfinus and in Old French daulphin, which reintroduced the ph into the word. The term mereswine has also historically been used, the term dolphin can be used to refer to, under the parvorder Odontoceti, all the species in the family Delphinidae and the river dolphin families Iniidae, Pontoporiidae, Lipotidae and Platanistidae
43.
Manatees
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Manatees are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. They measure up to 4.0 metres long, weigh as much as 590 kilograms, the name manatí comes from the Spanish manatí, derived from the Caribbean word sometimes cited as manattouï. The etymology is dubious, with connections having been made to Latin manus, and to a used by the Taíno. Manatees are occasionally called sea cows, as they are slow plant-eaters, peaceful and they often graze on water plants in tropical seas. Manatees comprise three of the four living species in the order Sirenia, the fourth is the Eastern Hemispheres dugong. The Sirenia are thought to have evolved from four-legged land mammals over 60 million years ago, the Amazonians hair color is brownish gray, and they have thick wrinkled skin often with coarse hair, or whiskers. Photos are rare, although little is known about this species. Manatees have a mass of 400 to 550 kilograms, and mean length of 2.8 to 3.0 metres, when born, baby manatees have an average mass of 30 kilograms. They have a large, flexible, prehensile upper lip and they use the lip to gather food and eat, as well as using it for social interactions and communications. Manatees have shorter snouts than their fellow sirenians, the dugongs and their small, widely spaced eyes have eyelids that close in a circular manner. The adults have no incisor or canine teeth, just a set of cheek teeth and these teeth are continuously replaced throughout life, with new teeth growing at the rear as older teeth fall out from farther forward in the mouth. This process is known as polyphyodonty and amongst the mammals, only occurs in the kangaroo. At any given time, a manatee typically has no more than six teeth in each jaw of its mouth. Its tail is paddle-shaped, and is the clearest visible difference between manatees and dugongs, a tail is fluked, similar in shape to a that of a whale. Females have two teats, one under each flipper, a characteristic that was used to make links between the manatee and elephants. Manatees are unusual amongst mammals in possessing just six cervical vertebrae, all other mammals have seven cervical vertebrae, other than the two-toed and three-toed sloths. Like horses, they have a stomach, but a large cecum. In general, their intestines have a length of about 45 meters
44.
Lido Key
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Lido Key is a barrier island off the coast of Sarasota, Florida, in the United States. It is part of the city of Sarasota and is connected to mainland Sarasota by John Ringling Causeway, to its north is Longboat Key, to its east are Bird Key and St. Armands Key, and to its south is Siesta Key. The island features numerous sandy beaches facing the Gulf of Mexico, as well as a park called South Lido Park, which has a beach and a woodland trail. As of February 2,2016, Lido Beach ranked No.3 in Outdoor activity in Sarasota on TripAdvisor and has a Certificate of Excellence from the website. The island is developed with a wide variety of luxury hotels and beach houses. While not as popular as Siesta Key Beach, Lido Key Beach is reviewed as a private beach that is more relaxing for the tourists who come from around the world to visit it. Weddings and other parties will often book a section of the beach for their guests. However, by the 1950s, poor management resulted in the deterioration of the casino and it was demolished in 1969, and remodeled and modernized by 1970
45.
