1.
Mato Grosso do Sul
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Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the Central-Western states of Brazil. Its total area of 357,125 square kilometers, or 137,891 square miles, is roughly the size as Germany. Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and it also borders the countries of Paraguay, to the southwest, and Bolivia, to the west. The economy of the state is based on agriculture and cattle-raising. Crossed in the south by the Tropic of Capricorn, Mato Grosso do Sul generally has a warm, sometimes hot, and humid climate, the state is also famous for its natural beauty, and is a major destination for domestic and international tourism. The Pantanal lowlands cover 12 municipalities and presents a variety of flora and fauna, with forests, natural sand banks, savannahs, open pasture, fields. The city Bonito, in the mountain of Bodoquena, has prehistoric caves, natural rivers, waterfalls, swimming pools and the Blue Lake cave. The name Mato Grosso do Sul literally means Thick Bushes of the South in Portuguese and it is not uncommon for people to mistakenly refer to Mato Grosso do Sul as simply Mato Grosso. Other names that were proposed, at the time of the split and afterwards, include Pantanal, Mato Grosso do Sul has humid subtropical and tropical climates. The average annual rainfall is 1471.1 mm. January is the warmest month, with maximum of 34 °C and minimum of 24 °C and more rain, July experiences the coldest temperatures, with mean maximum of 25 °C and minimum of -2,0 °C. The cerrado landscape is characterized by extensive savanna formations crossed by gallery forests, Cerrado includes various types of vegetation. Humid fields and buriti palm paths are found where the table is near the surface. Alpine pastures occur at higher altitudes and mesophytic forests on more fertile soils, the cerrado trees have characteristic twisted trunks covered by a thick bark, and leaves which are usually broad and rigid. Many herbaceous plants have extensive roots to store water and nutrients, the plants thick bark and roots serve as adaptations for the periodic fires which sweep the cerrado landscape. The adaptations protect the plants from destruction and make them capable of sprouting again after the fire, the state is located in western Brazil, in a region mostly occupied by the inland marshes of the Pantanal. The highest elevation is the 1,065 m high Morro Grande, in October 11,1977, the state was created by dividing the state of Mato Grosso. Its status as a state went into effect two years later on January 1,1979
2.
States of Brazil
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The Federative Republic of Brazil is a union of 27 Federative Units,26 states and one federal district, where the federal capital, Brasília, is located. The states are based on historical, conventional borders which have developed over time. The Federal District is not formally a state, but shares some characteristics of a state as well as some of a municipality, the codes given below are defined in ISO 3166-2, BR. The first administrative divisions of Brazil were the hereditary captaincies, stretches of land granted by the Portuguese Crown to noblemen or merchants with a charter to colonize the land, as the map shows, these divisions generally followed lines of latitude. Each of the holders of these captaincies was referred to as a captain donatary and these captaincies were to be passed from father to son, but the Crown retained the power to revoke them, which the King indeed did in the 16th century. In 1549, the Portuguese Crown appointed Tomé de Sousa as the first governor-general of the vast Portuguese dominion in South America and this dominion overall became known as the State of Brazil. In several periods of history, the half of the dominion was detached from the State of Brazil. Unlike Spanish America, the territory remained united under a single governor-general. This arrangement later helped to keep Brazil as a unified nation-state, in 1759, the heritability of the captaincies was totally abolished by the government of the Marquis of Pombal, with all captains becoming appointed by the Crown. The captaincies were officially renamed provinces on 28 February 1821, with independence, in 1822, the former captaincies became provinces of the Empire of Brazil. Most internal boundaries were unchanged from the colonial period, generally following natural features such as rivers. Minor changes were made to domestic politics, as well as additions resulting from diplomatic settlement of territorial disputes by the end of the 19th century. When Brazil became a republic in 1889, all provinces immediately became states, after the war, the first four territories became states, with Rio Branco and Guaporé being renamed Roraima and Rondônia, respectively, whilst Ponta Porã and Iguaçu remained as territories. In 1960, the square-shaped Distrito Federal was carved out of Goiás in preparation for the new capital, Brasília. The previous federal district became Guanabara State, but in 1975 it was merged with Rio de Janeiro State, retaining its name, in 1977, Mato Grosso was split into two states. The northern area retained the name Mato Grosso while the area became the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The new Mato Grosso do Sul incorporated the territory of Ponta Porã, central Iguaçu went to Paraná, and southern Iguaçu went to Santa Catarina. In 1988, the portion of Goiás became the state of Tocantins
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Brazil
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Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. As the worlds fifth-largest country by area and population, it is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to wildlife, a variety of ecological systems. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a state governed under a constitutional monarchy. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, the country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup détat. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, Brazils current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. The federation is composed of the union of the Federal District, the 26 states, Brazils economy is the worlds ninth-largest by nominal GDP and seventh-largest by GDP as of 2015. A member of the BRICS group, Brazil until 2010 had one of the worlds fastest growing economies, with its economic reforms giving the country new international recognition. Brazils national development bank plays an important role for the economic growth. Brazil is a member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Unasul, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, CPLP. Brazil is a power in Latin America and a middle power in international affairs. One of the worlds major breadbaskets, Brazil has been the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and it is likely that the word Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology red like an ember, formed from Latin brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a red dye, it was highly valued by the European cloth industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name, early sailors sometimes also called it the Land of Parrots. In the Guarani language, a language of Paraguay, Brazil is called Pindorama
5.
