1.
Jefferson Memorial Forest
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The Jefferson Memorial Forest is a forest located in southwest Louisville, Kentucky, in the Knobs Region of Kentucky. At 6,500 acres, it is the largest municipal urban forest in the United States, the forest was established as a tribute to Kentuckys veterans, and was designated as a National Audubon Society wildlife refuge. The forest offers over 35 miles of hiking trails, including several which offer views of downtown Louisville. Several discrete usage areas are featured, including the Tom Wallace Recreation Area, with the 7-acre Tom Wallace Lake, the Paul Yost Recreation Area, camping and fishing are both permitted. Tom Wallace Lake is stocked with trout and catfish once a year, Tom Wallace Recreation Area features various handicapped-accessible facilities, including a fishing dock and a 1, 560-foot -long natural trail, the Tuliptree Trail. The Horine Conference Center is a field trip destination for Louisville schools. The forest property is operated as parkland by Louisville Metro Government, a hiking trail, the Siltstone Trail, traverses much of the forest from east to west. There are several hiking trails, in addition. Horine also features hiking trails and both the Paul Yost and Tom Wallace Recreation Areas have horse trails. No mountain biking is permitted in the forest at this time, in 1946, Jefferson County, Kentucky, undertook to establish a working forest preserve in the southern part of the county. The Jefferson County Memorial Forest was originally envisioned to be 10,000 acres and was named as a memorial to the dead of World War II. Since then, the forest has been redesignated to remember all who served in the armed forces, the original purchases were guided by Paul Yost, who was appointed as the county forester. Through 1954, some 1,300 acres were purchased, no further properties were purchased until a single tract was acquired in 1965. The next acquisition was not until 1979, and from then until the mid-1980s, since then, acquisition has proceeded again slowly. In the late 1990s, the old station, a former country schoolhouse, was renovated as a visitor. On May 30,2004 parts of the park were ravaged by a tornado, there are some fifty types of trees, including ten species of oaks, and a rich flora of wildflowers and seventeen species of ferns and fern allies. A wide variety of animals can be seen, including bobcats, coyotes, red foxes, white-tailed deer, great blue herons, the forest is located in the Knobs region of Kentucky, also known as the Muldraugh Escarpment. This is a belt of rugged hills lying between the Bluegrass and the Pennyrile regions, the underlying geology of these hills is primarily siltstone and shale, with the siltstone creating extremely steep hillsides
2.
Protected area
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Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the laws of each country or the regulations of the international organisations involved. There are over 161,000 protected areas in the world with more added daily, by contrast, only 1. 17% of the worlds oceans is included in the worlds ~6,800 Marine Protected Areas. Protected areas are essential for biodiversity conservation, often providing habitat, Protection helps maintain ecological processes that cannot survive in most intensely managed landscapes and seascapes. Generally, protected areas are understood to be those in human occupation or at least the exploitation of resources is limited. As a result, Protected Areas can encompass a range of governance types. Indeed, governance of protected areas has emerged a critical factor in their success, subsequently, the range of natural resources that any one protected area may guard is vast. Of all global terrestrial carbon stock,15. 2% is contained within protected areas, Protected areas in South America hold 27% of the worlds carbon stock, which is the highest percentage of any country in both absolute terms and as a proportion of the total stock. Rainforests,18. 8% of the worlds forest is covered by protected areas, of the 670 ecoregions with forest cover, 54% have 10% or more of their forest cover protected under IUCN Categories I – VI. Mountain protected area coverage has increased globally by 21% since 1990, the categories provide international standards for defining protected areas and encourage conservation planning according to their management aims. Protecting places and resources is by no means a modern concept, over 2000 years ago, royal decrees in India protected certain areas. In Europe, rich and powerful people protected hunting grounds for a thousand years, moreover, the idea of protection of special places is universal, for example, it occurs among the communities in the Pacific and in parts of Africa. However, the protected areas movement doesnt begin until late nineteenth-century in North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. While the idea of protected areas spread around the world in the twentieth century, thus, in North America, protected areas were about safeguarding dramatic and sublime scenery, in Africa, the concern was with game parks, in Europe, landscape protection was more common. The spectrum of benefits and values of protected areas is recognised not only ecologically, international programmes for the protection of representative ecosystems remain relatively progressive, with less advances in marine and freshwater biomes. There is increasing pressure to take account of human needs when setting up protected areas. Such negotiations are never easy but usually stronger and longer-lasting results for both conservation and people. In some countries, protected areas can be assigned without the infrastructure and networking needed to substitute consumable resources, one of the main concerns regarding protected areas on land and sea is their effectiveness at preventing the ongoing loss of biodiversity
3.
Wildlife
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Wildlife traditionally refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all plants, fungi, and other organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife can be found in all ecosystems, humans have historically tended to separate civilization from wildlife in a number of ways including the legal, social, and moral sense. Some animals, however, have adapted to suburban environments and this includes such animals as domesticated cats, dogs, mice, and gerbils. The global wildlife population has decreased by 52 percent between 1970 and 2014, according to a report by the World Wildlife Fund, anthropologists believe that the Stone Age people and hunter-gatherers relied on wildlife, both plants and animals, for their food. In fact, some species may have been hunted to extinction by human hunters. Today, hunting, fishing, and gathering wildlife is still a significant food source in parts of the world. In other areas, hunting and non-commercial fishing are seen as a sport or recreation. Meat sourced from wildlife that is not traditionally regarded as game is known as bush meat, in November 2008, almost 900 plucked and oven-ready owls and other protected wildlife species were confiscated by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks in Malaysia, according to TRAFFIC. The animals were believed to be bound for China, to be sold in wild meat restaurants, most are listed in CITES which prohibits or restricts such trade.60. Many Amazon species, including peccaries, agoutis, turtles, turtle eggs, anacondas, armadillos, others in these informal markets, such as monkeys and parrots, are destined for the pet trade, often smuggled into the United States. Still other Amazon species are popular ingredients in traditional medicines sold in local markets, the medicinal value of animal parts is based largely on superstition. Many animal species have spiritual significance in different cultures around the world, for example, eagles, hawks and their feathers have great cultural and spiritual value to Native Americans as religious objects. In Hinduism the cow is regarded sacred, muslims conduct sacrifices on Eid-ul-Adha to commemorate the sacrificial spirit of Ibrahim in love of God. Camels, sheep, goats, and cows may be offered as sacrifice during the three days of Eid, many nations have established their tourism sector around their natural wildlife. South Africa has, for example, many opportunities for tourists to see the wildlife in its national parks. In South India the Periar Wildlife Sanctuary, Bandipur National Park and Mudamalai Wildlife Sanctuary are situated around, India is home to many national parks and wildlife sanctuaries showing the diversity of its wildlife, much of its unique fauna, and excels in the range. This subsection focuses on forms of wildlife destruction. Exploitation of wild populations has been a characteristic of man since our exodus from Africa 130,000 –70,000 years ago
4.
Flora
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Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animal life is fauna, Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the gut flora or skin flora. The word flora comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, the distinction between vegetation and flora was first made by Jules Thurmann. Prior to this, the two terms were used indiscriminately, plants are grouped into floras based on region, period, special environment, or climate. Regions can be geographically distinct habitats like mountain vs. flatland, floras can mean plant life of a historic era as in fossil flora. Lastly, floras may be subdivided by special environments, Native flora, the native and indigenous flora of an area. The plants that are grown by humans. Traditionally this classification was applied to plants regarded as undesirable, many native plants previously considered weeds have been shown to be beneficial or even necessary to various ecosystems. The flora of an area or time period can be documented in a publication also known as a flora. Floras may require specialist botanical knowledge to use with any effectiveness, traditionally they are books, but some are now published on CD-ROM or websites. It is said that the Flora Sinensis by the Polish Jesuit Michał Boym was the first book that used the name Flora in this meaning, however, despite its title it covered not only plants, but also some animals of the region. A published flora often contains diagnostic keys, often these are dichotomous keys, which require the user to repeatedly examine a plant, and decide which one of two alternatives given best applies to the plant
5.
Fauna
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Fauna is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora, flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a collection of animals found in a specific time or place. Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. Fauna comes from the Greek names Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, all three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and panis is the Greek equivalent of fauna. Fauna is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner, the term was first used by Carl Linnaeus from Sweden in the title of his 1745 work Fauna Suecica. Cryofauna are animals that live in, or very close to, cryptofauna are the fauna that exist in protected or concealed microhabitats. Infauna are benthic organisms that live within the substratum of a body of water, especially within the bottom-most oceanic sediments. Bacteria and microalgae may also live in the interstices of bottom sediments, epifauna, also called epibenthos, are aquatic animals that live on the bottom substratum as opposed to within it, that is, the benthic fauna that live on top of the sediment surface at the seafloor. Macrofauna are benthic or soil organisms which are retained on a 0.5 mm sieve, studies in the deep sea define macrofauna as animals retained on a 0.3 mm sieve to account for the small size of many of the taxa. Megafauna are large animals of any region or time. Meiofauna are small invertebrates that live in both marine and fresh water environments. The term Meiofauna loosely defines a group of organisms by their size, larger than microfauna but smaller than macrofauna, one environment for meiofauna is between grains of damp sand. In practice these are metazoan animals that can pass unharmed through a 0.5 –1 mm mesh but will be retained by a 30–45 μm mesh, but the exact dimensions will vary from researcher to researcher. Whether an organism passes through a 1 mm mesh also depends upon whether it is alive or dead at the time of sorting, mesofauna are macroscopic soil invertebrates such as arthropods or nematodes. Mesofauna are extremely diverse, considering just the springtails, as of 1998, microfauna are microscopic or very small animals. Other terms include avifauna, which means bird fauna and piscifauna, which means fish fauna
6.