Tortuguero National Park
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Tortuguero National Park is a National Park in the Limón Province of Costa Rica. It is situated within the Tortuguero Conservation Area of the part of the country. Despite its remote location, it is the third-most visited park in Costa Rica, the park has a large variety of biological diversity due to the existence within the reserve of eleven different habitats, including rainforest, mangrove forests, swamps, beaches, and lagoons. Located in a climate, it is very humid. Set in a wetland of the Caribbean coast, it forms a corridor with another protected area. The park is located on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and it is bounded with an elevation range of 0–230 metres, indicative of a sea coastal region to low hilly topography. The Tortuguero National Park has over 20 miles of coastline, which sea turtles a protected place to lay their eggs. Archie Carr Wildlife Refuge, which is a station to carry out turtle tagging program run by the Caribbean Conservation Corporation. Sandy soils resulting from sedimentation dominates the reserve formation of parallel bars in the coastal area. The depressions are subject to filling by ephemeral floods, estuary lakes, grass marshes, small tides of about 40 centimetres height have also affected the coastal zone. The small rivers and streams originate in the hills and flow through the park generally have water 3 metres deep. The lakes in the part of the reserve are fed by the Colorado River. The very humid tropical forest is influenced by humidity, rapid drainage and thin soils. Moisture-laden winds come from the Caribbean, the park has worked with the neighboring village of Tortuguero to help its inhabitants understand that preserving their natural resources is the key to encourage eco-tourism. With rich water resources from a precipitation of 250 inches per year, there are a large number of interlinked canals, water ways and navigable lagoons and lakes that create plains of sediment carried by the river system. Swaths of the park have been semi-legally clear-cut, which also allows access to habitat of the endangered green sea turtle. The national park’s wild life consists of birds, mammals, fungi, ferns, marine life, sea turtles, lakes, the coastal zone, which has a long beach extending to nearly 22 miles, is the nesting ground for turtles popularly known as the beach-resting turtles. They are found on the beaches, and also many of species are reported from the canal banks
46.
Underdevelopment
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Esteva stated, On that day two billion people became underdeveloped. More than half of the nations were categorized by what they lacked. The Euro-centric development discourse and its aura of expertise often conflated development with economic growth, when the world began to categorize nations based on their economic status, it narrowed the issue of underdevelopment to an economics problem. Colonialism, which dates back to the 15th century, involved the subjugation of numerous countries and cultures by physical and psychological force through military conquest, colonialism, the manifestation of the White Man’s Burden, was founded on racism and inequality and it altered non-European cultures irreversibly. The European concept of “private property” coupled with the introduction of large-scale mono-cropping led to the undermining of local crafts, colonizers of what is now considered the Global south introduced and imposed new forms of inequalities and systems of oppression to facilitate the process of exploitation in their colonies. During this era the African people were divided around new tensions which still disrupt their societies today, in addition to the internal divisions, there were also Diasporas of the African, Indian, and Chinese peoples These legacies have impacted modern expressions of race, ethnicity, and nationality. The Green Revolution is a paradigm of an effort of intervention in the name of global development. During this time, developed countries, in an attempt to modernize the agricultural sector. At the start of the Green Revolution, the U. S, crops that weren’t previously prevalent across the globe, such as wheat, were being transferred and from the global north to south in massive quantities. This occurred until developing countries, such as India, became dependent on the food aid—much of which were crops that could not be grown locally. In order for dependent countries to keep receiving foreign assistance, the U. S. made it conditional for recipients of food-aid to adopt the whole model of agriculture. The revolution was titled “Green” not just because of its connections to agriculture but also was used as a tool to fight the “Red”, the West believed that hunger had the power to drive people to peasant revolutions, so food aid was used explicitly to fight the spread communism. The countries that were dependent on food aid now became dependent on the corporations that provided agricultural inputs that the industrial model required. The Green Revolution was able to crop yields, but in the process it exacerbated vulnerable populations poverty in countries that are now considered underdeveloped. One of the first major theories to surface as a solution to this new issue of “underdevelopment” was the Modernization theory and this highlights the positive role played by Western countries in modernizing and facilitating development in the non-West. It is often contrasted with Dependency theory and it became a moral imperative for developed nations, primarily the U. S. to offer assistance so that these countries could industrialized the way the countries of the first world had. The Modernization theory, growing out of U. S. scholarship, equated modernization with industrialization, development, and progress. Dependency theory states that the poverty of the countries in the periphery is not because they are not integrated into the world system, first world nations actively, but not necessarily consciously, perpetuate a state of dependency through various policies and initiatives
47.