Capital (political)
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A capital city is the municipality exercising primary status in a country, state, province, or other region, usually as its seat of government. A capital is typically a city that encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective government. In some jurisdictions, including countries, the different branches of government are located in different settlements. In some cases, a distinction is made between the capital and the seat of government, which is in another place. The word capital derives from the Latin caput, meaning head, in several English-speaking states, the terms county town, county seat, and borough seat are also used in lower subdivisions. In unitary states, subnational capitals are known as administrative centres. The capital is often, but not necessarily, the largest city of its constituent, historically, the major economic centre of a state or region often becomes the focal point of political power, and becomes a capital through conquest or federation. Examples are Ancient Babylon, Abbasid Baghdad, Ancient Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Changan, Ancient Cusco, Madrid, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Vienna, and Berlin. Some of these cities are or were also religious centres, e. g. Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Ancient Babylon, Moscow, Belgrade, Paris, and Peking. A capital city that is also the economic, cultural. The convergence of political and economic or cultural power is by no means universal, traditional capitals may be economically eclipsed by provincial rivals, e. g. Nanking by Shanghai, Quebec City by Montreal, and numerous US state capitals. The decline of a dynasty or culture could also mean the extinction of its city, as occurred at Babylon. Although many capitals are defined by constitution or legislation, many long-time capitals have no legal designation as such, for example Bern, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Paris, are located in or near them. In Canada, there is a capital, while the ten provinces. The states of such countries as Mexico, Brazil, and Australia all have capital cities, for example, the six state capitals of Australia are Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. In Australia, the capital cities is regularly used, to refer to the aforementioned state capitals plus the federal capital Canberra and Darwin. Abu Dhabi is the city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. In unitary states which consist of multiple constituent countries, such as the United Kingdom or the Kingdom of Denmark, the national capitals of Germany and Russia, the Stadtstaat of Berlin and the Federal City of Moscow, are also constituent states of both countries in their own right
6.
Brazilian Social Democracy Party
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The Brazilian Social Democracy Party is a centrist political party in Brazil. The third largest party in the National Congress, PSDB has been the opposition against the administrations of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Its mascot is a blue and yellow colored toucan, party members are called tucanos for this reason. Famous tucanos include Mário Covas, Geraldo Alckmin, Tasso Jereissati, Aécio Neves, former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Franco Montoro, Aloysio Nunes, Yeda Crusius, and José Serra. With the imminent collapse of the dictatorship in the early 1980s. Some of them attempted to work with the movement, led by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. PSDB was founded on June 25,1988 by members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party linked to the European social democratic movement as an attempt to clarify their ideals and its manifesto preached democracy as a fundamental value and social justice as an aim to be reached. In its foundation, the party attempted to unite political groups as diverse as social democrats, social liberals, Christian democrats and this period when PSDB was created was a very significant moment in the history of Brazilian politics. On April 21,1985, the Brazilian people witnessed the death of Tancredo Neves, with the formation of new parties, including PSDB, a National Constitutional Assembly was created which drafted the current, democratic constitution, in 1988. A high proportion of the first members of PSDB came from the so-called historic PMDB and this was and still is a very large party with many internal conflicts. The founders of PSDB were dissatisfied with the results of the Constitutional Assembly, as their manifesto states, the new party was created away from the official benefits, but close to the pulsing of the streets. Some of the members were José Serra, Mário Covas, André Franco Montoro, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Aécio Neves. PSDB is one of the largest and most significant political parties in Brazil and its official program states its policies as being social democratic and often associated with the Third Way movement, although the party is also regarded as being influenced by neoliberalism. The partys program states that it reject populism and authoritarianism, as well as both fundamentalist neoliberalism and obsolete national-statism, despite its name, the PSDB is not a member of the Socialist International which draws together social democratic parties worldwide. A mere six years after its creation, PSDB was able to win the Presidency of the Republic and it grew faster than any other party in Brazilian history, with an astonishingly good performance in elections at all levels. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso enjoyed eight years of stability in his tenure as president. Accordingly, its 1980 honorary president, a summary of the PSDBs stated program is. 2) the state at a minimally needed size, 4) sustainable economic growth with wealth distribution
7.
Federal Senate
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The Federal Senate is the upper house of the National Congress of Brazil. Created by the first Constitution of the Brazilian Empire in 1824, since the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 the Federal Senate has resembled the United States Senate. Currently, the Senate comprises 81 seats, three Senators from each of the 26 states and three Senators from the Federal District are elected on a majority basis to serve eight-year terms. Elections are staggered so that two-thirds of the house is up for election at one time. The candidate in each State and the Federal District who achieve the greatest plurality of votes are elected, the current president of the Brazilian Senate is Eunício Oliveira, from the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party of Ceará. He was elected in early 2017 for a two-year term, the Federal Senate of Brazil was established as the Senate of the Empire by the Constitution of 1824, first enacted after the Declaration of Independence. Following independence, in 1822, Emperor Pedro I ordered the convocation of a National Assembly to draft the countrys first Constitution, following several disagreements with the elected deputies, the Emperor dissolved the Assembly. In 1824, Pedro I implemented the first Constitution which established a Legislative branch with the Chamber of Deputies as the house. The first configuration of the Senate was a body to the Emperor. Membership was for life and it was a place of great prestige, members of the Senate were elected, but they had to be at least 40 years old and have an annual income of 800,000 contos-de-réis, which limited candidates to wealthy citizens. Voters also faced an income qualification, voting in an election for the Senate was limited to male citizens with an annual income of at least 200,000 contos-de-réis. Those who qualified for this did not vote directly for Senators, instead, to be a Senate elector required an annual income of 400,000 contos-de-réis. Once elected, these electors would vote for senator. The election itself would not result in a winner automatically, the three candidates receiving the most votes would make up what was called a triple list, from which the Emperor would select one individual that would be considered elected. The Emperor usually chose the candidate with the most votes, the unelected Princes of the Brazilian Imperial House were senators by right and would assume their seats in the Senate upon reaching age 25. The original Senate had 50 members, representing all of the Empires Provinces, following the adoption of the 1824 Constitution the first session of the Senate took place in May 1826. The Emperor had repeatedly delayed calling the first election, which had led to accusations that he would attempt to establish an absolutist government
8.