Geology
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Geology is an earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Geology can also refer generally to the study of the features of any terrestrial planet. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth by providing the evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life. Geology also plays a role in engineering and is a major academic discipline. The majority of data comes from research on solid Earth materials. These typically fall into one of two categories, rock and unconsolidated material, the majority of research in geology is associated with the study of rock, as rock provides the primary record of the majority of the geologic history of the Earth. There are three types of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The rock cycle is an important concept in geology which illustrates the relationships between three types of rock, and magma. When a rock crystallizes from melt, it is an igneous rock, the sedimentary rock can then be subsequently turned into a metamorphic rock due to heat and pressure and is then weathered, eroded, deposited, and lithified, ultimately becoming a sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock may also be re-eroded and redeposited, and metamorphic rock may also undergo additional metamorphism, all three types of rocks may be re-melted, when this happens, a new magma is formed, from which an igneous rock may once again crystallize. Geologists also study unlithified material which typically comes from more recent deposits and these materials are superficial deposits which lie above the bedrock. Because of this, the study of material is often known as Quaternary geology. This includes the study of sediment and soils, including studies in geomorphology, sedimentology and this theory is supported by several types of observations, including seafloor spreading, and the global distribution of mountain terrain and seismicity. This coupling between rigid plates moving on the surface of the Earth and the mantle is called plate tectonics. The development of plate tectonics provided a basis for many observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features could be explained as plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and volcanoes exist, were explained as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart. Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes were explained as convergent boundaries, where one plate subducts under another, transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas Fault system, resulted in widespread powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also provided a mechanism for Alfred Wegeners theory of continental drift and they also provided a driving force for crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology
7.
Conservation (ethic)
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Conservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the world, its fisheries, habitats. Secondary focus is on conservation, including non-renewable resources such as metals, minerals and fossil fuels, and energy conservation. Those who follow the conservation ethic and, especially, those who advocate or work toward conservation goals are termed conservationists, the terms conservation and preservation are frequently conflated outside of the academic, scientific, and professional literatures. Both terms involve a degree of protection, but how that is protection is carried out is the key difference, Conservation is generally associated with the protection of natural resources, while preservation is associated with the protection of buildings, objects, and landscapes. Put simply, conservation seeks the proper use of nature, while preservation seeks protection of nature from use, during the environmental movement of the early 20th century, two opposing factions emerged, conservationists and preservationists. More Utilitarian schools of conservation seek a proper valuation of local and global impacts of human activity upon nature in their effect upon human well being, now and to posterity. How such values are assessed and exchanged among people determines the social, political and this is a view common in the modern environmental movement. These movements have diverged but they have deep and common roots in the conservation movement, in the United States of America, the year 1864 saw the publication of two books which laid the foundation for Romantic and Utilitarian conservation traditions in America. The posthumous publication of Henry David Thoreaus Walden established the grandeur of unspoiled nature as a citadel to nourish the spirit of man, in common usage, the term refers to the activity of systematically protecting natural resources such as forests, including biological diversity. Carl F. Jordan defines the term as, biological conservation as being a philosophy of managing the environment in a manner that does not despoil, exhaust or extinguish. While this usage is not new, the idea of conservation has been applied to the principles of ecology, biogeography, anthropology, economy. The term conservation itself may cover the concepts such as diversity, genetic diversity. These are often summarized as the priority to respect diversity, especially by Greens, much recent movement in conservation can be considered a resistance to commercialism and globalization. Slow food is a consequence of rejecting these as moral priorities, distinct trends exist regarding conservation development. Thus countries like Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, etc, — a long time before there were national parks and national nature reserves. Protected areas in developing countries, where probably as many as 70–80 percent of the species of the live, still enjoy very little effective management. The Adopt A Ranger Foundation has calculated that worldwide about 140,000 rangers are needed for the areas in developing
8.
Research
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It is used to establish or confirm facts, reaffirm the results of previous work, solve new or existing problems, support theorems, or develop new theories. A research project may also be an expansion on past work in the field, to test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole. The primary purposes of research are documentation, discovery, interpretation, or the research and development of methods. Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences, there are several forms of research, scientific, humanities, artistic, economic, social, business, marketing, practitioner research, life, technological, etc. The earliest recorded use of the term was in 1577, Research has been defined in a number of different ways. Another definition of research is given by John W. Creswell and it consists of three steps, pose a question, collect data to answer the question, and present an answer to the question. Original research is research that is not exclusively based on a summary and this material is of a primary source character. The purpose of the research is to produce new knowledge. Original research can take a number of forms, depending on the discipline it pertains to, in analytical work, there are typically some new mathematical results produced, or a new way of approaching an existing problem. The degree of originality of the research is among major criteria for articles to be published in academic journals, graduate students are commonly required to perform original research as part of a dissertation. Scientific research is a way of gathering data and harnessing curiosity. This research provides scientific information and theories for the explanation of the nature, scientific research is funded by public authorities, by charitable organizations and by private groups, including many companies. Scientific research can be subdivided into different classifications according to their academic, Research in the humanities involves different methods such as for example hermeneutics and semiotics. Humanities scholars usually do not search for the correct answer to a question. Context is always important, and context can be social, historical, political, cultural, an example of research in the humanities is historical research, which is embodied in historical method. Historians use primary sources and other evidence to systematically investigate a topic, other studies aim to merely examine the occurrence of behaviours in societies and communities, without particularly looking for reasons or motivations to explain these. These studies may be qualitative or quantitative, and can use a variety of approaches, Artistic research, also seen as practice-based research, can take form when creative works are considered both the research and the object of research itself. It is the body of thought which offers an alternative to purely scientific methods in research in its search for knowledge
9.
Government
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A government is the system by which a state or community is controlled. In the Commonwealth of Nations, the government is also used more narrowly to refer to the collective group of people that exercises executive authority in a state. This usage is analogous to what is called an administration in American English, finally, government is also sometimes used in English as a synonym for governance. In the case of its broad definition, government normally consists of legislators, administrators. Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the mechanism for determining the policy of the state. A form of government, or form of governance, refers to the set of political systems. Government of any kind currently affects every human activity in many important ways, in political science, it has long been a goal to create a typology or taxonomy of polities. as typologies of political systems are not obvious. It is especially important in the science fields of comparative politics. On the surface, identifying a form of government appears to be simple, the United States is a constitutional republic, while the former Soviet Union was a socialist republic. However self-identification is not objective, and as Kopstein and Lichbach argue, for example, elections are a defining characteristic of an electoral democracy, but in practice elections in the former Soviet Union were not free and fair and took place in a one-party state. Voltaire argued that the Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, many governments that officially call themselves a democratic republic are not democratic, nor a republic, they are usually a dictatorship de facto. Communist dictatorships have been prone to use this term. For example, the name of North Vietnam was The Democratic Republic of Vietnam. China uses a variant, The Peoples Republic of China, thus in many practical classifications it would not be considered democratic. Experience with those movements in power, and the ties they may have to particular forms of government. For example, The meaning of conservatism in the United States has little in common with the way the words definition is used elsewhere, as Ribuffo notes, what Americans now call conservatism much of the world calls liberalism or neoliberalism. Since the 1950s conservatism in the United States has been associated with the Republican Party. However, during the era of segregation many Southern Democrats were conservatives, values are sorted from 1–100 based on level of democracy and political accountability
10.
Institution
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Institutions are stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior. As structures or mechanisms of social order, they govern the behaviour of a set of individuals within a given community, Institutions are identified with a social purpose, transcending individuals and intentions by mediating the rules that govern living behavior. Primary or meta-institutions are institutions such as the family that are enough to encompass other institutions. As structures and mechanisms of social order, institutions are an object of study in social sciences such as political science, anthropology, economics. Institutions are also a concern for law, the formal mechanism for political rule-making. That is, institutions arise, develop and function in a pattern of social self-organization beyond conscious intentions of the individuals involved, as mechanisms of social interaction, institutions manifest in both formal organizations, such as the U. S. Formal institutions are set forth by a relevant authority and informal institutions are generally unwritten societal rules, norms. Primary or meta-institutions are institutions that encompass many other institutions, both formal and informal (e. g. the family, government, the economy, education, most important institutions, considered abstractly, have both objective and subjective aspects, examples include money and marriage. The subjective experience of money is so pervasive and persuasive that economists talk of the illusion and try to disabuse their students of it. Examples of institutions include, Family, The family is the center of the childs life, the family teaches children cultural values and attitudes about themselves and others - see sociology of the family. Children learn continuously from the environment that adults create, Children also become aware of class at a very early age and assign different values to each class accordingly. Religion, Some believe religion is like an ethnic or cultural category, making it likely for the individuals to break from religious affiliations. Parental religious participation is the most influential part of religious socialization—more so than religious peers or religious beliefs, see sociology of religion and civil religion. Peer groups, A peer group is a group whose members have interests, social positions. This is where children can escape supervision and learn to form relationships on their own, the influence of the peer group typically peaks during adolescence however peer groups generally only affect short term interests unlike the family which has long term influence. Capitalist society may encourage the growth of centralization and interdependence under the control of an elite, socialism encourages democratic, bottom-up control by the people and their communities. Legal systems, Children are pressured from both parents and peers to conform and obey certain laws or norms of the group/community, parents’ attitudes toward legal systems influence children’s views as to what is legally acceptable. For example, children whose parents are continually in jail are more accepting of incarceration, see jurisprudence, philosophy of law, sociology of law
11.
