Foloi oak forest
The Folóï oak forest is an oak forest in southwestern Greece. It is located in the municipal unit Elis, in the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula; the Folóï oak forest is situated on the plateau of the Folóï mountain. It is an ecosystem unique in the Balkan peninsula and consists of a territory of 9,900 acres, entirely covered by deciduous oaks that form a dense forest area; the Pholóē oak forest was known to Ancient Greeks, because of its proximity to many of their settlements in the Elis region. The mysterious beauty of the forest inspired them to believe that it was a habitat of centaurs and dryads, they gave the forest the chief of the Centaurs the name Phólos. The dryads were "oak spirits" of the forest; the broadleaf oak, Quercus frainetto is the primary species of oak in the forest, it covers the biggest part of its territory. The trees can live up to 200 years. Quercus pubescens and evergreen Quercus ilex are present, though their population is smaller. Besides oaks and asphodels are common and they tend to grow in the space between the trunks of the trees.
The acorns provide an abundant source of food for animals such as hares, hedgehogs, which are found in significant populations. The ecosystem of the forest is a food chain which contains badgers, pine martens, eagles, weasels, skylarks, magpies, rat snakes and others; the Folóï oak forest has been designated the status of a protected area enlisted in the Natura 2000 ecological network of the E. U.. Ancient Olympia
International Standard Serial Number
An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSN are used in ordering, interlibrary loans, other practices in connection with serial literature; the ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971 and published as ISO 3297 in 1975. ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for maintaining the standard; when a serial with the same content is published in more than one media type, a different ISSN is assigned to each media type. For example, many serials are published both in electronic media; the ISSN system refers to these types as electronic ISSN, respectively. Conversely, as defined in ISO 3297:2007, every serial in the ISSN system is assigned a linking ISSN the same as the ISSN assigned to the serial in its first published medium, which links together all ISSNs assigned to the serial in every medium.
The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers. As an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits; the last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the general form of the ISSN code can be expressed as follows: NNNN-NNNC where N is in the set, a digit character, C is in; the ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, for example, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, C=5. To calculate the check digit, the following algorithm may be used: Calculate the sum of the first seven digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, counting from the right—that is, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, respectively: 0 ⋅ 8 + 3 ⋅ 7 + 7 ⋅ 6 + 8 ⋅ 5 + 5 ⋅ 4 + 9 ⋅ 3 + 5 ⋅ 2 = 0 + 21 + 42 + 40 + 20 + 27 + 10 = 160 The modulus 11 of this sum is calculated. For calculations, an upper case X in the check digit position indicates a check digit of 10. To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, counting from the right.
The modulus 11 of the sum must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker. ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres located at national libraries and coordinated by the ISSN International Centre based in Paris; the International Centre is an intergovernmental organization created in 1974 through an agreement between UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, the ISDS Register otherwise known as the ISSN Register. At the end of 2016, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,943,572 items. ISSN and ISBN codes are similar in concept. An ISBN might be assigned for particular issues of a serial, in addition to the ISSN code for the serial as a whole. An ISSN, unlike the ISBN code, is an anonymous identifier associated with a serial title, containing no information as to the publisher or its location. For this reason a new ISSN is assigned to a serial each time it undergoes a major title change. Since the ISSN applies to an entire serial a new identifier, the Serial Item and Contribution Identifier, was built on top of it to allow references to specific volumes, articles, or other identifiable components.
