1.
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests
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The biome includes several types of forests, Lowland equatorial evergreen rain forests, commonly known as tropical rainforests, are forests which receive high rainfall throughout the year. These forests occur in a belt around the equator, with the largest areas in the Amazon basin of South America, the Congo basin of central Africa, some trees in these forests drop some or all of their leaves during the winter dry season. These forests are found in parts of South America, in Central America and around the Caribbean, in coastal West Africa, parts of the Indian subcontinent, montane rain forests, are found in cooler-climate mountainous areas. Those with elevations high enough to regularly encounter low-level cloud cover are known as cloud forests, flooded forests, including freshwater swamp forests and peat swamp forests. In contrast to TSMF, tropical forest regions with lower levels of rainfall are home to tropical dry broadleaf forests, temperate rain forests also occur in certain humid temperate coastal regions. Rainforests now cover less than 6% of Earths land surface, scientists estimate that more than half of all the worlds plant and animal species live in tropical rain forests
2.
Peat
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Peat, also called turf, is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter that is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet because peatland plants capture the CO2 which is released from the peat. Sphagnum moss is one of the most common components in peat, soils that contain mostly peat are known as histosols. Peat forms in wetland conditions, where flooding obstructs flows of oxygen from the atmosphere, Peatlands, particularly bogs, are the most important source of peat. That said, other less common types, including fens, pocosins. Landscapes covered in peat are home to specific kinds of plants including Sphagnum moss, ericaceous shrubs, because organic matter accumulates over thousands of years, peat deposits also provide records of past vegetation and climates stored in plant remains like pollen. This allows humans to reconstruct past environments and study changes in land use. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world, by volume, there are about 4 trillion cubic metres of peat in the world, covering a total of around 2% of the global land area, containing about 8 billion terajoules of energy. Over time, the formation of peat is often the first step in the formation of other fossil fuels such as coal. This is also the commonly used in the peat industry. At 106 g CO2/MJ, the carbon dioxide emission intensity of peat is higher than that of coal and natural gas, lastly, peat fires have been responsible for large public health disasters including the 1997 Southeast Asian haze. Peat forms when plant material does not fully decay in acidic and anaerobic conditions and it is composed mainly of wetland vegetation, principally bog plants including mosses, sedges, and shrubs. As it accumulates, the peat holds water and this slowly creates wetter conditions that allow the area of wetland to expand. Peatland features can include ponds, ridges, and raised bogs, most modern peat bogs formed 12,000 years ago in high latitudes after the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age. Peat usually accumulates slowly at the rate of about a millimetre per year, using Carbon-dating, scientists found that Peat in peatlands started forming 360 million years ago based on it currently containing 550 Gt of carbon. Peat material is either fibric, hemic, or sapric, fibric peats are the least decomposed and consist of intact fiber. Hemic peats are partially decomposed and sapric are the most decomposed, Phragmites peat is one composed of reed grass, Phragmites australis, and other grasses. It is denser than other types of peat
3.