IUCN protected area categories
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The enlisting of such areas is part of a strategy being used toward the conservation of the worlds natural environment and biodiversity. This categorisation method is recognised on a global scale by national governments and international such as the United Nations. A strict nature reserve is an area which is protected all but light human use in order to preserve the geological and geomorphical features of the region. These areas are home to dense native ecosystems that are restricted from all human disturbance outside of scientific study, environmental monitoring. Because these areas are so strictly protected, they provide ideal pristine environments by which external human influence can be measured, in some cases strict nature reserves are of spiritual significance for surrounding communities, and the areas are also protected for this reason. The people engaged in the practice of their faith within the region have the right to continue to do so, providing it aligns with the areas conservation and management objectives. Human impacts on strict nature reserves are difficult to guard against as climate and air pollution. If perpetual intervention is required to maintain these strict guidelines, the area will often fall into category IV or V, a wilderness area is similar to a strict nature reserve, but generally larger and protected in a slightly less stringent manner. These areas are a domain in which biodiversity and ecosystem processes are allowed to flourish or experience restoration if previously disturbed by human activity. These are areas which may buffer against the effects of change and protect threatened species. A national park is similar to an area in its size. However, national parks tend to be lenient with human visitation. A natural monument or feature is a smaller area that is specifically allocated to protect a natural monument. These monuments can be natural in the wholest sense or include elements that have influenced or introduced by humans. The latter should hold biodiversity associations or could otherwise be classified as a historical or spiritual site, natural monuments or features often play a smaller but key ecological role in the operations of broader conservation objectives. Habitat or species management areas may exist as a fraction of an ecosystem or protected area. Management measures may include the prevention of poaching, creation of habitats, halting natural succession. A protected landscape or protected seascape covers an entire body of land or ocean with a natural conservation plan
12.
Nature park
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A nature park or natural park is a landscape protected by means of long-term planning, use and agriculture. These valuable landscapes are preserved in their present state and promoted for tourism purposes, in most countries nature parks are subject to legally regulated protection, which is part of their conservation laws. Nor is it the same as a reserve which may fall into different IUCN categories depending on the level of legal protection afforded. However some nature parks have later turned into national parks. The first international nature park in Europe, the present-day Pieniny National Park was founded jointly by Poland, european Nature Parks, Cross-border plans and projects are carried out under the Europarc umbrella. They are host to nearly 20 million visitors annually, the designation of nature park is awarded by the respective state governments. To achieve this award, the 4 pillars of a nature park have to be met, conservation, recreation, education, in 1995 all the Austrian nature parks agreed to be represented by the Association of Austrian Nature Parks or VNÖ. Currently there are parks in the following states, In Belgium. In Flanders, their name is Regionale Landschappen and in Wallonia, there are 17 Regionale Landschappen in Flanders and 9 Natural Parks in Wallonia. Fédération des Parcs naturels de Wallonie Regionale Landschappen In Croatia there is a total of eight national parks and they can be established by any State Environment Protection body. The Nature park is one of the options for area-based nature conservation provided for under the Federal Nature Conservation Act, on 6 June 1956 in the former capital city of Bonn at the annual meeting of the Nature Reserve Association. Five percent of the area of the old Federal Republic of Germany was to be spared from major damage as a result. The definition of the category of park is laid down in federal law. Details, especially regard to the identification, investigation or recognition as a nature park vary in each state depending on the provisions of local conservation law. The underlying idea is a protection through usage, so the acceptance and participation of the population in the protection of the cultural landscape and nature is very important. In doing so the conservation and the needs of recreation users should be linked so that both sides benefit, sustainable tourism with respect for the value of nature and landscape is paramount. Basically all actions, interventions and projects that would be contrary to the purpose of conservation are prohibited, Nature parks are to be considered in zoning and must be represented and considered in local development plans. This is called an acquisition memorandum and they are binding and cannot be waived because of a higher common good
13.
Charles Waterton
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Charles Waterton was an English naturalist and explorer. He is best known as a pioneering conservationist, Waterton was of a Roman Catholic landed gentry family descended from Reiner de Waterton. He was a descendant of Ailric, Kings Thane to Edward the Confessor, the heiress Sara le Neville inherited a vast estate from her grandfather Adam FitzSwain and it passed to the De Burghes, then to the Watertons in 1435. The Watertons remained Catholic after the English Reformation and consequently the vast majority of their estates were confiscated, Charles Waterton himself was a devout and ascetic Catholic, and maintained strong links with the Vatican. Squire Waterton was born at Walton Hall, Wakefield, Yorkshire to Thomas Waterton and he was educated at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire where his interest in exploration and wildlife were already evident. On one occasion Waterton was caught by the schools Jesuit Superior scaling the towers at the front of the building, almost at the top, I followed up my calling with great success. The vermin disappeared by the dozen, the books were moderately well-thumbed, in 1804 he travelled to British Guiana to take charge of his uncles estates near Georgetown. In 1812 he started to explore the hinterland of the colony and he described his discoveries in his book Watertons Wanderings in South America, which inspired British schoolboys such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. His explorations laid to rest the persistent myth of Raleighs Lake Parime by suggesting that the flooding of the Rupununi savannah had been misidentified as a lake. Waterton was a skilled taxidermist and preserved many of the animals he encountered on his expeditions and he employed a unique method of taxidermy, soaking the specimens in what he called sublimate of mercury. Unlike many preserved animals, his specimens are hollow and lifelike, another specimen was the bottom of a howler monkey which he turned into an almost human face and simply labelled The Nondescript. This specimen is still on display at the Wakefield Museum, along other items from Watertons collection. While he was in British Guiana Waterton taught his skills to one of his uncles slaves, Edmonstone, by then freed and practising taxidermy in Edinburgh, in turn taught the teenage Darwin. Waterton is credited with bringing the anaesthetic agent curare wourali to Europe, in London, with Fellows of the Royal Society, he immobilised several animals, including a cat and a she-ass, with his wourali, and then revived the she-ass with a bellows. The ass was named Wouralia and lived for years at Walton Hall and he also invented the bird nesting box. The Waterton Collection, on display at Stonyhurst College until 1966, is now in the Wakefield Museum, Waterton owned a dog who was prominent in the foundation of the modern English Mastiff and may be traced back to in the pedigrees of all living dogs of this breed. On 11 May 1829, at the age of 47, Waterton married 17-year-old Anne Edmonstone and his wife died shortly after giving birth to their son, Edmund, when she was only 18. After her death he slept on the floor with a block of wood for a pillow, Waterton was an early opponent of pollution
14.
Devanampiya Tissa of Anuradhapura
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Tissa, later Devanampiya Tissa was one of the earliest kings of Sri Lanka based at the ancient capital of Anuradhapura from 307 BC to 267 BC. His reign was notable for the arrival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka under the aegis of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, the primary source for his reign is the Mahavamsa, which in turn is based on the more ancient Dipavamsa. Tissa was the son of Mutasiva of Anuradhapura. The Mahavamsa describes him as being foremost among all his brothers in virtue, the Mahavamsa mentions an early friendship with Ashoka. The king does not appear to have done this at the time, instead adopting the name Devānaṃpiya Beloved of the Gods, Devanampiyatissa is traditionally said to have been succeeded by his younger brothers Uttiya and Mahasiva. His other brother Mahanaga, Prince of Ruhuna was the founder of the Principality of Ruhuna. Emperor Ashoka took a keen interest in the propagation of Buddhism across the known world, the events surrounding Mahindas arrival and meeting with the king form one of the most important legends of Sri Lankan history. According to the Mahavamsa king Devanampiyatissa was out enjoying a hunt with some 40,000 of his soldiers near a mountain called Mihintale, the date for this is traditionally associated with the full moon day of the month of Poson. However, Thera Mahinda declared that Recluses we are, O great King, Devanampiyatissa recalled the news from his friend Ashoka and realised that these are missionaries sent from India. Thera Mahinda went on to preach to the company and preside over the kings conversion to Buddhism. Establishment of Buddhism in Sri Lanka due to the arrival of Thera Mahinda, planting of the Sacred Maha Bodhi and the establishment of the Bhikkuni Sasana due to the arrival of Theri Sangamitta and her group. Offering of the Mahamegavana to the Buddhist monks where the Maha Vihara monastery was built, construction of Thuparama, the first historical dagaba which enshrined the right collar bone of the Buddha. For example, whilst there are references to a Tissamahavihara and various other temples constructed by the king, what is fairly certain however is that the site of his initial meeting with Thera Mahinda is one of Sri Lankas most sacred sites today, going by the name Mihintale. The other major site associated with Devanampiyatissas reign is the planting of the Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura, the tree was yet another of Emperor Ashokas gifts to the island and was planted within the precincts of Anuradhapura, and is regarded as the oldest tree in the world. Devanampiyatissa built Tissa Wewa, which covers 550 acres, the embankment alone is 2 miles long and 25 feet high. It is an irrigation tank even today and is an essential resource for farmers in Anuradhapura. Later monarchs were to back to Devanampiyatissas conversion as one of the cornerstones of the Anuradhapuran polity. The city itself remained capital of a kingdom until the early Middle Ages
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Sri Lanka
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Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia near south-east India. Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest, Sri Lankas documented history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of pre-historic human settlements dating back to at least 125,000 years. Its geographic location and deep harbours made it of strategic importance from the time of the ancient Silk Road through to World War II. Sri Lanka was known from the beginning of British colonial rule until 1972 as Ceylon, Sri Lankas recent history has been marred by a thirty-year civil war which decisively ended when the Sri Lankan military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. A diverse and multicultural country, Sri Lanka is home to many religions, ethnic groups, in addition to the majority Sinhalese, it is home to large groups of Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, Moors, Burghers, Malays, Kaffirs and the aboriginal Vedda. Sri Lanka has a rich Buddhist heritage, and the first known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka is a republic and a unitary state governed by a semi-presidential system. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the capital and largest city. Along with the Maldives, Sri Lanka is one of the two countries in South Asia that are rated among high human development on the Human Development Index. In antiquity, Sri Lanka was known to travellers by a variety of names, according to the Mahavamsa, the legendary Prince Vijaya named the land Tambapanni, because his followers hands were reddened by the red soil of the area. In Hindu mythology, such as the Mahabharata, the island was referred to as Lankā, in Tamil, the island is referred to as Eelam. Ancient Greek geographers called it Taprobanā or Taprobanē from the word Tambapanni, as a British crown colony, the island was known as Ceylon, it achieved independence as the Dominion of Ceylon in 1948. The country is known in Sinhalese as Śrī Laṃkā and in Tamil as Ilaṅkai, in 1972, its formal name was changed to Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka. Later in 1978 it was changed to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, as the name Ceylon still appears in the names of a number of organisations, the Sri Lankan government announced in 2011 a plan to rename all those over which it has authority. The pre-history of Sri Lanka goes back 125,000 years, the era spans the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and early Iron Ages. Among the Paleolithic human settlements discovered in Sri Lanka, Pahiyangala and it is said that Kubera was overthrown by his demon stepbrother Ravana, the powerful emperor who built a mythical flying machine named Dandu Monara. The modern city of Wariyapola is described as Ravanas airport, early inhabitants of Sri Lanka were probably ancestors of the Vedda people, an indigenous people numbering approximately 2,500 living in modern-day Sri Lanka. According to the Mahāvamsa, a written in Pāḷi, the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka are the Yakshas and Nagas. Ancient cemeteries that were used before 600BC and other signs of advanced civilization has also discovered in Sri Lanka
16.
Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
17.
Explorer
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Exploration is the act of searching for the purpose of discovery of information or resources. Exploration occurs in all animal species, including humans. In human history, its most dramatic rise was during the Age of Discovery when European explorers sailed and charted much of the rest of the world for a variety of reasons. Since then, major explorations after the Age of Discovery have occurred for reasons mostly aimed at information discovery, in scientific research, exploration is one of three purposes of empirical research. The term is used metaphorically. For example, an individual may speak of exploring the Internet, sexuality, the Phoenicians traded throughout the Mediterranean Sea and Asia Minor though many of their routes are still unknown today. The presence of tin in some Phoenician artifacts suggests that they may have traveled to Britain, according to Virgils Aeneid and other ancient sources, the legendary Queen Dido was a Phoenician from Tyre who sailed to North Africa and founded the city of Carthage. Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginean navigator explored the Western Coast of Africa, the Greek explorer from Marseille, Pytheas was the first to circumnavigate Great Britain, explore Germany, and reach Thule. Africa Exploration The Romans organized expeditions to cross the Sahara desert with five different routes, through the western Sahara, toward the Niger river, through the Tibesti mountains, toward Lake Chad and actual Nigeria through the Nile river, toward actual Uganda. Though the western coast of Africa, toward the Canary Islands, through the Red Sea, toward actual Somalia and perhaps Tanzania. All these expeditions were supported by legionaries and had mainly a commercial purpose, only the one done by emperor Nero seemed to be a preparative for the conquest of Ethiopia or Nubia, in 62 AD two legionaries explored the sources of the Nile river. One of the reasons of the explorations was to get gold using the camel to transport it. The explorations near the African western and eastern coasts were supported by Roman ships, Romans organized several explorations also in Northern Europe, and as far as Asia up to China. 30 BC-640 AD With the acquisition of Ptolemaic Egypt, The Romans begin trading with India, the Empire now has a direct connection to the Spice trade Egypt had established beginning in 118 BC.100 AD-166 AD Romano-Chinese relations begin. Ptolemy writes of the Golden Chersonese and the port of Kattigara, now identified as Óc Eo in northern Vietnam, then part of Jiaozhou. The Chinese historical texts describe Roman embassies, from a land they called Daqin, 2nd century Roman traders reach Siam, Cambodia, Sumatra, and Java. 161 An embassy from Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius or his successor Marcus Aurelius reaches Chinese Emperor Huan of Han at Luoyang, when Zhang returned to China in 125 BC, he reported on his visits to Dayuan, Kangju, and Daxia. Zhang described Dayuan and Daxia as agricultural and urban countries like China, from about 800 Ad to 1040 AD, the Vikings explored Europe and much of the Western Northern Hemisphere via rivers and oceans
18.
Walton Hall, West Yorkshire
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Walton Hall is a stately home in the county of West Yorkshire, England, near Wakefield. It was built in the Palladian style in 1767 on an island within a 26-acre lake and it was the ancestral home of the naturalist and traveller Charles Waterton, who made Walton Hall into the worlds first wildfowl and nature reserve. Watertons son, Edmund, sold the estate, the Waterton Collection is now in Wakefield Museum. Walton Hall is now part of the Waterton Park Hotel, in the 1940s and again in the early 1950s and early 1960s the Hall was a maternity home. The day the Normans first came to Yorkshire, Ailric was at Walton Hall and was alerted by a man on horseback that they were coming in force. He hastily amassed his retainers and on horseback they ambushed the mounted Norman knights of Ilbert de Laci, the better armoured and armed knights of Ilbert de Laci were able to drive off this attack. The descendant of this family, Sara le Neville, married Thomas De Burgh, Walton Hall was one of six manors, including the manors at Silkstone and Cawthorne and the De Burgh manors in North Yorkshire, that she lived at through the year. In 1333, Sir Philip de Burgh was granted a licence to crenelate his manor house at Walton, in the time of Sir Robert Waterton who served King Henry VIII the hall came to the waters edge and was three storeys high. Sir Robert Watertons father-in-law was Sir Richard Tempest, who was with King Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold and his father in law was also Steward of the Kings manor of Wakefield and involved in the Tempest - Saville feud. The only part of the old buildings that remain is the old watergate, at that time it was the only entrance to be made, across a lowered drawbridge. The old oak hall referred to by Charles Waterton was on the storey and was in an L shape. The entrance hall at Walton Hall still has armorial shields on the walls represent the ancestors of the Waterton family at Walton Hall. The Waterton family intermarried with other prominent Yorkshire families of the age, including the Percys, the Barnbys, the Wentworths. Walton Hall is a proposed UNESCO World Heritage site, Sir David Attenborough has stated that “Walton Hall is an extremely important site in the history of nature conservation worldwide. It is, arguably, the first tract of land anywhere in modern times to be protected, guarded and maintained as a nature reserve. ”Http, //www. overtown. org. uk/index. html, Overtown Miscellany - Walton & Squire Waterton
19.
Poaching
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Poaching has traditionally been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, poaching was performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes, Poaching was as well set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers. By contrast, stealing domestic animals classifies as theft, not as poaching, since the 1980s, the term poaching has also referred to the illegal harvesting of wild plant species. Austria and Germany refer to poaching not as theft, but as intrusion in third party hunting rights, while Germanic law allowed any free man including peasants to hunt, especially on the commons, roman law restricted hunting for the rulers. Medieval Europe saw feudal territory rulers from the king downward trying to enforce exclusive rights of the nobility to hunt, Poaching was being deemed a serious crime punishable by imprisonment but the enforcement, till the 16th century, was comparably weak. Peasants still were able to continue small game hunting, the right of the nobility to hunt was restricted in the 16th century, the development of modern hunting rights is closely connected to the comparably modern idea of exclusive private property of land. In the 17th and 18th centuries the restrictions on hunting and shooting rights on private property were being enforced by gamekeepers and foresters and they denied shared usages of forests, e. g. resin collection and wood pasture and the peasants right to hunt and fish. However, comparably easy access to rifles increasingly allowed peasants and servants to poach end of the 18th century, the low quality of guns made it necessary to approach to the game as close as 30 meters. For example, poachers in the Salzburg region then were around 30 years old men, not yet married, hunting was being used in the 18th century as a theatrical demonstration of aristocratic rule of the land and had a strong impact on land use patterns as well. Poaching in so far inferred not only with property rights but clashed symbolically with the power of the nobility, the years between 1830 and 1848 saw a strong increase in poaching and poaching related deaths in Bavaria. The revolution of 1848 was interpreted as an allowance for poaching in Bavaria. The reform of hunting law in 1849 reduced legal hunting to rich land owners, some of the frontier region, where smuggling was of importance, showed especially strong resistance. In 1849, the Bavarian military forces were being asked to occupy a number of municipalities on the frontier to Austria. Both, in Wallgau and in Lackenhäuser, one soldier per household was to be fed, the people of Lackenhäuser had had several skirmishes about poached deer with Austrian foresters and even military and were known as well armed pertly poachers. Poaching, like smuggling, has a long counter-cultural history, the verb poach is derived from the Middle English word pocchen literally meaning bagged, enclosed in a bag. Poaching was dispassionately reported for England in Pleas of the Forest, William the Conqueror, who was a great lover of hunting, established and enforced a system of forest law. Henceforth hunting of game in royal forests by commoners or in other words poaching, was punishable by death by hanging. In 1087, a poem called The Rime of King William contained in the Peterborough Chronicle, Poaching was romanticised in literature from the time of the ballads of Robin Hood, as an aspect of the greenwood of Merry England
20.