Podemos (Brazil)
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The National Labor Party is a minor populist-centrist Brazilian political party founded in 1945. It was founded by dissidents from the Brazilian Labor Party in 1945 and it was abolished by the military regime in 1965. It was re-founded in 1995, led again by dissidents of the PTB and it has not achieved significant electoral success
9.
Demonym
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A demonym is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place. It is a neologism, previously gentilic was recorded in English dictionaries, e. g. the Oxford English Dictionary, thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand, of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms, for example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Brit, or a Briton. In some languages, when a parallel demonym does not exist, in English, demonyms are capitalized and are often the same as the adjectival form of the place, e. g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek. Significant exceptions exist, for instance the adjectival form of Spain is Spanish, English widely includes country-level demonyms such as Ethiopian or Guatemalan and more local demonyms such as Seoulite, Wisconsinite, Chicagoan, Michigander, Fluminense, and Paulista. Some places lack a commonly used and accepted demonym and this poses a particular challenge to those toponymists who research demonyms. The word gentilic comes from the Latin gentilis and the English suffix -ic, the word demonym was derived from the Greek word meaning populace with the suffix for name. National Geographic attributes the term demonym to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990 and it was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From, a Dictionary of Resident Names attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names Names, A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language, the most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. Cairo → Cairene Cyrenaica → Cyrene Damascus → Damascene Greece → Greek Nazareth → Nazarene Slovenia → Slovene Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations. Kingston-upon-Hull → Hullensian Leeds → Leodensian Spain → Spaniard Savoy → Savoyard -ese is usually considered proper only as an adjective, thus, a Chinese person is used rather than a Chinese. Monaco → Monégasque Menton → Mentonasque Basque Country → Basque Often used for French locations, mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of an ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti and these demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed and these will typically be formed using the standard models above
10.
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
11.
Human Development Index
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The Human Development Index is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the level is higher. The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, while the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that the IHDI is the actual level of human development, and the HDI can be viewed as an index of potential human development. The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Reports Office of the United Nations Development Programme, nobel laureate Amartya Sen, utilized Haqs work in his own work on human capabilities. The following three indices are used,1, Life Expectancy Index = LE −2085 −20 LEI is 1 when Life expectancy at birth is 85 and 0 when Life expectancy at birth is 20. Education Index = MYSI + EYSI22.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index = MYS15 Fifteen is the maximum of this indicator for 2025. 2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index = EYS18 Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a degree in most countries. Income Index = ln − ln ln − ln II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100. Finally, the HDI is the mean of the previous three normalized indices, HDI = LEI ⋅ EI ⋅ II3. Standard of living, as indicated by the logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. This methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report, the formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme. The 2016 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on March 21,2017, below is the list of the very high human development countries, = increase. The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in the 2015 report, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is a measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. The rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data. Countries in the top quartile of HDI with a missing IHDI, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Brunei, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. The 2015 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on December 14,2015, below is the list of the very high human development countries, = increase. The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in the 2014 report, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is a measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. Note, The green arrows, red arrows, and blue dashes represent changes in rank, the rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data
12.
Time in Brazil
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Time in Brazil is calculated using standard time, and the country is divided into four standard time zones, UTC−02,00, UTC−03,00, UTC−04,00 and UTC−05,00. Only part of the country observes daylight saving time, or summer time and these areas are the Southern, Southeast and Central-Western Brazilian states. This is the time zone only on a few small offshore Atlantic islands. The only such island with a permanent population is Fernando de Noronha, the other islands either are totally uninhabited or have small seasonally rotating Brazilian Navy garrisons or teams of scientists. This zone is at UTC−02,00 and it not use daylight saving time. The main time zone of Brazil corresponds to the time at the capital city. All the other zones are given as offsets to it. In addition to the Federal District, it comprises the states in the Southeast Region, the South Region, the small islands mentioned above are excepted. Almost 94% of the Brazilian population live in time zone. Outside of summer time, it corresponds to UTC−03,00, during summer time, it changes to UTC−02,00, but this change is not followed by Northern and Northeastern states. Outside of summer time, this time zone corresponds to UTC−04,00, during time, it changes to UTC−03,00. This time zone is used in the states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima, although this time zone covers about 34% of the land area of Brazil, little more than 5% of the countrys population live there. Until 2008, the areas of the state of Pará west of the Xingu River and north of the Amazon River were also part of time zone. Although other changes to Brazilian time zones enacted at that time have since been reverted and this time zone was reinstated in 2013, after having been abolished for over five years. It is used in the tip of the country, which includes the entire state of Acre. These areas cover only about 6% of the Brazilian territory and have only about 0. 5% of the countrys population, on 24 June 2008, these areas advanced their clocks by an hour, so that they became part of the UTC−04,00 time zone. However, in a referendum held on 31 October 2010. On 30 October 2013, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff enacted Law 12876, since then, the state of Acre and 13 municipalities in the southwestern part of the state of Amazonas are again 5 hours behind UTC
13.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
14.