Brackish
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Brackish water or briny water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, the word comes from the Middle Dutch root brak. Brackish water is also the primary product of the salinity gradient power process. Because brackish water is hostile to the growth of most terrestrial plant species, without appropriate management it is damaging to the environment. Technically, brackish water contains between 0.5 and 30 grams of salt per litre—more often expressed as 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand, thus, brackish covers a range of salinity regimes and is not considered a precisely defined condition. It is characteristic of many brackish surface waters that their salinity can vary considerably over space and/or time, brackish water condition commonly occurs when fresh water meets seawater. In fact, the most extensive brackish water habitats worldwide are estuaries, the River Thames flowing through London is a classic river estuary. A similar pattern of replacement can be observed with the aquatic plants and this type of ecological succession from a freshwater to marine ecosystem is typical of river estuaries. Salmon are anadromous, meaning live in the sea but ascend rivers to spawn, eels are catadromous, living in rivers and streams. Besides the species migrate through estuaries, there are many other fish that use them as nursery grounds for spawning or as places young fish can feed. Herring and plaice are two commercially important species that use the Thames Estuary for this purpose, estuaries are also commonly used as fishing grounds, and as places for fish farming or ranching. Another important brackish water habitat is the swamp or mangal. Many, though not all, mangrove swamps fringe estuaries and lagoons where the salinity changes with each tide, like estuaries, mangrove swamps are extremely important breeding grounds for many fish, with species such as snappers, halfbeaks, and tarpon spawning or maturing among them. Mangroves represent important nesting site for numerous birds groups such as herons, storks, spoonbills, ibises, kingfishers, the Sundarbans and Bhitarkanika Mangroves are two of the large mangrove forests in the world, both on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Some seas and lakes are brackish, the Baltic Sea is a brackish sea adjoining the North Sea. Because the salt water coming in from the sea is denser than freshwater, limited mixing occurs because of the lack of tides and storms, with the result that the fish fauna at the surface is freshwater in composition while that lower down is more marine. Cod are an example of a species found in deep water in the Baltic. The Caspian Sea is the worlds largest lake and contains brackish water with a salinity about one-third that of normal seawater, the Caspian is famous for its peculiar animal fauna, including one of the few non-marine seals and the great sturgeons, a major source of caviar
4.
Mangrove
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A mangrove is a shrub or small tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are salt tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to life in coastal conditions. They contain a complex filtration system and complex root system to cope with salt water immersion. They are adapted to the low oxygen conditions of waterlogged mud, the saline conditions tolerated by various mangrove species range from brackish water, through pure seawater, to water concentrated by evaporation to over twice the salinity of ocean seawater. The term mangrove comes to English from Spanish, and is likely to originate from Guarani and it was earlier mangrow, but this word was corrupted via folk etymology influence of the word grove. Mangrove swamps are found in tropical and subtropical tidal areas, areas where mangal occurs include estuaries and marine shorelines. The intertidal existence to which trees are adapted represents the major limitation to the number of species able to thrive in their habitat. High tide brings in water, and when the tide recedes. The return of tide can flush out these soils, bringing back to salinity levels comparable to that of seawater. At low tide, organisms are exposed to increases in temperature and desiccation. About 110 species are considered mangroves, in the sense of being a tree grows in such a saline swamp, though only a few are from the mangrove plant genus. However, a mangrove swamp typically features only a small number of tree species. It is not uncommon for a mangrove forest in the Caribbean to feature three or four tree species. For comparison, the tropical rainforest biome contains thousands of tree species, though the trees themselves are few in species, the ecosystem that these trees create provides a home for a great variety of other organisms. Mangrove plants require a number of adaptations to overcome the problems of anoxia, high salinity. Each species has its own solutions to problems, this may be the primary reason why, on some shorelines. Small environmental variations within a mangal may lead to greatly differing methods for coping with the environment, once established, mangrove roots provide an oyster habitat and slow water flow, thereby enhancing sediment deposition in areas where it is already occurring
5.
Biome
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A biome /ˈbaɪoʊm/ is a community of plants and animals that have common characteristics for the environment they exist in, and can be found over a range of continents. Spanning continents, biomes are distinct biological communities that have formed in response to a shared physical climate, biome is a broader term than habitat, any biome can comprise a variety of habitats. While a biome can cover large ares, a microbiome is a mix of organisms that coexist in a space as well. For example, the microbiome is the collection of bacteria, viruses. The biotas of the Earth make up the biosphere, the term was suggested in 1916 by Clements, originally as a synonym for biotic community of Möbius. In 1935, Tansley added the climatic and soil aspects to the idea, the International Biological Program projects popularized the concept of biome. However, in contexts, the term biome is used in a different manner. Both includes many biomes in fact and their boundaries must therefore be drawn arbitrarily and their characterization made according to the average conditions that predominate in them. A1978 study on North American grasslands found a positive correlation between evapotranspiration in mm/yr and above-ground net primary production in g/m2/yr. These findings help explain the categories used in Holdridge’s bioclassification scheme, Holdridge uses the four axes to define 30 so-called humidity provinces, which are clearly visible in his diagram. While this scheme largely ignores soil and sun exposure, Holdridge acknowledged that these were important and his scheme can be seen as a simplification of Holdridges, more readily accessible, but missing Holdridges greater specificity. Whittaker based his approach on theoretical assertions and empirical sampling and he was in a unique position to make such a holistic assertion because he had previously compiled a review of biome classifications. Physiognomy, the apparent characteristics, outward features, or appearance of communities or species. Biome, a grouping of terrestrial ecosystems on a continent that are similar in vegetation structure, physiognomy, features of the environment. Formation, a kind of community of plants on a given continent. Biome-type, grouping of convergent biomes or formations of different continents, whittakers distinction between biome and formation can be simplified, formation is used when applied to plant communities only, while biome is used when concerned with both plants and animals. Whittakers convention of biome-type or formation-type is simply a method to categorize similar communities. Whittaker considered four main ecoclines in the terrestrial realm, changes in physiognomic complexity vary with how favorable of an environment exists
6.