Owl
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Exceptions include the diurnal northern hawk-owl and the gregarious burrowing owl. Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds and they are found in all regions of the Earth except Antarctica and some remote islands. Owls are divided into two families, the Strigidae family of owls, and the Tytonidae family of barn-owls. Owls possess large, forward-facing eyes and ear-holes, a beak, a flat face, and usually a conspicuous circle of feathers. The feathers making up this disc can be adjusted to focus sounds from varying distances onto the owls asymmetrically placed ear cavities. Most birds of prey have eyes on the sides of their heads, although owls have binocular vision, their large eyes are fixed in their sockets—as are those of most other birds—so they must turn their entire heads to change views. As owls are farsighted, they are unable to see anything within a few centimeters of their eyes. Caught prey can be felt by owls with the use of feathers on the beak. Their far vision, particularly in low light, is exceptionally good, Owls can rotate their heads and necks as much as 270°. Owls have 14 neck vertebrae compared to seven in humans, which makes their necks more flexible, other anastomoses between the carotid and vertebral arteries support this effect. The smallest owl—weighing as little as 31 g and measuring some 13.5 cm —is the elf owl, around the same diminutive length, although slightly heavier, are the lesser known long-whiskered owlet and Tamaulipas pygmy owl. The largest owl by length is the great grey owl, which measures around 70 cm on average, however, the heaviest owls are two similarly sized eagle owls, the Eurasian eagle-owl and Blakistons fish owl. These two species, which are on average about 2.53 cm shorter in length than the great grey, as noted above, their facial discs help owls to funnel the sound of prey to their ears. In many species, these discs are placed asymmetrically, for better directional location, Owl plumage is generally cryptic, although several species have facial and head markings, including face masks, ear tufts, and brightly coloured irises. These markings are more common in species inhabiting open habitats. Sexual dimorphism is a difference between males and females of a species. Reverse sexual dimorphism, when females are larger than males, has been observed across multiple owl species, the degree of size dimorphism varies across multiple populations and species, and is measured through various traits, such as wing span and body mass. Overall, female owls tend to be larger than males
21.
Drachenfels (Siebengebirge)
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The Drachenfels is a hill in the Siebengebirge uplands between Königswinter and Bad Honnef in Germany. The hill was formed by rising magma that could not break through to the surface and it is the subject of much tourism and romanticism in the North Rhine-Westphalia area. The ruined castle Burg Drachenfels, on the summit of the hill, was built between 1138 and 1167 by Archbishop Arnold I of Cologne and bears the same name and it was originally intended for the protection of the Cologne region from any assault from the south. Originally it consisted of a bergfried with court, chapel and living quarters for servants, the castle was slighted in 1634, during the Thirty Years War, by the Protestant Swedes and never rebuilt. As a strategic asset it had outlived its usefulness, erosion due to the continued quarrying undermined much of the remains and only a small part is left today. Of all the hills in the Siebengebirge, it is closest to the river Rhine, quarrying ended in 1836, when the Prussian government bought the quarry. In 1922 the first protection measures were put in place and in 1956 the site was declared a national park, the rock and the ruins gained popularity in the romantic era, after the Napoleonic Wars had ended. The visit of Lord Byron to Mehlem and its appearance in Childe Harolds Pilgrimage provided the rock with international attention and it soon became a highlight of the so-called Rhine romanticism. Poems were composed by people like Edward Bulwer-Lytton and locally by Heinrich Heine, thus popularized, and, since 1883, accessible by rail it evolved into a tourist attraction, which it still is. A neogothic castle, lower on the hill, is named Schloss Drachenburg and was built in 1882 by Baron Stephan von Sarter, both the top and Schloss Drachenburg can be reached by the Drachenfelsbahn, a rack railway built in the 19th century to satisfy demand from growing tourism. The Drachenfels is sometimes irreverently called Schwiegermutterfelsen or jokingly referred to as the highest hill in Holland because of its popularity among Dutch tourists and it is the first substantial elevation one encounters when traveling upstream on the Rhine from the Netherlands. In the 1970s a new restaurant was built on top of the hill in the then popular brutalistic style, in January 2011 work began to demolish it, renovate the buildings from the 1930s and replace the restaurant with a glass cube. The project is expected to be finished in the summer of 2012, hence, the hill is named the Dragons Rock, Drachenfels. About a third of the way up is the Nibelungenhalle, built in 1913, another legend tells of prisoners being sacrificed to a dragon. One of these was a Christian virgin, who, in her fear, in fear of this holy symbol, the dragon jumped into the Rhine and was never heard from again. A third, less pious, story has it the one day attacked a boat laden with gunpowder, causing an explosion which destroyed the ship. Next to Oberdollendorf, some 10 km downstream the Drachenfels is the most northerly slope used for viticulture along the Rhine, riesling dominates, but in smaller quantities also Gewürztraminer, Scheurebe, Dornfelder, Kerner, Grau-, Weiss- and Spätburgunder are cultivated. The slopes are maintained and harvested by hand, since they are too steep for machinery, list of mountains and hills in North Rhine-Westphalia This article is a condensed version of the German article
22.
Nest box
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A nest box, also spelled nestbox, is a man-made enclosure provided for animals to nest in. Nest boxes are most frequently utilized for birds, in case they are also called birdhouses or a birdbox/bird box. Placing nestboxes or roosting boxes may also be used to maintain populations of particular species in an area. The nest box was invented by the British conservationist Charles Waterton in the early 19th century to encourage more birdlife, nest boxes are usually wooden, although the purple martin will nest in metal. Some boxes are made from a mixture of wood and concrete, boxes may either have an entrance hole or be open-fronted. Some nest boxes can be decorated and complex, sometimes mimicking human houses or other structures. They may also contain nest box cameras so that use of, and activity within, the diameter of the opening in a nest-box has a very strong influence on the species of birds that will use the box. Many small birds select boxes with a hole only just large enough for a bird to pass through. This may be an adaptation to prevent other birds from raiding it, the size of the nest box also affects the bird species likely to use the box. Very small boxes attract wrens and treecreepers and very large ones may attract ducks, seasonally removing old nest material and parasites is important if they are to be successfully re-used. The material used in the construction may also be significant, sparrows have been shown to prefer woodcrete boxes rather than wooden ones. Birds nesting in woodcrete sites had earlier clutches, an incubation period. Placement of the nest box obviously is also significant, some birds prefer their nest box to be at an optimum height. Some birds prefer nest sites them to be low or even at ground level. For many birds orientation relative to the sun is of importance with many birds preferring an orientation away from direct sun and sheltered from the prevailing rain. Some threatened bat species can be supported with the provision of appropriately placed bat-boxes. Bat boxes are made out of wood, and there are several designs for boxes with single or multiple chambers. Directions for making the open bottom bat houses for small and large colonies, colour and placement is important to ensuring that bat boxes are used, bat boxes that are too shaded will not heat up enough to attract a maternity colony of bats
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Common starling
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The common starling, also known as the European starling, or in the British Isles just the starling, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about 20 cm long and has black plumage with a metallic sheen. The legs are pink and the bill is black in winter and yellow in summer and it is a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts and other gregarious situations, with an unmusical but varied song. Its gift for mimicry has been noted in literature including the Mabinogion, the common starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy, pale blue eggs are laid. These take two weeks to hatch and the remain in the nest for another three weeks. There are normally one or two breeding attempts each year and this species is omnivorous, taking a wide range of invertebrates, as well as seeds and fruit. It is hunted by various mammals and birds of prey, and is host to a range of external and internal parasites. Large flocks typical of species can be beneficial to agriculture by controlling invertebrate pests, however, starlings can also be pests themselves when they feed on fruit. Common starlings may also be a nuisance through the noise and mess caused by their large urban roosts, introduced populations in particular have been subjected to a range of controls, including culling, but these have had limited success except in preventing the colonisation of Western Australia. The species has declined in numbers in parts of northern and western Europe since the 1980s due to fewer grassland invertebrates being available as food for growing chicks, the common starling was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758 under its current binomial name. Sturnus and vulgaris are derived from the Latin for starling and common respectively, the Old English staer, later stare, and the Latin sturnus are both derived from an unknown Indo-European root dating back to the second millennium BC. Starling was first recorded in the 11th century, when it referred to the juvenile of the species, the older name is referenced in William Butler Yeats poem The Stares Nest by My Window. The International Ornithological Congress preferred English vernacular name is common starling, the starling family, Sturnidae, is an entirely Old World group apart from introductions elsewhere, with the greatest numbers of species in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The genus Sturnus is polyphyletic and relationships between its members are not fully resolved, the closest relation of the common starling is the spotless starling. There is more variation between common starling populations than between nominate common starling and spotless starling. Although common starling remains are known from the Middle Pleistocene, part of the problem in resolving relationships in the Sturnidae is the paucity of the record for the family as a whole. There are several subspecies of the starling, which vary clinally in size. The gradual variation over geographic range and extensive intergradation means that acceptance of the various subspecies varies between authorities, several other subspecies have been named, but are generally no longer considered valid
24.
Western jackdaw
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The western jackdaw, also known as the Eurasian jackdaw, European jackdaw, or simply jackdaw, is a passerine bird in the crow family. Found across Europe, western Asia and North Africa, it is mostly resident, four subspecies are recognised, which mainly differ in the colouration of the plumage on the head and nape. Linnaeus first described it formally, giving it the name Corvus monedula, the common name derives from the word jack, meaning small, and daw, the native English name for the bird. Measuring 34–39 centimetres in length, the jackdaw is a black-plumaged bird with a grey nape. It is gregarious and vocal, living in groups with a complex social structure in farmland, open woodland, on coastal cliffs. Like its relatives, Jackdaws are intelligent birds, and have been observed using tools, an omnivorous and opportunistic feeder, it eats a wide variety of plant material and invertebrates, as well as food waste from urban areas. Western jackdaws are monogamous and build nests of sticks in cavities in trees, cliffs. About five pale blue or blue-green eggs with brown speckles are laid, the young fledge in four to five weeks. The western jackdaw was one of the species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae. Jackdaws are sometimes placed in the genus Coloeus, from the Ancient Greek κολοιός for jackdaw, formerly, western jackdaws were simply called daws. The metallic chyak call may be the origin of the part of the common name. Names in English dialects are numerous, scottish and north English dialects have included ka or kae since the 14th century. The Midlands form of this word was co or coo, caddow is potentially a compound of ka and dow, a variant of daw. Other dialectal or obsolete names include caddesse, cawdaw, caddy, chauk, college-bird, jackerdaw, jacko, ka-wattie, chimney-sweep bird and it was also frequently known quasi-nominally as Jack. An archaic collective noun for a group of jackdaws is a clattering, another name for a flock is a train. A study in 2000 found that the distance between jackdaws and the other members of Corvus was greater than that within the rest of the genus. A study of corvid phylogeny undertaken in 2007 compared DNA sequences in the control region of several corvids. It found that the western jackdaw, and the closely related Daurian jackdaw of eastern Russia, the names Coloeus monedula and Coloeus dauuricus have since been adopted by the International Ornithological Congress in their official list
25.