Amazonas State, Brazil
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Amazonas is a state of Brazil, located in the northwestern corner of the country. It is the largest Brazilian State by area and the 9th largest country subdivision in the world, being greater than the areas of Uruguay, Paraguay and it would be the sixteenth largest country in land area, slightly higher than Mongolia. It is larger than the northeast region of Brazil with its nine states, Amazonas is roughly the size of the US state of Alaska and is equivalent to 2.25 times the area of Texas. Neighbouring states are Roraima, Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and it also borders Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. This includes the Departments Amazonas, Vaupés and Guainía in Colombia, as well as the Amazonas State, Venezuela, Amazonas is named after the Amazon River, and was formerly part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, a region called Spanish Guyana. It was settled by the Portuguese in the early 18th century and it became a state of the Brazilian Republic in 1889. Most of the state is tropical jungle, cities are clustered along navigable waterways and are only by boat or plane. The capital and largest city is Manaus, a city of 2.1 million inhabitants in the middle of the jungle on the Amazon River 1,500 km upstream from the Atlantic Ocean. Nearly half the population lives in the city, the other large cities, Parintins, Manacapuru, Itacoatiara, Tefé. The name was given to the Amazon River that runs through the state by the Spaniard Francisco de Orellana in 1541. Claiming to have come across a warlike tribe of Indians, with whom he fought, he likened them to the Amazons of Greek mythology, fifteen million years ago, the Andes were formed by the collision of the South American Plate with the Nazca Plate plate. The rise of the Andes and the linkage of the Brazilian and Guyana bedrock shields, blocked the river, gradually this inland sea became a massive swampy, freshwater lake and the marine inhabitants adapted to life in freshwater. For example, over 20 species of stingray, most closely related to those found in the Pacific Ocean, can be today in the fresh waters of the Amazon. About ten million years ago, waters worked through the sandstone to the west, at this time the Amazon rainforest was born. During the Ice Age, sea levels dropped and the great Amazon lake rapidly drained, three million years later, the ocean level receded enough to expose the Central American isthmus and allow mass migration of mammal species between the Americas. The Ice Ages caused tropical rainforest around the world to retreat, although debated, it is believed that much of the Amazon reverted to savanna and montane forest. Savanna divided patches of rainforest into islands and separated existing species for periods long enough to allow genetic differentiation, about 6,000 years ago, sea levels rose about 130 meters, once again causing the river to be inundated like a long, giant freshwater lake. The pre-Columbian Amazonas was inhabited by peoples whose livelihood mixed occasional agriculture with a fishing
15.
Tocantins
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Tocantins is one of the states of Brazil. It is the newest of the 26 Brazilian states, formed in 1988, Tocantins covers 277,620.91 square kilometres and has a population of 1,496,880. Construction of its capital, Palmas, began in 1989, most of the cities in the state date to the Portuguese colonial period. With the exception of Araguaína there are few cities with a significant population in the state. The government has invested in a new capital, a hydropower dam, railroads. Tocantins has attracted hundreds of thousands of new residents, primarily to Palmas and it is building on its hydropower resources. The Araguaia and Tocantins rivers drain the largest watershed that lies entirely inside Brazilian territory, the Rio Tocantins has been dammed for hydropower, creating a large reservoir that has become a center of recreation. Because it is in the zone of the country, Tocantins has characteristics of the Amazon Basin. The Bananal Island, in the southwest of the State, is the largest fluvial island in the world, Tocantins is also home to the Araguaia National Park, the Carajás Indian reservations, and Jalapão State Park, which is about 250 kilometres from Palmas. There, the rivers create oases in the dry landscape, attracting many ecotourists to the region and it straddles both the Amazon Rainforest and the coastal savanna. Researchers have identified more than 20 archaeologically significant sites related to indigenous cultures, Tocantins is bordered to the northeast by the states of Maranhão and Piauí, Bahia to the east, Goiás to the south, Mato Grosso to the west, and Pará to the northwest. Tocantins was created from the northern two-fifths of Goiás state in 1989 and is divided into 139 municipalities, most of Tocantins is situated within a vast Brazilian area known as the cerrado. The cerrado regions typical climate is hot and semi-humid, with pronounced seasonal variation marked by a dry winter from May through October, the annual rainfall is around 800 to 1600 mm. The soils are very old, deep, and naturally nutrient-poor. The cerrado landscape cover 87% of Tocantins and is characterized by extensive savanna formations crossed by gallery forests, Cerrado includes various types of vegetation. Humid fields and buriti palm paths are found where the table is near the surface. Alpine pastures occur at higher altitudes and mesophytic forests on more fertile soils, the savanna formations are not homogenous. Intermediate forms include the dirty field, the field
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Bolivia
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Bolivia, officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in western-central South America. It is bordered to the north and east by Brazil, to the southeast by Paraguay, to the south by Argentina, to the southwest by Chile, and to the northwest by Peru. One-third of the country is the Andean mountain range, with one of its largest cities and principal economic centers, El Alto, Bolivia is one of two landlocked countries that lie outside Afro-Eurasia. Bolivia is geographically the largest landlocked country in the Americas, but remains a small country in economic. Before Spanish colonization, the Andean region of Bolivia was part of the Inca Empire, Spanish conquistadors arriving from Cuzco and Asunción took control of the region in the 16th century. During the Spanish colonial period Bolivia was administered by the Royal Audiencia of Charcas, spain built its empire in great part upon the silver that was extracted from Bolivias mines. After the first call for independence in 1809,16 years of war followed before the establishment of the Republic, named for Simón Bolívar, on 6 August 1825. Since independence, Bolivia has endured periods of political and economic instability, including the loss of peripheral territories to its neighbors, such as Acre. The countrys population, estimated at 11 million, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Mestizos, the racial and social segregation that arose from Spanish colonialism has continued to the modern era. Spanish is the official and predominant language, although 36 indigenous languages also have official status, of which the most commonly spoken are Guarani, Aymara, modern Bolivia is constitutionally a unitary state, divided