Climate change
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Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time. Climate change may refer to a change in weather conditions. Climate change is caused by such as biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics. Certain human activities have also identified as significant causes of recent climate change. Scientists actively work to understand past and future climate by using observations, more recent data are provided by the instrumental record. The most general definition of change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods of time. Accordingly, fluctuations over periods shorter than a few decades, such as El Niño, the term climate change is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change. Anthropogenic climate change is caused by activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earths natural processes. In this sense, especially in the context of environmental policy, within scientific journals, global warming refers to surface temperature increases while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas levels affect. A related term is climatic change, in 1966, the World Meteorological Organization proposed the term climatic change to encompass all forms of climatic variability on time-scales longer than 10 years, regardless of cause. Change was a given and climatic was used as an adjective to describe this kind of change, when it was realized that human activities had a potential to drastically alter the climate, the term climate change replaced climatic change as the dominant term to reflect an anthropogenic cause. Climate change was incorporated in the title of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate change, used as a noun, became an issue rather than the technical description of changing weather. On the broadest scale, the rate at which energy is received from the Sun and this energy is distributed around the globe by winds, ocean currents, and other mechanisms to affect the climates of different regions. Factors that can shape climate are called climate forcings or forcing mechanisms, there are a variety of climate change feedbacks that can either amplify or diminish the initial forcing. Some parts of the system, such as the oceans and ice caps, respond more slowly in reaction to climate forcings. There are also key factors which when exceeded can produce rapid change. Forcing mechanisms can be internal or external. Internal forcing mechanisms are natural processes within the system itself
7.
Deforestation
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Deforestation, clearance or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, the most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 30% of Earths land surface is covered by forests, Deforestation occurs for multiple reasons, trees are cut down to be used for building or sold as fuel, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock and plantation. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and it has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation has also used in war to deprive the enemy of cover for its forces. Modern examples of this were the use of Agent Orange by the British military in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency, as of 2005, net deforestation rates have ceased to increase in countries with a per capita GDP of at least US$4,600. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland, disregard of ascribed value, lax forest management and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that allow deforestation to occur on a large scale. In many countries, deforestation, both naturally occurring and human-induced, is an ongoing issue, Deforestation causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record. More than half of all plant and land animal species in the live in tropical forests. Between 2000 and 2012,2.3 million square kilometres of forests around the world were cut down, as a result of deforestation, only 6.2 million square kilometres remain of the original 16 million square kilometres of forest that formerly covered the Earth. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat, subsistence farming is responsible for 48% of deforestation, commercial agriculture is responsible for 32%, logging is responsible for 14%, and fuel wood removals make up 5%. Experts do not agree on whether industrial logging is an important contributor to global deforestation, some argue that poor people are more likely to clear forest because they have no alternatives, others that the poor lack the ability to pay for the materials and labour needed to clear forest. One study found that population increases due to fertility rates were a primary driver of tropical deforestation in only 8% of cases. Other causes of contemporary deforestation may include corruption of government institutions, the distribution of wealth and power, population growth and overpopulation. Globalization is often viewed as another cause of deforestation, though there are cases in which the impacts of globalization have promoted localized forest recovery. The degradation of forest ecosystems has also traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation. Some commentators have noted a shift in the drivers of deforestation over the past 30 years, Deforestation is ongoing and is shaping climate and geography. Deforestation is a contributor to global warming, and is cited as one of the major causes of the enhanced greenhouse effect
8.