Sand martin
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The sand martin or European sand martin, bank swallow in the Americas, and collared sand martin in the Indian Subcontinent, is a migratory passerine bird in the swallow family. It has a range in summer, embracing practically the whole of Europe. It winters in eastern and southern Africa, South America and the Indian Subcontinent, the specific name means of the riverbank, it is derived from the Latin ripa riverbank. The pale martin of northern India and southeastern China is now split as a separate species Riparia diluta. It has paler grey-brown upperparts and a less distinct breast band and it winters in Pakistan and southern India. The 12 cm long sand martin is brown above, white below with a brown band on the breast, the bill is black. The young have rufous tips to the coverts and margins to the secondaries and its brown back, white throat, small size and quick jerky flight separate it at once from similar swallows, such as the common house martin, the American cliff swallow or other species of Riparia. Only the banded martin of sub-Saharan Africa is similar, but the sand martin only occurs there in winter, the sand martins twittering song is continuous when the birds are on the wing and becomes a conversational undertone after they have settled in the roost. The harsh alarm is heard when a falcon, crow or other suspected predator requires combined action to drive it away. Linnaeus already remarked on this species breeding habits, Habitat in Europae collibus arenosis abruptis, foramine serpentino—it lives in Europe and it has been observed that sand martins favour loess as a particular type of ground to nest in. Sand martins are generally found near bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes or even the ocean. The sand martin appears on its grounds as the first of its family, starting towards the end of March. In northern Ohio, they arrive in numbers by mid-April, about 10 days earlier than they did 100 years ago, at first, they flit over the larger bodies of water alone, in search of early flies. Later parties accompany other species, but for a time, varying according to weather. The sand martin departs early, at any rate from its more northerly haunts, in August, the gatherings at the nightly roost increase enormously, though the advent and departure of passage birds causes great irregularity in numbers. They are essentially gone from their range by the end of September. The food consists of insects, mostly gnats and other flies whose early stages are aquatic. The sand martin is sociable in its habits, from a dozen to many hundred pairs will nest close together
26.
Little owl
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The little owl is a bird that inhabits much of the temperate and warmer parts of Europe, Asia east to Korea, and north Africa. It was introduced into Britain at the end of the nineteenth century and this owl is a member of the typical or true owl family, Strigidae, which contains most species of owl, the other grouping being the barn owls, Tytonidae. It is a small, cryptically coloured, mainly nocturnal species and is found in a range of habitats including farmland, woodland fringes, steppes and it feeds on insects, earthworms, other invertebrates and small vertebrates. Males hold territories which they defend against intruders and this owl is a cavity nester and a clutch of about four eggs is laid in spring. The female does the incubation and the male brings food to the nest, first for the female, as the chicks grow, both parents hunt and bring them food, and the chicks leave the nest at about seven weeks of age. Being a common species with a range and large total population. The little owl is an owl with a flat-topped head, a plump, compact body. The facial disc is flattened above the eyes giving the bird a frowning expression, the plumage is greyish-brown, spotted, streaked and barred with white. The underparts are pale and streaked with darker colour and it is usually 22 centimetres in length with a wingspan of 56 centimetres for both sexes, and weighs about 180 grams. The adult little owl of the most widespread form, the nominate A. n. noctua, is white-speckled brown above and it has a large head, long legs, and yellow eyes, and its white “eyebrows” give it a stern expression. Juveniles are duller, and lack the white crown spots. This species has a flight like a woodpecker but the rounded wingtips. Moult begins in July and continues to November, with male starting before female, the call is a querulous kiew, kiew. Less frequently, various whistling or trilling calls are uttered, in the breeding season, other more modulated calls are made, and a pair may call in duet. Various yelping, chattering or barking sounds are made in the vicinity of the nest, the distribution is widespread across Europe, Asia and North Africa. Its range in Eurasia extends from the Iberian Peninsula and Denmark eastwards to China, in Africa it is present from Mauritania to Egypt, the Red Sea and Arabia. The bird has been introduced to New Zealand, and to the United Kingdom, where it has spread across much of England and this is a sedentary species which is found in open countryside in a great range of habitats. These include agricultural land with hedgerows and trees, orchards, woodland verges, parks and gardens, as well as steppes and it is also present in treeless areas such as dunes, and in the vicinity of ruins, quarries and rocky outcrops
27.
David Attenborough
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Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS FRSB FLS FZS FSA is an English veteran broadcaster and naturalist. He is also a senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two. He is the person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD. Attenborough is widely considered a treasure in Britain, although he himself does not like the term. In 2002 he was named among the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide poll for the BBC and he is the younger brother of director, producer and actor Richard Attenborough, and older brother of motor executive John Attenborough. Attenborough was born in Isleworth, West London, but grew up in College House on the campus of the University College, Leicester and he is the middle of three sons, and the only surviving child among them. During World War II, through a British charitable programme known as Kindertransport, Attenborough spent his childhood collecting fossils, stones and other natural specimens. He received encouragement in this pursuit at age seven, when a young Jacquetta Hawkes admired his museum, the source, which wasnt revealed at the time, was a pond less than 5 metres from the department. A few years later, one of his sisters gave him a piece of amber filled with prehistoric creatures, some 50 years later. In 1936 David and his brother Richard attended a lecture by Grey Owl at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, and were influenced by his advocacy of conservation. The idea that mankind was endangering nature by recklessly despoiling and plundering its riches was unheard of at the time, in 1999, Richard directed a biopic of Belaney entitled Grey Owl. In 1947 he was called up for service in the Royal Navy. In 1950 Attenborough married Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel, she died in 1997, the couple had two children, Robert and Susan. Robert is a lecturer in bioanthropology for the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra. Susan is a primary school headmistress. After leaving the Navy, Attenborough took a position editing childrens science textbooks for a publishing company and he soon became disillusioned with the work and in 1950 applied for a job as a radio talk producer with the BBC. Although he was rejected for this job, his CV later attracted the interest of Mary Adams, Attenborough, like most Britons at that time, did not own a television, and he had seen only one programme in his life. However, he accepted Adams offer of a training course
28.
Prussia
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Prussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centred on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised, Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership, in November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, from 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its Gleichschaltung laws in pursuit of a unitary state. Prussia existed de jure until its liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No.46 of 25 February 1947. The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Gdańsk and their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The Second Peace of Thorn split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom, and exercised most influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century it had a say in many international affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great. During the 19th century, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck united the German principalities into a Lesser Germany which excluded the Austrian Empire. At the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleons defeat, Prussia acquired a section of north western Germany. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians. In the Weimar Republic, the state of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. East Prussia lost all of its German population after 1945, as Poland, the main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background. The black and white colours were already used by the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Order wore a white coat embroidered with a cross with gold insert
29.
Yellowstone National Park
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Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the U. S. states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. It was established by the U. S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1,1872. Yellowstone was the first National Park in the U. S. and is widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many features, especially Old Faithful Geyser. It has many types of ecosystems, but the subalpine forest is the most abundant and it is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion. Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years, aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. Management and control of the park fell under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior. However, the U. S. Army was subsequently commissioned to oversee management of Yellowstone for a 30-year period between 1886 and 1916, in 1917, administration of the park was transferred to the National Park Service, which had been created the previous year. Hundreds of structures have been built and are protected for their architectural and historical significance, Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 square miles, comprising lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the caldera is considered an active volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years, half of the worlds geothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly-intact ecosystem in the Earths northern temperate zone, hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include species of plants. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous location in the Continental United States. Grizzly bears, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in the park, the Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. Forest fires occur in the each year, in the large forest fires of 1988. Yellowstone has numerous opportunities, including hiking, camping, boating, fishing and sightseeing
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Wyoming
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Wyoming /waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/ is a state in the mountain region of the western United States. The state is the tenth largest by area, the least populous, Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. Cheyenne is the capital and the most populous city in Wyoming, the state population was estimated at 586,107 in 2015, which is less than the population of 31 of the largest U. S. cities. The Crow, Arapaho, Lakota, and Shoshone were some of the inhabitants of the region. Southwestern Wyoming was included in the Spanish Empire and then Mexican territory until it was ceded to the United States in 1848 at the end of the Mexican–American War. The region acquired the name Wyoming when a bill was introduced to Congress in 1865 to provide a government for the territory of Wyoming. The territory was named after the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, with the name ultimately being derived from the Munsee word xwé, wamənk, the mineral extraction industry—especially coal, oil, natural gas, and trona—along with the travel and tourism sector are the main drivers behind Wyomings economy. Agriculture has historically been an important component of the economy with the main commodities being livestock, hay, sugar beets, grain. The climate is generally semi-arid and continental, being drier and windier in comparison to the rest of the United States, except for the 1964 election, Wyoming has been a politically conservative state since the 1950s, with the Republican party winning every presidential election. Wyoming is one of three states to have borders along only straight latitudinal and longitudinal lines, rather than being defined by natural landmarks. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area, from the north border to the south border it is 276 miles, and from the east to the west border is 365 miles at its south end and 342 miles at the north end. The Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, the state is a great plateau broken by many mountain ranges. Surface elevations range from the summit of Gannett Peak in the Wind River Mountain Range, at 13,804 feet, to the Belle Fourche River valley in the states northeast corner, at 3,125 feet. In the northwest are the Absaroka, Owl Creek, Gros Ventre, Wind River, in the north central are the Big Horn Mountains, in the northeast, the Black Hills, and in the southern region the Laramie, Snowy and Sierra Madre ranges. The Snowy Range in the central part of the state is an extension of the Colorado Rockies in both geology and appearance. The Wind River Range in the west central part of the state is remote and includes more than 40 mountain peaks in excess of 13,000 ft tall in addition to Gannett Peak, the highest peak in the state. The Big Horn Mountains in the central portion are somewhat isolated from the bulk of the Rocky Mountains
31.