into nine departments. Its geography varies from the peaks of the Andes in the West, to the Eastern Lowlands and it is a developing country, with a medium ranking in the Human Development Index and a poverty level of 53 percent. Its main economic activities include agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, and manufacturing such as textiles, clothing, refined metals. Bolivia is very wealthy in minerals, especially tin, Bolivia is named after Simón Bolívar, a leader in the Spanish American wars of independence. Sucre opted to create a new nation and, with local support. The original name was Republic of Bolívar, some days later, congressman Manuel Martín Cruz proposed, If from Romulus comes Rome, then from Bolívar comes Bolivia. The name was approved by the Republic on 3 October 1825, the region now known as Bolivia had been occupied for over 2,500 years when the Aymara arrived. However, present-day Aymara associate themselves with the ancient civilization of the Tiwanaku culture which had its capital at Tiwanaku, the capital city of Tiwanaku dates from as early as 1500 BC when it was a small, agriculturally based village. The community grew to urban proportions between AD600 and AD800, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes
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Cerrado
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The Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil, particularly in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Minas Gerais. The Cerrado biome core areas are the plateaus in the center of Brazil, the main habitat types of the Cerrado include, forest savanna, wooded savanna, park savanna and gramineous-woody savanna. Savanna wetlands and gallery forests are also included, the second largest of Brazils major habitat types, after the Amazonian rainforest, the Cerrado accounts for a full 21 percent of the countrys land area. Since then vast amounts of research have proved that the Cerrado is one of the richest of all tropical regions and has high levels of endemism. There are nearly 200 species of mammal in the Cerrado, though only 14 are endemic, the Cerrados climate is typical of the rather moister savanna regions of the world, with a semi-humid tropical climate. The Cerrado is limited to two dominant seasons throughout the year, wet and dry, annual temperatures for the Cerrado average between 22 and 27 °C and average precipitation between 800–2000 mm for over 90% of the area. This ecoregion has a strong dry season during the southern winter. The Cerrado is characterized by unique vegetation types and it is composed of a shifting mosaic of habitats, with the savanna-like cerrado itself on well-drained areas between strips of gallery forest which occur along streams. The savanna portion of the Cerrado is heterogeneous in terms of canopy cover, goodland divided the Cerrado into four categories ranging from least to most canopy cover, campo sujo, campo cerrado, cerrado sensu stricto and cerradao. Probably around 800 species of trees are found in the Cerrado, among the most diverse families of trees in the Cerrado are the Leguminosae, Malpighiaceae, Myrtaceae, Melastomataceae and Rubiaceae. Much of the Cerrado is dominated by the Vochysiaceae due to the abundance of three species in the genus Qualea, the herbaceous layer usually reaches about 60 cm in height and is composed mainly of the Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Leguminosae, Compositae, Myrtaceae and Rubiaceae. Much of the vegetation in the forests is similar to nearby rainforest, however. Soil fertility, fire regime and hydrology are thought to be most influential in determining Cerrado vegetation, Cerrado soils are always well-drained and most are oxisols with low pH and low calcium and magnesium. The amount of potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus has been found to be correlated with tree trunk basal area in Cerrado habitats. Cerrado vegetation is believed to be ancient, stretching back perhaps as far in a prototypic form during the Cretaceous before Africa, a dynamic expansion and contraction between cerrado and Amazonian rainforest has probably occurred historically, with expansion of the Cerrado during glacial periods like the Pleistocene. These processes and the resulting fragmentation have probably contributed to the species richness both of the Cerrado and of the Amazonian rainforest. The insects of the Cerrado are relatively understudied, a yearlong survey of the Cerrado at one reserve in Brazil found that the orders Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera and Isoptera accounted for 89. 5% of all captures. The Cerrado also supports high density of leaf cutter ant nests which are very diverse
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Pantanal
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The Pantanal is a natural region encompassing the worlds largest tropical wetland area. It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul and it sprawls over an area estimated at between 140,000 and 195,000 square kilometres. Various subregional ecosystems exist, each with distinct hydrological, geological and ecological characteristics, the name Pantanal comes from the Portuguese word pântano, meaning wetland, bog, swamp, quagmire or marsh. By comparison, the Brazilian highlands are locally referred to as the planalto, plateau or, literally, the Pantanal is a huge, gently-sloped basin that receives runoff from the upland areas and slowly releases the water through the Paraguay River and tributaries. The formation is a result of the large, concave pre-Andean depression of the earths crust and this area is also one of the distinct physiographic provinces of the larger Parana-Paraguay Plain area. The Pantanal is bounded by the Chiquitano dry forests to the west and northwest, by the Arid Chaco dry forests to the southwest, the Cerrado savannas lie to the north, east and southeast. The Pantanal has a yearly rainfall of 1, 000–1,400 mm. Its average temperature is 25 °C, but temperatures can fluctuate from 0 to 40 °C, floodplain ecosystems such as the Pantanal are defined by their seasonal inundation and desiccation. They shift between phases of standing water and phases of dry soil, when the table can be well below the root region. Soils range from high levels of sand in areas to higher amounts of clay. Elevation of the Pantanal ranges from 80 to 150 m above sea level, annual rainfall over the flood basin is between 1,000 and 1,500 mm, with most rainfall occurring between November and March. In the Paraguay River portion of the Pantanal, water levels rise between two meters to five meters seasonally, water fluctuations in other parts of the Pantanal are less than this. Flood waters tend to flow due to the low gradients. When rising river waters first contact previously dry soil, the waters become oxygen-depleted, many natural fish kills can occur if there are no oxygenated water refuges available. Forests usually occur at altitudes of the region, while grasslands cover the seasonally inundated areas. The key limiting factors for growth are inundation and, even more importantly, the Pantanal ecosystem is home to 3500 known plant species. The Pantanal ecosystem is thought to be home to 1000 bird species,400 fish species,300 mammalian species,480 reptile species. The apple snail is a species in Pantanals ecosystem
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Amazon rainforest