Zimbabwe
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Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in southern Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the west and southwest, Zambia to the northwest, although it does not border Namibia, less than 200 metres of the Zambezi River separates it from that country. The capital and largest city is Harare, a country of roughly 13 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most commonly used. Since the 11th century, present-day Zimbabwe has been the site of several organised states and kingdoms as well as a route for migration. The British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes first demarcated the present territory during the 1890s, in 1965, the conservative white minority government unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia. Zimbabwe then rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations—which it withdrew from in 2003 and it is a member of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in 1980, when his ZANU-PF party won the following the end of white minority rule. Under Mugabes authoritarian regime, the security apparatus has dominated the country. Mugabe has maintained the revolutionary socialist rhetoric from the Cold War era, the name Zimbabwe stems from a Shona term for Great Zimbabwe, an ancient ruined city in the countrys south-east whose remains are now a protected site. Two different theories address the origin of the word, many sources hold that Zimbabwe derives from dzimba-dza-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as large houses of stone. The Karanga-speaking Shona people live around Great Zimbabwe in the province of Masvingo. Zimbabwe was formerly known as Southern Rhodesia, Rhodesia, and Zimbabwe Rhodesia, a further alternative, put forward by nationalists in Matabeleland, had been Matopos, referring to the Matopos Hills to the south of Bulawayo. In a 2001 interview, black nationalist Edson Zvobgo recalled that Mawema mentioned the name during a rally, and it caught hold. The black nationalist factions subsequently used the name the during the Second Chimurenga campaigns against the Rhodesian government during the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964-1979, major factions in this camp included the Zimbabwe African National Union, and the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union. Proto-Shona-speaking societies first emerged in the middle Limpopo valley in the 9th century before moving on to the Zimbabwean highlands, the Zimbabwean plateau eventually became the centre of subsequent Shona states, beginning around the 10th century. Around the early 10th century, trade developed with Arab merchants on the Indian Ocean coast, the main archaeological site uses a unique dry stone architecture. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe was the first in a series of sophisticated trade states developed in Zimbabwe by the time of the first European explorers from Portugal and they traded in gold, ivory, and copper for cloth and glass. From about 1300 until 1600, Mapungubwe was eclipsed by the Kingdom of Zimbabwe and this Shona state further refined and expanded upon Mapungubwes stone architecture, which survives to this day at the ruins of the kingdoms capital of Great Zimbabwe
48.
Fractional-reserve banking
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Fractional-reserve banking is the practice whereby a bank accepts deposits, makes loans or investments, and holds reserves equal to a fraction of its deposit liabilities. Reserves are held as currency in the bank, or as balances in the accounts at the central bank. Fractional-reserve banking is the current form of banking practiced in most countries worldwide, however, a bank can experience a bank run if depositors wish to withdraw more funds than the reserves held by the bank. In most countries, the central bank regulates bank credit creation, imposing reserve requirements and this can limit the amount of money creation that occurs in the commercial banking system, and helps to ensure that banks are solvent and have enough funds to meet demand for withdrawals. However, rather than controlling the money supply, central banks usually pursue an interest rate target to adjust the rate of inflation. In the past, savers looking to keep their coins and valuables in safekeeping depositories deposited gold and silver at goldsmiths and these notes gained acceptance as a medium of exchange for commercial transactions and thus became an early form of circulating paper money. This generated income for the goldsmiths but left them with notes on issue than reserves with which to pay them. A process was started that altered the role of the goldsmiths from passive guardians of bullion, charging fees for safe storage, if creditors lost faith in the ability of a bank to pay their notes, however, many would try to redeem their notes at the same time. If, in response, a bank could not raise funds by calling in loans or selling bills. Such a situation is called a run and caused the demise of many early banks. The Swedish Riksbank was the worlds first central bank, created in 1668, the emergence of central banks reduced the risk of bank runs which is inherent in fractional-reserve banking, and it allowed the practice to continue as it does today. In the course of enacting such policy, central banks have from time to time attempted to manage interest rates, reserve requirements, in most legal systems, a bank deposit is not a bailment. In other words, the funds deposited are no longer the property of the customer, the funds become the property of the bank, and the customer in turn receives an asset called a deposit account. That deposit account is a liability on the sheet of the bank. Relatively few depositors demand payment at any time, and banks maintain a buffer of reserves to cover depositors cash withdrawals. A bank can raise funds from additional borrowings, by selling assets, thus the fear of a bank run can actually precipitate the crisis. Fractional-reserve banking allows banks to credit in the form of bank deposits. The banks also provide loans to borrowers, and act as financial intermediaries for those funds
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