Royal National Park
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The Royal National Park, colloquially the Nasho or the Royal, is a protected national park that is located in Sutherland Shire, south of Sydney, New South Wales, in eastern Australia. The 15, 091-hectare national park is about 29 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district near the localities of Loftus, Otford and it was the second national park in the world, and the first to have National Park as part of its name. It was founded by Sir John Robertson, Acting Premier of New South Wales and its original name was National Park, but it was renamed in 1955 after Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia passed by in the train during her 1954 tour. The park was added to the Australian National Heritage List in December 2006, the park includes the settlements of Audley, Maianbar and Bundeena. There was once a line connected to the Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra Line. Audley can be accessed by road, from Loftus, Waterfall or Otford, Bundeena and Maianbar can also be accessed by road through the park or by the passenger ferry service from Cronulla. There are numerous cycling and walking trails, barbecue areas and picnic sites throughout the park, over 100 kilometres of walking tracks take in a wide range of scenery. Cycling is allowed on some trails and only on specially marked tracks within the Park. The specially marked mountain biking tracks are bi-directional, care should be taken when traversing these trails, a fee of $12.00 applies when taking a car into the Park. The most popular walk is the Coast Walk, which skirts the eastern edge. It is a 30 kilometre track, involving walking from Bundeena to Otford and its recommended that walkers allow 2 days for the walk. This walk is often done as part of the Duke of Edinburghs Award, the Wallumarra Track was constructed in 1975 to meet the growing need for Environmental Education and as a supplement to the parks walking track system. The park is used for environmental education by schools, TAFEs, universities. The park has been burnt in bushfires on several occasions, most notably in 1939,1994, Australian native bush naturally regenerates after bushfires and as of 2008 few signs of these fires remain visible. In times of fire danger the parks service might close the park to ensure visitor safety. There are camping sites at Bonnie Vale, North Era and Uloola Falls and these are the only places where camping is permitted within the park, and they are regulated with a booking/registration system, which requires pre-booking a site. The park charges a vehicle access fee, but is free for people on foot, Royal National Park contains a wide variety of terrain. Roughly, landscapes in the park vary from coastal cliffs broken by beaches and small inlets to an ancient high plateau broken by extensive and deep river valleys
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Sydney
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Sydney /ˈsɪdni/ is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australias east coast, the metropolis surrounds the worlds largest natural harbour, residents of Sydney are known as Sydneysiders. The Sydney area has been inhabited by indigenous Australians for at least 30,000 years, the first British settlers, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, arrived in 1788 to found Sydney as a penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. Since convict transportation ended in the century, the city has transformed from a colonial outpost into a major global cultural. As at June 2016 Sydneys estimated population was 5,005,358, in the 2011 census,34 percent of the population reported having been born overseas, representing many different nationalities and making Sydney one of the most multicultural cities in the world. There are more than 250 different languages spoken in Sydney and about one-third of residents speak a language other than English at home and it is classified as an Alpha+ World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has a market economy with strengths in finance, manufacturing. Its gross regional product was $337 billion in 2013, the largest in Australia, there is a significant concentration of foreign banks and multinational corporations in Sydney and the city is promoted as one of Asia Pacifics leading financial hubs. Its natural features include Sydney Harbour, the Royal National Park, man-made attractions such as the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Tower and the Sydney Harbour Bridge are also well known to international visitors. The first people to inhabit the now known as Sydney were indigenous Australians having migrated from northern Australia. Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity first started to occur in the Sydney area from around 30,735 years ago, the earliest British settlers called them Eora people. Eora is the term the indigenous used to explain their origins upon first contact with the British. Its literal meaning is from this place, prior to the arrival of the British there were 4,000 to 8,000 native people in Sydney from as many as 29 different clans. Sydney Cove from Port Jackson to Petersham was inhabited by the Cadigal clan, the principal language groups were Darug, Guringai, and Dharawal. The earliest Europeans to visit the area noted that the people were conducting activities such as camping and fishing, using trees for bark and food, collecting shells. Development has destroyed much of the citys history including that of the first inhabitants, there continues to be examples of rock art and engravings located in the protected Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The first meeting between the people and the British occurred on 29 April 1770 when Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula. He noted in his journal that they were confused and somewhat hostile towards the foreign visitors, Cook was on a mission of exploration and was not commissioned to start a settlement
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Barguzin Nature Reserve
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Barguzinsky Nature Reserve is the oldest of zapovedniks. It is located in Buryatia on the west slope of the Barguzin Range, including the northeast shores of the Lake Baikal, the name of the preserve comes from the Barguzin River. The area of the reserve is 2,482 km2 and it was created in 1916 to preserve and increase the numbers of Barguzin Sable. Mountainous and taiga landscapes are also being preserved, the Barguzin Nature Reserve is inhabited by elks, musk deer, brown bears, Black-capped Marmots, grouse, etc. Omuls, sigs, sturgeons, graylings, taimens, lenoks, konstantin Zabelin Zenon Svatosh Evgeny Chernikin List of Russian Nature Reserves Barguzinsky Reserve Accessed 2 September 2009
34.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
35.
Zapovednik
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Zapovednik is an established term on the territory of the former Soviet Union for a protected area which is kept forever wild. It is the highest degree of protection for the assigned areas. They also function as important sites for research and education and so are comparable to the Sites of Special Scientific Interest as found in the United Kingdom. Many reserves have areas with different degrees of protection, sometimes grazing is permitted to a certain extent, other types of protected areas include national nature parks, zakazniks, nature monuments, etc. Some zapovedniks are recognized as biosphere reserves, in Russia there are 101 zapovedniks covering about 330,000 square kilometers, or about 1. 4% of the countrys total area. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources oversees 99 of the zapovedniks, the exception is Ilmenskiy, which is administered by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Galichya Gora, administered by Voronezh State University. The theoretical justification for the zapovedniks is known as zapovednost – meaning the state of being protected in a zapovednik and it was developed in the 1890s and early 20th century, principally by the soil biologist V. V. Dokuchaev. The fundamental idea of zapovednost is the exclusion of people and the prohibition of economic activity, Zapovedniks are intended to be parcels of untouched natural ecosystems that can be studied as standards with which to compare managed ecosystems, such as are created in agriculture and forestry. To this end, zapovedniks need to be enough to be self-sufficient. The answer was that the prairie had a much more complex, and more efficient, root system. Nevertheless, many Russian zapovedniks are an approximation to the ideal and have been operating as scientific institutions for many decades. The first zapovedniks were set up in the region of the Russian Empire in the 1890s. Some were equipped with research stations, Dokuchaev was the guiding spirit behind these early zapovedniks. The applied-science motivation for setting up zapovedniks was continued in the first state-organized zapovednik, barguzin Nature Reserve was established by the tsarist government in 1916 on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. Its purpose was to protect and study a population of sable – a valuable fur species that was declining due to over-hunting, other zapovedniks appear to have been set up at about the same time but either lapsed or did not receive formal recognition until later. Lenin may have had an interest in nature protection because permission was granted promptly for the creation in 1919 of in the Volga Delta on the shore of the Caspian Sea. The recognition of zapovedniks was put on a legal footing by a measure On the Protection of Nature Monuments, Gardens and Parks. The creation of zapovedniks continued, but the measure also allowed for the establishment of national parks, by 1933 there were 15 state zapovedniks in Russia, and by 1995, there were 115
36.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
37.
Australian Capital Territory
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The Australian Capital Territory is the federal district in the south east of Australia, enclaved within New South Wales. Its only city is Canberra, the city of Australia. The ACT also has a strip of territory around the southern end of the Beecroft Peninsula. The need for a territory was flagged by colonial delegates during the Federation conventions of the late 19th century. Section 125 of the Australian Constitution provided that, following Federation in 1901, the territory was transferred to the Commonwealth by the state of New South Wales in 1911, two years prior to the naming of Canberra as the national capital in 1913. The floral emblem of the ACT is the royal bluebell and the emblem is the gang-gang cockatoo. The economic activity of the Australian Capital Territory is heavily concentrated around Canberra and this trend continued into 2016, when the territory was ranked the third best performing out of all of Australias states and territories. There is a proportion of young adults in the region compared with other Australian states or territories. Approximately one-fifth of ACT residents were born outside of Australia, mainly in the United Kingdom, almost one-fifth speak a language other than English at home, the most common being Chinese. The ACT also has a strip of territory around the southern end of the Beecroft Peninsula. Apart from the city of Canberra, the Australian Capital Territory also contains agricultural land, small townships and communities located within the ACT include Williamsdale, Naas, Uriarra, Tharwa and Hall. There are a range of mountains, rivers and creeks in the Namadgi National Park. These include the Naas and Murrumbidgee Rivers, Canberra is noted for its warm to hot, dry summers, and cold winters with occasional fog and frequent frosts. Many of the mountains in the territorys south-west are snow-covered for at least part of the winter. Thunderstorms can occur between October and March, and annual rainfall is 623 mm, with rainfall highest in spring and summer, the highest maximum temperature recorded in the ACT was 42.8 °C at Acton on 11 January 1939. The lowest minimum temperature was −14.6 °C at Gudgenby on 11 July 1971, notable geological formations in the Australian Capital Territory include the Canberra Formation, the Pittman Formation, Black Mountain Sandstone and State Circle Shale. In the 1840s fossils of brachiopods and trilobites from the Silurian period were discovered at Woolshed Creek near Duntroon, at the time, these were the oldest fossils discovered in Australia, though this record has now been far surpassed. Other specific geological places of interest include the State Circle cutting, the oldest rocks in the ACT date from the Ordovician around 480 million years ago
38.