Separate ISSNs are needed for serials in different media. Thus, the print and electronic media versions of a serial need separate ISSNs. A CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSNs since two different media are involved. However, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats of the same online serial; this "media-oriented identification" of serials made sense in the 1970s. In the 1990s and onward, with personal computers, better screens, the Web, it makes sense to consider only content, independent of media; this "content-oriented identification" of serials was a repressed demand during a decade, but no ISSN update or initiative occurred. A natural extension for ISSN, the unique-identification of the articles in the serials, was the main demand application. An alternative serials' contents model arrived with the indecs Content Model and its application, the digital object identifier, as ISSN-independent initiative, consolidated in the 2000s. Only in 2007, ISSN-L was defined in the
Member state of the European Union
The European Union consists of 28 member states. Each member state is party to the founding treaties of the union and thereby subject to the privileges and obligations of membership. Unlike members of most international organisations, the member states of the EU are subjected to binding laws in exchange for representation within the common legislative and judicial institutions. Member states must agree unanimously for the EU to adopt policies concerning defence and foreign policy. Subsidiarity is a founding principle of the EU. In 1957, six core states founded the European Economic Community; the remaining states have acceded in subsequent enlargements. On 1 July 2013, Croatia became the newest member state of the EU. To accede, a state must fulfill the economic and political requirements known as the Copenhagen criteria, which require a candidate to have a democratic, free-market government together with the corresponding freedoms and institutions, respect for the rule of law. Enlargement of the Union is contingent upon the consent of all existing members and the candidate's adoption of the existing body of EU law, known as the acquis communautaire.
There is disparity in the size and political system of member states, but all have de jure equal rights. In practice, certain states are more influential than others. While in some areas majority voting takes place where larger states have more votes than smaller ones, smaller states have disproportional representation compared to their population. No member state has withdrawn or been suspended from the EU, though some dependent territories or semi-autonomous areas have left. In June 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum on membership of the EU, resulting in 51.89% of votes cast, being in favour of leaving. The United Kingdom government invoked Article 50 on 29 March 2017 to formally initiate the withdrawal process. Notes According to the Copenhagen criteria, membership of the European Union is open to any European country, a stable, free-market liberal democracy that respects the rule of law and human rights. Furthermore, it has to be willing to accept all the obligations of membership, such as adopting all agreed law and switching to the euro.
To join the European Union, it is required for all member states to agree. In addition to enlargement by adding new countries, the EU can expand by having territories of member states, which are outside the EU, integrate more or by a territory of a member state which had seceded and rejoined. Enlargement is, has been, a principal feature of the Union's political landscape; the EU's predecessors were founded by the "Inner Six", those countries willing to forge ahead with the Community while others remained skeptical. It was only a decade before the first countries changed their policy and attempted to join the Union, which led to the first skepticism of enlargement. French President Charles de Gaulle feared British membership would be an American Trojan horse and vetoed its application, it was only after de Gaulle left office and a 12-hour talk by British Prime Minister Edward Heath and French President Georges Pompidou took place that the United Kingdom's third application succeeded in 1970.
Applying in 1969 were the United Kingdom, Ireland and Norway. Norway, declined to accept the invitation to become a member when the electorate voted against it, leaving just the UK, Denmark to join, but despite the setbacks, the withdrawal of Greenland from Denmark's membership in 1985, three more countries joined the Communities before the end of the Cold War. In 1987, the geographical extent of the project was tested when Morocco applied, was rejected as it was not considered a European country; the year 1990 saw the Cold War drawing to a close, East Germany was welcomed into the Community as part of a reunited Germany. Shortly thereafter, the neutral countries of Austria and Sweden acceded to the newly renamed European Union, though Switzerland, which applied in 1992, froze its application due to opposition from voters while Norway, which had applied once more, had its voters reject membership again in 1994. Meanwhile, the members of the former Eastern Bloc and Yugoslavia were all starting to move towards EU membership.
Eight of these, plus Cyprus and Malta, joined in a major enlargement on 1 May 2004 symbolising the unification of Eastern and Western Europe in the EU. They were followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013; the EU has prioritised membership for the rest of the Western Balkans. Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Turkey are all formally acknowledged as candidates, while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are potential candidates. Turkish membership, pending since the 1980s, is a more contentious issue. Aside from the Cyprus dispute being a long-standing hurdle, relations between the EU and Turkey have become strained after several incidents concerning the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, the Turkish referendum, the resulting 2016–17 purges in Turkey; this has led to the European Parliament calling for a suspension of membership talks. Each state has representation in the institutions of the European Union. Full membership gives the government of a member state a seat in the Council of the European Union and European Council.
When decisions are not being taken by consensus, votes are weighted so that a country with a greater population has more votes within the Coun
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. While these definitions may seem adequate, when looked at more they represent problematic species concepts. For example, the boundaries between related species become unclear with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, in a ring species. Among organisms that reproduce only asexually, the concept of a reproductive species breaks down, each clone is a microspecies. All species are given a two-part name, a "binomial"; the first part of a binomial is the genus.