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The Amazon rainforest, also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 square kilometres, of which 5,500,000 square kilometres are covered by the rainforest and this region includes territory belonging to nine nations. States or departments in four nations contain Amazonas in their names, the name Amazon is said to arise from a war Francisco de Orellana fought with the Tapuyas and other tribes. The women of the tribe alongside the men, as was their custom. Orellana derived the name Amazonas from the Amazons of Greek mythology, the rainforest likely formed during the Eocene era. It appeared following a reduction of tropical temperatures when the Atlantic Ocean had widened sufficiently to provide a warm. Following the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the extinction of the dinosaurs, from 66–34 Mya, the rainforest extended as far south as 45°. Climate fluctuations during the last 34 million years have allowed savanna regions to expand into the tropics, during the Oligocene, for example, the rainforest spanned a relatively narrow band. It expanded again during the Middle Miocene, then retracted to a mostly inland formation at the last glacial maximum, however, the rainforest still managed to thrive during these glacial periods, allowing for the survival and evolution of a broad diversity of species. During the mid-Eocene, it is believed that the basin of the Amazon was split along the middle of the continent by the Purus Arch. Water on the eastern side flowed toward the Atlantic, while to the west water flowed toward the Pacific across the Amazonas Basin, as the Andes Mountains rose, however, a large basin was created that enclosed a lake, now known as the Solimões Basin. Within the last 5–10 million years, this accumulating water broke through the Purus Arch, there is evidence that there have been significant changes in Amazon rainforest vegetation over the last 21,000 years through the Last Glacial Maximum and subsequent deglaciation. There is debate, however, over how extensive this reduction was, more than 56% of the dust fertilizing the Amazon rainforest comes from the Bodélé depression in Northern Chad in the Sahara desert. The dust contains phosphorus, important for plant growth, the yearly Sahara dust replaces the equivalent amount of phosphorus washed away yearly in Amazon soil from rains and floods. Up to 50 million tonnes of Sahara dust per year are blown across the Atlantic Ocean, CALIPSO uses a laser range finder to scan the Earths atmosphere for the vertical distribution of dust and other aerosols. CALIPSO regularly tracks the Sahara-Amazon dust plume, CALIPSO has measured variations in the dust amounts transported— an 86 percent drop between the highest amount of dust transported in 2007 and the lowest in 2011. A possibility causing the variation is the Sahel, a strip of land on the southern border of the Sahara. When rain amounts in the Sahel are higher, the volume of dust is lower, the higher rainfall could make more vegetation grow in the Sahel, leaving less sand exposed to winds to blow away
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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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Xingu Indigenous Park
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The Xingu Indigenous Park is an indigenous territory of Brazil, first created in 1961 as a national park in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Its purposes are to protect the environment and the tribes of Xingu indigenous peoples in the area. The Xingu Indigenous Park is in the north east of the state of Mato Grosso and it covers 2,642,003 hectares, with savannah and drier semi-deciduous forests in the south transitioning to Amazon rain forest in the north. There is a season from November to April. The headwaters of the Xingu River are in the south of the park, the national park was created after a campaign by the Villas-Bôas brothers for protection of the region. An account of the exploration of this area by the Villas-Bôas brothers, the idea of creating a park originated with a round table organized by the vice president of Brazil in 1952, at which a much larger park was proposed. Adjustments were made on 31 July 1961,6 August 1968 and 13 July 1971, the final demarcation of the perimeter was made in 1978. In 1967 the term National Park was replaced by Indigenous Park to reflect the goal of protecting the social diversity of the indigenous people. The park began to suffer from the incursion of fishermen and hunters in the 1980s, by the late 1990s livestock farms to the north east of the park were starting to reach the park, as was deforestation to the west of the park. The effects of human activity outside the park were starting to pollute the waters of the park, the park remains as an island of forest increasingly threatened by activity outside its perimeter. The Xingu area is of interest also for its relation to the history of early-20th century exploration by Europeans and he sought out a city rumored since early 16th-century European contact. David Granns book, The Lost City of Z documents those early explorations and it also explores more recently found evidence of large-scale indigenous civilizations pre-dating Spanish and Portuguese contacts and colonization. Interview with Orlando Villas Boas on the history of the park Maps of Xingu National Park
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Araguaia River
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The Araguaia River is one of the major rivers of Brazil, and the principal tributary of the Tocantins, though it is almost equal in volume at its confluence with the Tocantins. It has a length of approximately 2,627 km. Araguaia means river of macaws in the Tupi language, because of the vast number of tributaries, it is not easy to define its source. Important tributaries originate in the Araras mountain range in Mato Grosso as well in the Divisões mountain range situated in Goiás, from there it flows northeast to a junction with the Tocantins near the town of São João. Along its course, the forms the border between the Brazilian federal states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Pará. Roughly in the middle of its course, the Araguaia splits into two forks and these later reunite, forming the Ilha do Bananal, the worlds largest river island. A large portion of the Araguaias course is navigable all year, the middle and lower basin of the river is in the Xingu-Tocantins-Araguaia moist forests ecoregion. The combined watershed of Araguaia and Tocantins rivers covers approximately 9. 5% of Brazils national territory and this area is an integral part of the Amazon biome. However, the Araguaia River is not a tributary of the Amazon, Araguaia means River of the Macaws in the native Tupi language. Its principal tributary is the Rio das Mortes, which rises in the Serra de São Jerônimo, near Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, and is navigable to Pará. Other important tributaries include the Bonito, Garcas, Tapirape and the Formoso or Cristalino on the west, and it was explored in part by Henri Coudreau in 1897. From 1972 to 1974 this region was the scene of a conflict between left-wing guerrilla movements and forces supporting the military dictatorship. The Araguaia has beaches - bright sandy banks that seam the stream from May to October. com Pará state, with Rivers v-Brazil. com Instituto Araguaia Brazilian Ministry of Transport
23.