Drainage
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Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from an area. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging, all houses in the major cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro had access to water and drainage facilities. Waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets, the invention of hollow-pipe drainage is credited to Sir Hugh Dalrymple, who died in 1753. New drainage systems incorporate geotextile filters that retain and prevent fine grains of soil from passing into, geotextiles are synthetic textile fabrics specially manufactured for civil and environmental engineering applications. Geotextiles are designed to retain fine soil particles while allowing water to pass through, in a typical drainage system they would be laid along a trench which would then be filled with coarse granular material, gravel, sea shells, stone or rock. The geotextile is then folded over the top of the stone, groundwater seeps through the geotextile and flow within the stone to an outfell. In high groundwater conditions a perforated pipe is laid along the base of the drain to increases the volume of water transported in the drain. Alternatively, the prefabricated plastic drainage system made of HDPE called SmartDitch, often incorporating geotextile, over the past 30 years geotextile and PVC filters have become the most commonly used soil filter media. They are cheap to produce and easy to lay, with factory controlled properties that ensure long term filtration performance even in fine silty soil conditions, seattles Public Utilities created a pilot program called Street Edge Alternatives Project. The project focuses on designing a system to provide drainage that more closely mimics the natural landscape prior to development than traditional piped systems, the streets are characterized by ditches along the side of the roadway, with plantings designed throughout the area. An emphasis on non curbed sidewalks allows water to more freely into the areas of permeable surface on the side of the streets. Because of the plantings the run off water from the area does not all directly go into the ground. Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems are designed to encourage contractors to install drainage system that closely mimic the natural flow of water in nature. Since 2010 local and neighbourhood planning in the UK is required by law to factor SUDS into any development projects that they are responsible for, slot drainage has proved the most breakthrough product of the last twenty years as a drainage option. Both stainless steel and concrete channel slot drainage have become industry standards on construction projects, the civil engineer is responsible for drainage in construction projects. They set out from the all the roads, street gutters, drainage, culverts. During the construction process he/she will set out all the levels for each of the previously mentioned factors. Civil engineers and construction managers work alongside architects and supervisors, planners, quantity surveyors, typically, most jurisdictions have some body of drainage law to govern to what degree a landowner can alter the drainage from his parcel
9.
Orangutan
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The orangutans are the two exclusively Asian species of extant great apes. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are found in only the rainforests of Borneo. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were considered to be one species, since 1996, they have been divided into two species, the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. In addition, the Bornean species is divided three subspecies. Based on genome sequencing, the two extant orangutan species evidently diverged around 400,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Ponginae subfamily split from the main ape line in Africa 16 to 19 million years ago and spread into Asia. Orangutans are the most arboreal of the apes and spend most of their time in trees. Their hair is typically reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of chimpanzees, males and females differ in size and appearance. Dominant adult males have distinctive cheek pads and produce long calls that attract females, younger males do not have these characteristics and resemble adult females. Orangutans are the most solitary of the apes, with social bonds occurring primarily between mothers and their dependent offspring, who stay together for the first two years. Fruit is the most important component of a diet, however. They can live over 30 years in both the wild and captivity, orangutans are among the most intelligent primates, they use a variety of sophisticated tools and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. The apes have been studied for their learning abilities. There may even be distinctive cultures within populations, field studies of the apes were pioneered by primatologist Birutė Galdikas. Both orangutan species are considered to be critically endangered, human activities have caused severe declines in the populations and ranges of both species. Threats to wild populations include poaching, habitat destruction. Several conservation and rehabilitation organisations are dedicated to the survival of orangutans in the wild, the name orangutan is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang meaning person and hutan meaning forest, thus person of the forest. Orang Hutan was originally not used to refer to apes, the Malay words used to refer specifically to the ape are maias and mawas, but it is unclear if those words refer to just orangutans, or to all apes in general. The word appeared in several German-language descriptions of Indonesian zoology in the 17th century, the likely origin of the word comes specifically from the Banjarese variety of Malay
10.