The second part is called the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the genus Boa. None of these is satisfactory definitions, but scientists and conservationists need a species definition which allows them to work, regardless of the theoretical difficulties. If species were fixed and distinct from one another, there would be no problem, but evolutionary processes cause species to change continually, to grade into one another. Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped. Charles Darwin's 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection; that understanding was extended in the 20th century through genetics and population ecology. Genetic variability arises from mutations and recombination, while organisms themselves are mobile, leading to geographical isolation and genetic drift with varying selection pressures.
Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal gene transfer. Viruses are a special case, driven by a balance of mutation and selection, can be treated as quasispecies. Biologists and taxonomists have made many attempts to define species, beginning from morphology and moving towards genetics. Early taxonomists such as Linnaeus had no option but to describe what they saw: this was formalised as the typological or morphological species concept. Ernst Mayr emphasised reproductive isolation, but this, like other species concepts, is hard or impossible to test. Biologists have tried to refine Mayr's definition with the recognition and cohesion concepts, among others. Many of the concepts are quite similar or overlap, so they are not easy to count: the biologist R. L. Mayden recorded about 24 concepts, the philosopher of science John Wilkins counted 26. Wilkins further grouped the species concepts into seven basic kinds of concepts: agamospecies for asexual organisms biospecies for reproductively isolated sexual organisms ecospecies based on ecological niches evolutionary species based on lineage genetic species based on gene pool morphospecies based on form or phenotype and taxonomic species, a species as determined by a taxonomist.
A typological species is a group of organisms in which individuals conform to certain fixed properties, so that pre-literate people recognise the same taxon as do modern taxonomists. The clusters of variations or phenotypes within specimens would differentiate the species; this method was used as a "classical" method of determining species, such as with Linnaeus early in evolutionary theory. However, different phenotypes are not different species. Species named in this manner are called morphospecies. In the 1970s, Robert R. Sokal, Theodore J. Crovello and Peter Sneath proposed a variation on this, a phenetic species, defined as a set of organisms with a similar phenotype to each other, but a different phenotype from other sets of organisms, it differs from the morphological species concept in including a numerical measure of distance or similarity to cluster entities based on multivariate comparisons of a reasonably large number of phenotypic traits. A mate-recognition species is a group of sexually reproducing organisms that recognize one another as potential mates.
Expanding on this to allow for post-mating isolation, a cohesion species is the most inclusive population of individuals having the potential for phenotypic cohesion through intrinsic cohesion mechanisms. A further development of the recognition concept is provided by the biosemiotic concept of species. In microbiology, genes can move even between distantly related bacteria extending to the whole bacterial domain; as a rule of thumb, microbiologists have assumed that kinds of Bacteria or Archaea with 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences more similar than 97% to each other need to be checked by DNA-DNA hybridisation to decide if they belong to the same species or not. This concept was narrowed in 2006 to a similarity of 98.7%. DNA-DNA hybri
Szczecin Lagoon
Szczecin Lagoon, Stettin Lagoon, Bay of Szczecin, or Stettin Bay Oder lagoon, is a lagoon in the Oder estuary, shared by Germany and Poland. It is separated from the Pomeranian Bay of the Baltic Sea by the islands of Wolin; the lagoon is subdivided into the Wielki Zalew in the East. An ambiguous historical German name was Frisches Haff, which exclusively referred to the Vistula Lagoon. From the South, the lagoon is fed by several arms of the Oder river and smaller rivers like Ziese, Zarow and Ina. In the North, the lagoon is connected to the Baltic Sea's Bay of Pomerania with the three straits Peenestrom, Świna and Dziwna, which divide the mainland and the islands of Usedom and Wolin; the lagoon covers an area of 687 km², its natural depth is an average 3.8 metres, 8.5 metres at maximum. The depth of shipping channels however can exceed 10.5 metres. Thus, the lagoon holds about 2.58 km3 of water. The annual average water temperature is 11 °C.94% of the water loads discharged into the lagoon are from the Oder river and its confluences, amounting to an average annual 17 km3 or 540 m3 per second.