Wetland
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A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink, Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to people about wetland issues. Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design. A patch of land that develops pools of water after a storm would not be considered a wetland. Wetlands have unique characteristics, they are distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil, Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions. A wetland is an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen. Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types, the largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia. Under the Ramsar international wetland conservation treaty, wetlands are defined as follows, Article 2.1, may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six metres at low tide lying within the wetlands. Although the general definition given above applies around the world, each county, Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. This definition has been used in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act, some US states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have separate definitions that may differ from the federal governments. It is not uncommon for a wetland to be dry for long portions of the growing season, the most important factor producing wetlands is flooding
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Everglades
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The Everglades is a natural region of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U. S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin and part of the neotropic ecozone. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee. Water leaving the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river 60 miles wide, the Everglades experience a wide range of weather patterns, from frequent flooding in the wet season to drought in the dry season. Human habitation in the portion of the Florida peninsula dates to 15,000 years ago. Before European colonization, the region was dominated by the native Calusa, with Spanish colonization, both tribes declined gradually during the following two centuries. The Seminole formed from mostly Creek people who had been warring to the North, they assimilated other peoples and created a new culture. After being forced from northern Florida into the Everglades during the Seminole Wars of the early 19th century, migrants to the region who wanted to develop plantations first proposed draining the Everglades in 1848, but no work of this type was attempted until 1882. Canals were constructed throughout the first half of the 20th century, in 1947, Congress formed the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project, which built 1,400 miles of canals, levees, and water control devices. The Miami metropolitan area grew substantially at this time and Everglades water was diverted to cities, portions of the Everglades were transformed into farmland, where the primary crop was sugarcane. Approximately 50 percent of the original Everglades has been developed as agricultural or urban areas, following this period of rapid development and environmental degradation, the ecosystem began to receive notable attention from conservation groups in the 1970s. Internationally, UNESCO and the Ramsar Convention designated the Everglades a Wetland Area of Global Importance, the construction of a large airport 6 miles north of Everglades National Park was blocked when an environmental study found that it would severely damage the South Florida ecosystem. With heightened awareness and appreciation of the region, restoration began in the 1980s with the removal of a canal that had straightened the Kissimmee River, however, development and sustainability concerns have remained pertinent in the region. The deterioration of the Everglades, including water quality in Lake Okeechobee, was linked to the diminishing quality of life in South Floridas urban areas. In 2000 the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan was approved by Congress to combat these problems, to date, it is the most expensive and comprehensive environmental restoration attempt in history, but its implementation has faced political complications. The first written record of the Everglades was on Spanish maps made by cartographers who had not seen the land and they named the unknown area between the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida Laguna del Espíritu Santo. The area was featured on maps for decades without having been explored, British surveyor John Gerard de Brahm, who mapped the coast of Florida in 1773, called the area River Glades. Both Marjory Stoneman Douglas and linguist Wallace McMullen suggest that cartographers substituted Ever for River, the name Everglades first appeared on a map in 1823, although it was also spelled as Ever Glades as late as 1851. The Seminole call it Pa-hay-okee, meaning Grassy Water, the region was labeled Pa-hai-okee on an American military map from 1839, although it had earlier been called Ever Glades throughout the Second Seminole War
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Slave trader
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The history of slavery spans nearly every culture, nationality, and religion from ancient times to the present day. However the social, economic, and legal positions of slaves were vastly different in different systems of slavery in different times and places, Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations, as it is developed as a system of social stratification. Slavery was known in the very oldest civilizations such as Sumer in Mesopotamia which dates back as far as 3500 BC, the Byzantine–Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe resulted in the taking of large numbers of Christian slaves. Slavery became common within much of Europe and the British Isles during the Dark Ages, the Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, British, Arabs and a number of West African kingdoms played a prominent role in the Atlantic slave trade, especially after 1600. During the 1983–2005 Second Sudanese Civil War people were taken into slavery, evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic slavery in cacao plantations in West Africa, see the chocolate and slavery article. Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures, however, slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations. Mass slavery requires economic surpluses and a population density to be viable. Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution, about 11,000 years ago. Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, French historian Fernand Braudel noted that slavery was endemic in Africa and part of the structure of everyday life. During the 16th century, Europe began to outpace the Arab world in the export traffic, the Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony in South Africa. In 1807 Britain, which extensive, although mainly coastal, colonial territories on the African continent, made the international slave trade illegal. In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved, in early Islamic states of the Western Sudan, including Ghana, Mali, Segou, and Songhai, about a third of the population was enslaved. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of slaves. In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of slaves. The population of the Kanem was about a third slave and it was perhaps 40% in Bornu. Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves. The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in northern Nigeria and it is estimated that up to 90% of the population of Arab-Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved. Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved, the Anti-Slavery Society estimated that there were 2,000,000 slaves in the early 1930s Ethiopia, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million
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Prospecting
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Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens. Prospecting is a form of mineral exploration which is an organised. Prospecting is physical labour, involving traversing, panning, sifting and outcrop investigation, in other areas publicly held lands are open to prospecting without staking a mining claim. In the case of gold, all streams in an area would be panned at the appropriate trap sites looking for a show of colour or gold in the river trail. For most base metal shows, the rock would have been mined by hand and crushed on site, often, these shows were short-lived, exhausted and abandoned quite soon, requiring the prospector to move onwards to the next and hopefully bigger and better show. Occasionally, though, the prospector would strike it rich and be joined by other prospectors, although these are thought of as old prospecting methods, these techniques are still used today but usually coupled with more advanced techniques such as geophysical magnetic or gravity surveys. In most countries in the 19th and early 20th century, it was unlikely that a prospector would retire rich even if he was the one who found the greatest of lodes. For instance Patrick Hannan, who discovered the Golden Mile, Kalgoorlie, the same story repeated at Bendigo, Ballarat, Klondike and California. In the United States and Canada prospectors were lured by the promise of gold, silver and they traveled across the mountains of the American West, carrying picks, shovels and gold pans. The majority of early prospectors had no training and relied mainly on luck to discover deposits, other gold rushes occurred in Papua New Guinea, Australia at least four times, and in South Africa and South America. In all cases, the rush was sparked by idle prospecting for gold and minerals which. Modern prospectors today rely on training, the study of geology, knowledge of previous prospecting in an area helps in determining location of new prospective areas. Prospecting includes geological mapping, rock assay analysis, and sometimes the intuition of the prospector, prospecting pickaxes are used to scrape at rocks and minerals, obtaining small samples that can be tested for trace amounts of ore. Modern prospecting pickaxes are also equipped with magnets, to aid in the gathering of ferromagnetic ores. Prospecting pickaxes are usually equipped with a head, with a very sharp point
27.