New South Wales
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New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south and it has a coast line with the Tasman Sea on its east side. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state, New South Wales state capital is Sydney, which is also Australias most populous city. In March 2014, the population of New South Wales was 7.5 million. Just under two-thirds of the population,4.67 million. Inhabitants of New South Wales are referred to as New South Welshmen, the Colony of New South Wales was founded as a penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised a more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825, in addition, the colony also included the island territories of New Zealand, Van Diemens Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became New Zealand. However, the Swan River Colony has never administered as part of New South Wales. Lord Howe Island remains part of New South Wales, while Norfolk Island has become a federal Territory, as have the now known as the Australian Capital Territory. The prior inhabitants of New South Wales were the Aboriginal tribes who arrived in Australia about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, before European settlement there were an estimated 250,000 Aboriginal people in the region. The Wodi Wodi people are the custodians of the Illawarra region of South Sydney. The Bundjalung people are the custodians of parts of the northern coastal areas. The European discovery of New South Wales was made by Captain James Cook during his 1770 survey along the eastern coast of the Dutch-named continent of New Holland. In his original journal covering the survey, in triplicate to satisfy Admiralty Orders, Cook first named the land New Wales, however, in the copy held by the Admiralty, he revised the wording to New South Wales. After years of chaos and anarchy after the overthrow of Governor William Bligh, macquaries legacy is still evident today. During the 19th century, large areas were separated to form the British colonies of Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria. Responsible government was granted to the New South Wales colony in 1855, following the Treaty of Waitangi, William Hobson declared British sovereignty over New Zealand in 1840
39.
Tasmania
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Tasmania is an island state of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is located 240 km to the south of the Australian mainland, the state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 519,100, just over forty percent of which resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, Tasmanias area is 68,401 km2, of which the main island covers 64,519 km2. Though an island state, due to an error the state shares a land border with Victoria at its northernmost terrestrial point, Boundary Islet. The Bishop and Clerk Islets, about 37 km south of Macquarie Island, are the southernmost terrestrial point of the state of Tasmania, the island is believed to have been occupied by Aboriginals for 40,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Tasmanian Aboriginals were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831 and led to more than three years of law, cost the lives of almost 1100 Aboriginals and settlers. The near-destruction of Tasmanias Aboriginal population has been described by historians as an act of genocide by the British. The island was part of the Colony of New South Wales. In 1854 the present Constitution of Tasmania was passed and the year the state received permission to change its name to Tasmania. In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia, the state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemens Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the name was later shortened to Van Diemens Land by the British. It was officially renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856, Tasmania was sometimes referred to as Dervon, as mentioned in the Jerilderie Letter written by the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in 1879. The colloquial expression for the state is Tassie, Tasmania is also colloquially shortened to Tas, especially when used in business names and website addresses. TAS is also the Australia Post abbreviation for the state, the reconstructed Palawa kani language name for Tasmania is Lutriwita. The island was adjoined to the mainland of Australia until the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago, much of the island is composed of Jurassic dolerite intrusions through other rock types, sometimes forming large columnar joints. Tasmania has the worlds largest areas of dolerite, with many distinctive mountains, the central plateau and the southeast portions of the island are mostly dolerite. Mount Wellington above Hobart is an example, showing distinct columns known as the Organ Pipes
40.
Western Australia
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Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Southern Ocean to the south, the state has about 2.6 million inhabitants, around 11% of the national total. 92% of the lives in the south-west corner of the state. The first European visitor to Western Australia was the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog, the first European settlement of Western Australia occurred following the landing by Major Edmund Lockyer on 26 December 1826 of an expedition on behalf of the New South Wales colonial government. This was followed by the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, including the site of the present-day capital, york was the first inland settlement in Western Australia. Situated 97 kilometres east of Perth, it was settled on 16 September 1831, Western Australia achieved responsible government in 1890, and federated with the other British colonies in Australia in 1901. Today its economy relies on mining, agriculture and tourism. The state produces 46% of Australias exports, Western Australia is the second-largest iron ore producer in the world. The International Hydrographic Organization designates the body of water south of the continent as part of the Indian Ocean, the total length of the states eastern border is 1,862 km. There are 20,781 km of coastline, including 7,892 km of island coastline, the total land area occupied by the state is 2.5 million km2. Most of the state is a low plateau with an elevation of about 400 metres, very low relief. This descends relatively sharply to the plains, in some cases forming a sharp escarpment. The extreme age of the landscape has meant that the soils are remarkably infertile, even soils derived from granitic bedrock contain an order of magnitude less available phosphorus and only half as much nitrogen as soils in comparable climates in other continents. Soils derived from extensive sandplains or ironstone are even less fertile, nearly devoid of soluble phosphate and also deficient in zinc, copper, molybdenum, the infertility of most of the soils has required heavy application by farmers of chemical fertilisers, particularly superphosphate, insecticides and herbicides. These have resulted in damage to invertebrate and bacterial populations, the grazing and use of hoofed mammals and, later, heavy machinery through the years have resulted in compaction of soils and great damage to the fragile soils. Large-scale land clearing for agriculture has damaged habitats for native flora, large areas of the states wheatbelt region have problems with dryland salinity and the loss of fresh water. The southwest coastal area has a Mediterranean climate and it was originally heavily forested, including large stands of karri, one of the tallest trees in the world. This agricultural region is one of the nine most bio-diverse terrestrial habitats, thanks to the offshore Leeuwin Current, the area is one of the top six regions for marine biodiversity and contains the most southerly coral reefs in the world
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Statute
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A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a state, city or country. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy, statutes are rules made by legislative bodies, they are distinguished from case law or precedent, which is decided by courts, and regulations issued by government agencies. Statute law is written by a legislative body and signed into law by its executive. Before a statute becomes law in countries, it must be agreed upon by the highest executive in the government. A universal problem encountered by lawmakers throughout human history is how to organize published statutes, such publications have a habit of starting small but growing rapidly over time, as new statutes are enacted in response to the exigencies of the moment. Eventually, persons trying to find the law are forced to sort through a number of statutes enacted at various points in time to determine which portions are still in effect. In turn, in theory, the code will thenceforth reflect the current cumulative state of the law in that jurisdiction. In many nations statutory law is distinguished from and subordinate to constitutional law, statute is also another word for law. The term was adapted from England in about the 18th century, in the Autonomous Communities of Spain, the autonomy statute is a legal document similar to a state constitution in a federated state. The autonomies statutes in Spain have the rank of Ley Organica, leyes Organicas rank between the Constitution and ordinary laws. The name was chosen, among others, to avoid confusion with the term Constitution, in biblical terminology, statute refers to a law given without any reason or justification. The classic example is the statute regarding the Red Heifer. The opposite of a chok is a mishpat, a law given for a reason, e. g. the Sabbath laws, which were given because God created the world in six days. That which upholds, supports or maintains the order of the universe meaning the Law or Natural Law. This is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion, Constitution Legislation Legislature Organic statute Statutory law
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National Reserve System
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The aim of the NRS is protect the diversity of all native landscapes, flora and fauna across Australia through strategic habitat protection. Besides being ecologically viable these areas must represent the range of ecosystems. The Government is committed to the development of a comprehensive system of parks. This will be achieved in cooperation with States and Territories, within the first 4 years $11. 17 Indigenous Protected Area were declared by 2003 which significantly added to the NRS, within the next 10 years, with further substantial investment an additional 30 million hectares were added to the National Reserve System, two thirds of which were Indigenous Protected Areas. The NRS has been praised by the WWF Australia as a successful, CSIRO modelling has concluded that the NRS will be an important conservation tool to combat the effects of climate change in Australia on the environment
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Portuguese language
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Portuguese is a Romance language and the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, and has kept some Celtic phonology. Portuguese is also termed the language of Camões, after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem, the museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was destroyed in a fire, but there are plans to reconstruct it, when the Romans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BCE, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages descend. Between 409 CE and 711 CE, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia. It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and this phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, by then reigning over Galicia. In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period, the language was used for documents. For some time, it was the language of preference for poetry in Christian Hispania. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal, in the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas. The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century, some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal. The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende, Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin, and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing—and eventually speech—in Portuguese. Portuguese is the language of the majority of people in Brazil and Portugal, perhaps 75% of the population of Angola speaks Portuguese natively, and 85% are fluent. Just over 40% of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, there are also significant Portuguese speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra, Bermuda, Canada, France, Japan, Jersey, Namibia, Paraguay, Macau, Switzerland, Venezuela. In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa and Daman and Diu, in 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa. Equatorial Guinea made an application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010. In 2011, Portuguese became its official language and, in July 2014. Portuguese is a subject in The school curriculum in Uruguay
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