All other confluences contribute a combined annual 1 km3. Since no reliable data for an inflow from the Baltic Sea exist, the combined inflow is an estimated 18 km3 from a catchment area of 129,000 km2, residing in the lagoon for an average 55 days before being discharged into the Pomeranian Bay; the nutrients thereby transported into the lagoon have made it hypertrophic to eutrophic. The straits Peenestrom, Świna and Dziwna are responsible for 17%, 69%, 14% of the discharge, respectively; the average salinity is between 0.5 and 2 psu, yet at times more salt water penetrates through the Świna locally raising the salinity to 6 psu. Szczecin Świnoujście Police Ueckermünde Wolin Usedom Nowe Warpno In 1880, the Kaiserfahrt channel on Usedom was opened, a water route with a depth of 10 metres connecting the lagoon with the Baltic Sea by bypassing the eastern part of the Swine, allowing large ships to enter the lagoon and the seaport of Stettin quicker and safer; the canal 12 km long and 10 metres deep, was dug by the German Empire between 1874 and 1880, during the reign of the first Kaiser Wilhelm after whom it was named.
The work resulted in a new island named Kaseburg being cut off from Usedom. After 1945, the areas east of Oder Neisse line became part of Poland, including the former German seaport cities of Stettin and Swinemünde on the western bank of the river Oder; the Kaiserfahrt was renamed Piast Canal, after the Polish Piast dynasty. The German-Polish border divides the bight called Neuwarper See near Rieth, Luckow; the lagoon has served as an important fishing grounds for centuries, as a major transportation pathway since the 18th century, as a tourist destination since the 20th century. Today the lagoon offers a selection of passenger ship tours, a wide range of water sports and some notable beaches. Tourists can discover winegrowing, the narrow-gauge railway, castles, many hiking and cycling routes and a small village reviving the life of the former Slavic settlements; the lagoon suffers from heavy pollution from the Oder river, resulting in eutrophication. High concentrations of aluminium and iron sediments have been found in the river causing rapid algae growth inside the lagoon.
However, long-term nutrient concentrations show a high inter-annual variability and have declined during recent years. The southern shore of the lagoon belongs to the Am Stettiner Haff Nature Park, its northern shore and the island of Usedom to the Usedom Island Nature Park. To the west is the Anklamer Stadtbruch Nature Reserve and, within it, the Anklamer Torfmoor, a protected wetland, renaturalising after being used for peat extraction. Curonian Lagoon Vistula Lagoon Glasby GP, Szefer P, Geldon J, Warzocha J. "Heavy-metal pollution of sediments from Szczecin Lagoon and the Gdansk Basin, Poland". Sci. Total Environ. 330: 249–69. Doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2004.04.004. PMID 15325172
Sweden
Sweden the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre; the highest concentration is in the southern half of the country. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats and Swedes and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is forested. Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia; the climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence, that in spite of this still retains warm continental summers.
Today, the sovereign state of Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state, like its neighbour Norway. The capital city is Stockholm, 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 divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. An independent Swedish state emerged during the early 12th century. After the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century killed about a third of the Scandinavian population, the Hanseatic League threatened Scandinavia's culture and languages; this led to the forming of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union in 1397, which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years War on the Reformist side, an expansion of its territories began and the Swedish Empire was formed; this became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809.
The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs; the union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, albeit Sweden has since 2009 moved towards cooperation with NATO. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, but declined NATO membership, as well as Eurozone membership following a referendum, it is a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the 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 universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens, it has the world's eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks in numerous metrics of national performance, including quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, equality and human development.
The name Sweden was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes"; this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland. Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi and Rootsi are used, names considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, who were known as the Rus', through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia; the etymology of Swedes, thus Sweden, is not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe. Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation, a warm period around 12,000 BC, with Late Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania.