Settler
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A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally from a culture, as opposed to nomads who share. Settlements are often built on land already claimed or owned by another group, many times settlers are backed by governments or large countries. One can witness how settlers very often occupied land previously home to long-established peoples, the word settler was not originally usually used in relation to free labour immigrants, such as slaves, indentured labourers, or convicts. In United States history it refers to people who helped to settle new lands. In this usage, pioneers are usually among the first to an area, whereas settlers can arrive after first settlement and this correlates with the work of military pioneers who were tasked with construction of camps before the main body of troops would arrive at the designated campsite. In Imperial Russia, the government invited Russians or foreign nationals to settle in sparsely populated lands, see, e. g. articles Slavo-Serbia, Volga German, Volhynia, Russians in Kazakhstan. In the Middle East, there are a number of references to various squatter, among those, Iraq – the Arabization program of the Baath Party in the late 1970s in North Iraq, which aimed at settling Arab populations instead of Kurds following the Second Iraqi-Kurdish War. Israel – Israelis who moved to areas captured during the Six-Day War in 1967 are termed Israeli settlers, in recent Israeli settlers have been settling in Palestinian territory such as the Gaza Strip and West Bank. However, this has caused political unrest and many settlers are forcibly removed from their settlements by the Israeli government, Syria – In recent times, Arab settlers have also moved in large numbers to ethnic minority areas, such as northeast Syria. Women and children experience violence in these highly dangerous ares because of the conflict, many natives face displacement when new settlements are established. During 1948 Palestine war, in which Israel was created, over 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes, oftentimes fences or walls are built preventing the natives from traveling back onto the land. Settlements make it difficult for native people to continue their work. For example, if the settlers take part of the land which the trees grow on then the natives no longer have access to those olive trees. Many are met with violence when they try to get the things they need from the land, settlers in hypothetical societies, such as on other planets, often feature in science fiction or fantasy fiction and/or video games. Mascot for Texas Womans University, more specifically called the Pioneer. The colony concerned is sometimes controlled by the government of a home country
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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
29.
Acre (state)
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Acre is a state located in the northern region of Brazil. It occupies an area of 152,581.4 km2 and its capital and largest city is Rio Branco. Other important places include Cruzeiro do Sul, Sena Madureira, Tarauacá, the intense extractive activity, which reached its height in the 20th century, attracted Brazilians from many regions to the state. From the mixture of sulista, Southeast Brazil, nordestino, and indigenous traditions arose a diverse cuisine, which unites sun-dried meat with pirarucu, such dishes are seasoned with tucupi, a sauce made from manioc. There is also a hypothesis that Acquiri derives from Yasiri, or Ysiri, Acre possesses some nicknames, the End of Brazil, The Rubber Tree State, the Latex State and the Western End. The native inhabitants of Acre are called acrianos, in the singular acriano, until the entry in force of the Orthographic Agreement of 1990, the correct spelling was acreano in the singular and in the plural acreanos. The state of Acre occupies an area of 152,581 km2 in the extreme west of Brazil and it is located at 70º0000 west longitude from the Prime Meridian and at 09º0000 latitude south of the equator. In Brazil, the state is part of the North Region, forming borders with the states of Amazonas and Rondônia, and with two countries, Peru and Bolivia. Practically all of the terrain of the state of Acre is part of the low plateau, or terra firme. These terranes rise, in Acre, from the southeast to the northeast, in the extreme west is found the Serra da Contamana or Serra do Divisor, along the western border, with the highest altitudes in the state. About 63% of states surface is lies between 200 and 300 m in height, 16% between 300 and 609, and 21% between 200 and 135. The rainfall reaches a total of 2,100 mm, with a clear dry season in the months of June, July. The Amazon Rainforest covers all of the state territory, very rich in rubber trees of the most valuable species and Brazil nut trees, the forest guarantees that Acre is the greatest national producer of rubber and nuts. Acres principal rivers, mostly navigable during the wet season, cross the state with almost parallel courses which will only converge outside of its territory, the Amazon represents over half of the planets remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world. Wet tropical forests are the most species-rich biome, and tropical forests in the Americas are consistently more species-rich than the wet forests in Africa, as the largest tract of tropical rainforest in the Americas, the Amazonian rainforests have unparalleled biodiversity. More than 1/3 of all species in the live in the Amazon Rainforest. Until the beginning of the 20th century Acre belonged to Bolivia, in 1899, Bolivians tried to gain control of the area, but Brazilians revolted and there were border confrontations, generating the episode which became known as the Acre Revolution. On November 17,1903, with the signing over and sale in the Treaty of Petrópolis, Acre was then integrated into Brazil as a territory divided into three departments
Brazil
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