Sumatran tiger
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The Sumatran tiger is a rare tiger subspecies that inhabits the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The Sumatran tiger is the surviving member of the Sunda Islands group of tigers that included the now extinct Bali tiger. Sequences from complete mitochondrial genes of 34 tigers support the hypothesis that Sumatran tigers are diagnostically distinct from mainland populations, pocock first described the Sumatran tiger on the basis of several skull, pelage, and striping features, which are distinct from the Bengal and Javan tigers. It is darker in fur colour and has broader stripes than the Javan tiger, stripes tend to dissolve into spots near their ends, and on the back, flanks and hind legs are lines of small, dark small spots between regular stripes. The frequency of stripes is higher than in other subspecies, males have a prominent ruff, which is especially marked in the Sumatran tiger. The Sumatran tiger is one of the smallest tiger subspecies and about the size of big leopards, males weigh 100 to 140 kg and measure 2.2 to 2.55 m in length between the pegs with a greatest length of skull of 295 to 335 mm. In agreement with this history, the Sumatran tiger is genetically isolated from all living mainland tigers. Sumatran tigers persist in isolated populations across Sumatra and they have been repeatedly photographed at 2,600 m in a rugged region of northern Sumatra, and are present in 27 habitat patches larger than 250 km2. In 1978, the Sumatran tiger population was estimated at 1,000 individuals, in 1985, a total of 26 protected areas across Sumatra containing about 800 tigers were identified. In 1992, an estimated 400–500 tigers lived in five national parks, at that time, the largest population, comprising 110-180 individuals, was reported from the Gunung Leuser National Park. However, a recent study shows that the Kerinci Seblat National Park in central Sumatra has the highest population of tigers on the island. The park also was shown to have the highest tiger occupancy rate of the protected areas, more tigers are in the Kerinci Seblat National Park than in all of Nepal, and more than in China, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam combined. Sumatran tigers strongly prefer uncultivated forest and make use of plantations of acacia. Within natural forest areas, they tend to use areas with elevation, lower annual rainfall, farther from forest edge. They prefer forest with dense cover and steep slope. In acacia plantations, they tend to use areas closer to water, and prefer areas with plants, more leaf litter. Tiger records in oil palm plantations and in plantations are scarce. The availability of vegetation cover at the ground level serves as an environmental condition fundamentally needed by tigers regardless of the location
11.
Indomalayan realm
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The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the parts of East Asia. Indomalaya also includes the Philippines, lowland Taiwan, and Japans Ryukyu Islands, the tropical moist forests of Indomalaya are mostly dominated by trees of the dipterocarp family. The Indian Subcontinent bioregion covers most of India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalaya are a major biogeographic boundary between the subtropical and tropical flora and fauna of the Indian subcontinent and the temperate-climate Palearctic realm. The Indochina bioregion includes most of mainland Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, malesia is a botanical province which straddles the boundary between Indomalaya and Australasia. It includes the Malay Peninsula and the western Indonesian islands, the Philippines, the eastern Indonesian islands, the flora of Indomalaya blends elements from the ancient supercontinents of Laurasia and Gondwana. India collided with Asia 30-45 MYA, and exchanged species, two orders of mammals, the colugos and treeshrews, are endemic to the realm, as are families Craseonycteridae, Diatomyidae, Platacanthomyidae, Tarsiidae and Hylobatidae. Large mammals characteristic of Indomalaya include the leopard, tigers, water buffalos, Asian Elephant, Indian Rhinoceros, Javan Rhinoceros, Malayan Tapir, orangutans, Indomalaya has three endemic bird families, the Irenidae, Megalaimidae and Rhabdornithidae. Also characteristic are pheasants, pittas, Old World babblers, more information is available under Indomalayan realm fauna. Malesia Sundaland Ecoregions of India Ecoregions of the Philippines Map of the Indomalaya ecozone. Wikramanayake, E. E. Dinerstein, C. J. Loucks, D. M. Olson, J. Morrison, J. L. Lamoreux, M. McKnight, terrestrial ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific, a conservation assessment
12.