This period was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology. Sweden is first described in a written source in Germania by Tacitus in 98 AD. In Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow at each end. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC; as for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the 2nd century AD, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts of male names, demonstrating th
Castro Verde
Castro Verde is a town and a municipality of the Alentejo region of Portugal. The population in 2011 was 7,276, in an area of 569.44 km2. Castro Verde is situated in the Baixo Alentejo subregion, within a territory known locally as the Campo Branco; the municipality can be recognized by the local municipal markers along its borders, that appear within its borders to denote its reference as A Window on the Plains. The pre-History of the Baixo Alentejo Subregion dates back to 200,000 B. C. when the territory was crossed by migratory Neanderthal peoples from the north of Europe in the Lower Paleolithic period. Until their extinction, around 28,000 B. C. Neanderthal man forged in present-day Portugal; the area was home to several cultures due to the abundance of minerals and its commercial and strategic place along the Mediterranean. The earliest settlements began with Celtiberians, from the central Iberian Peninsula around the 6th Century B. C. and were followed by the Celts. From the 3rd Century, tribal clans were replaced by organized oppidum, a fortified organized city with a defined territory that included many castro villages constructed from large boulders or earthworks.
The first evidence of early cultures in the area of Castro Verde was the discovery of the'Syllabary of Espança', found near the village of Neves-Corvo in the civil parish of Santa Bárbara de Padrões. This archaeological stone contains a Southwest Paleohispanic script, using Tartessian script and language, identified as being the most ancient paleohispanic script; the Tartessian culture was the precursors of the Turdetani peoples of the Roman period. Growth of settlements during the classic period were associated with the strategic importance of the Iberian Pyrite zone. Castro Verde lies along a transport route linking the mines of Aljustrel with the port city of Mértola situated on tributaries of the Guadiana river. During the Roman occupation, the extensive mining and warehousing of minerals required protective fortifications and mineral warehouses: in the Castro Verde territory there are remains of more than 20 such small structures. Along with mining activities, the area became a vast area of grain production and cattle/sheep-grazing.
The richness and abundance of these combined'base economies' grew to such extent that Castro Verde became a regional centre of commerce and thus a crossroad of cultures within the Mediterranean area. The name origin of Castro Verde dates back to this early period, with two interpretations cited for its name. One postulates that the name was derived from the Roman Castra Castrorum and combined the verde to indicate new. A more consistent interpretation is that the name was derived from Castrum Veteris, meaning the oldest castro, to differentiate it from another castro that existed on a small plateau and was abandoned during the Middle Ages; the term castro derived from the Latin castrum refers to a small military encampment or fortification, built of large rocks. Roman occupation spanned four centuries and was followed by the migration of the Visigoths their expulsion by the Moors, in turn, their expulsion from the area during the Christian Reconquista; the Battle of Ourique, where Afonso I triumphed over five Moorish Kings occurred in São Pedro das Cabeças five kilometres from the village of Castro Verde, paved the way for the creation of the Kingdom of Portugal.
As the legend of the Battle describes, the battle lasted two days and was so excessively bloody that the waters of Ribeira de Cobres flowed the color of red. Afonso Henriques, declared Prince of Portugal, after the Battle of São Mamede, defeated the Moorish kings, was proclaimed King upon the victory. But, although King Afonso was able to triumph, the region was never secured by the Portuguese until the regin of King Sancho II, around 1234, when the Castle of Aljustrel was captured; the Royal Basilica of Castro Verde was commissioned by King Sebastian of Portugal in 1573 to mark the Christian victory over the Moors, with the walls of the central nave covered in azulejos immortalizing the famous battle. The region of Castro Verde passed into the possession of the priory of the Comenda de Santiago, its donatários, the Dukes of Aveiro. Castro Verde continued to operate as the central administrative centre and municipal seat, while Casével and Entradas won administrative autonomy. While mineral extraction continued to drive the economy, herding assumed a fundamental part of the regions economy as well.
During the 16th and 17th Century, the Campos de Ourique became the destination for many herds from Castela and Serra da Estrela, creating a new economic and cultural dimension to the municipality. Although the human ecology of this territory has been marked by the settlement of many civilizations all based on mining, cereal cultivation and cattle/sheep grazing, it was only in the beginning of the 14th century that territories became organized as distinct economic entities within the new kingdom. During this post-reconquista era, the vast pasture-lands of the Castro Verde area were granted to nobility by King Denis which resulted in the management of thousands of hectares under rotational cultivation to become the bread basket of Portugal and the most important pastur