Indonesia
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Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country located mainly in Southeast Asia with some territories in Oceania. Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is the worlds largest island country, with more than seventeen thousand islands. At 1,904,569 square kilometres, Indonesia is the worlds 14th-largest country in terms of area and worlds 7th-largest country in terms of combined sea. It has an population of over 260 million people and is the worlds fourth most populous country. The worlds most populous island, Java, contains more than half of the countrys population, Indonesias republican form of government includes an elected legislature and president. Indonesia has 34 provinces, of which five have Special Administrative status and its capital and countrys most populous city is Jakarta, which is also the most populous city in Southeast Asia and the second in Asia. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, other neighbouring countries include Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support the second highest level of biodiversity. The country has abundant natural resources like oil and natural gas, tin, copper, agriculture mainly produces rice, palm oil, tea, coffee, cacao, medicinal plants, spices and rubber. Indonesias major trading partners are Japan, United States, China, the Indonesian archipelago has been an important region for trade since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Indonesia consists of hundreds of native ethnic and linguistic groups. The largest – and politically dominant – ethnic group are the Javanese, a shared identity has developed, defined by a national language, ethnic diversity, religious pluralism within a Muslim-majority population, and a history of colonialism and rebellion against it. Indonesias national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, articulates the diversity that shapes the country, Indonesias economy is the worlds 16th largest by nominal GDP and the 8th largest by GDP at PPP, the largest in Southeast Asia, and is considered an emerging market and newly industrialised country. Indonesia has been a member of the United Nations since 1950, Indonesia is a member of the G20 major economies and World Trade Organization. The name Indonesia derives from the Greek name of the Indós, the name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms Indunesians—and, his preference, in the same publication, one of his students, James Richardson Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago. However, Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use Indonesia, they preferred Malay Archipelago, the Netherlands East Indies, popularly Indië, the East, and Insulinde
13.
Malaysia
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Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, land, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra
14.
Papua New Guinea
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Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua, Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. There are 852 known languages in the country, of which 12 have no known living speakers, most of the population of more than 7 million people live in customary communities, which are as diverse as the languages. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18 percent of its live in urban centres. The country is one of the worlds least explored, culturally and geographically and it is known to have numerous groups of uncontacted peoples, and researchers believe there are many undiscovered species of plants and animals in the interior. Papua New Guinea is classified as an economy by the International Monetary Fund. Strong growth in Papua New Guineas mining and resource sector led to the becoming the sixth fastest-growing economy in the world in 2011. Growth was expected to slow once major resource projects came on line in 2015, mining remains a major economic factor, however. Local and national governments are discussing the potential of resuming mining operations in Panguna mine in Bougainville Province, nearly 40 percent of the population lives a self-sustainable natural lifestyle with no access to global capital. Most of the still live in strong traditional social groups based on farming. Their social lives combine traditional religion with modern practices, including primary education, at the national level, after being ruled by three external powers since 1884, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975. This followed nearly 60 years of Australian administration, which started during the Great War and it became an independent Commonwealth realm with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations in its own right. Archaeological evidence indicates that humans first arrived in Papua New Guinea around 42,000 to 45,000 years ago and they were descendants of migrants out of Africa, in one of the early waves of human migration. Agriculture was independently developed in the New Guinea highlands around 7000 BC, a major migration of Austronesian-speaking peoples to coastal regions of New Guinea took place around 500 BC. This has been correlated with the introduction of pottery, pigs, in the 18th century, traders brought the sweet potato to New Guinea, where it was adopted and became part of the staples. Portuguese traders had obtained it from South America and introduced it to the Moluccas, the far higher crop yields from sweet potato gardens radically transformed traditional agriculture and societies. Sweet potato largely supplanted the previous staple, taro, and resulted in a significant increase in population in the highlands. In 1901, on Goaribari Island in the Gulf of Papua, missionary Harry Dauncey found 10,000 skulls in the islands Long Houses, traders from Southeast Asia had visited New Guinea beginning 5,000 years ago to collect bird of paradise plumes
15.
Brunei
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Brunei, officially the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace, is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its coastline with the South China Sea, the country is surrounded by the state of Sarawak. It is separated into two parts by the Sarawak district of Limbang, Brunei is the only sovereign state completely on the island of Borneo, the remainder of the islands territory is divided between the nations of Malaysia and Indonesia. Bruneis population was 408,786 in July 2012, the maritime state was visited by Spains Magellan Expedition in 1521 and fought against Spain in the 1578 Castille War. During the 19th century, the Bruneian Empire began to decline, the Sultanate ceded Sarawak to James Brooke and installed him as the White Rajah, and it ceded Sabah to the British North Borneo Chartered Company. In 1888, Brunei became a British protectorate and was assigned a British resident as colonial manager in 1906, after the Japanese occupation during World War II, in 1959 a new constitution was written. In 1962, an armed rebellion against the monarchy was ended with the help of the British. Brunei gained its independence from the United Kingdom on 1 January 1984, Economic growth during the 1990s and 2000s, with the GDP increasing 56% from 1999 to 2008, transformed Brunei into an industrialised country. It has developed wealth from petroleum and natural gas fields. Brunei has the second-highest Human Development Index among the Southeast Asian nations, after Singapore, according to the International Monetary Fund, Brunei is ranked fifth in the world by gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. The IMF estimated in 2011 that Brunei was one of two countries with a debt at 0% of the national GDP. Forbes also ranks Brunei as the fifth-richest nation out of 182, based on its petroleum, according to legend, Brunei was founded by Awang Alak Betatar, later to be Sultan Muhammad Shah. He moved from Garang, a place in the Temburong District to the Brunei River estuary, according to legend, upon landing he exclaimed, Baru nah, from which the name Brunei was derived. He was the first Muslim ruler of Brunei, before the rise of the Bruneian Empire under the Muslim Bolkiah Dynasty, Brunei is believed to have been under Buddhist rulers. It was renamed Barunai in the 14th century, possibly influenced by the Sanskrit word varuṇ, the word Borneo is of the same origin. In the countrys name, Negara Brunei Darussalam, darussalam means abode of peace. The people are pagans and are men of goodwill and their colour is whiter than that of the other sort. in this island justice is well administered. One of the earliest Chinese records is the 977 AD letter to Chinese emperor from the ruler of Po-ni, which some scholars believe to refer to Borneo
16.
Vietnam
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Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 92.7 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the worlds 14th-most-populous country, and its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, with Ho Chi Minh City as a historical city as well. The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, an independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a communist government but remained impoverished, in 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms which began Vietnams path towards integration into the world economy. By 2000, it had established relations with all nations. Since 2000, Vietnams economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world and its successful economic reforms resulted in its joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. It is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Vietnam remains one of the worlds four remaining one-party socialist states officially espousing communism. The name Việt Nam is a variation of Nam Việt, a name that can be traced back to the Triệu Dynasty of the 2nd century BC. The word Việt originated as a form of Bách Việt. The form Vietnam is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình, the name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Haiphong that dates to 1558. Then, as recorded, rewarded Yuenan/Vietnam as their nations name, to also show that they are below the region of Baiyue/Bach Viet. Between 1804 and 1813, the name was used officially by Emperor Gia Long and it was revived in the early 20th century by Phan Bội Châus History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when both the government in Huế and the Viet Minh government in Hanoi adopted Việt Nam. Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age, Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have also been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. The Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings is considered the first Vietnamese state, in 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán, who consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương
17.
Philippines
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The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 square kilometers, and it is the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. As of 2013, approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelagos earliest inhabitants and they were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Islamic nations occurred, then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of Datus, Rajahs, Sultans or Lakans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization, in 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. This resulted in Roman Catholicism becoming the dominant religion, during this time, Manila became the western hub of the trans-Pacific trade connecting Asia with Acapulco in the Americas using Manila galleons. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, since then, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a dictatorship by a non-violent revolution. It is a member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It also hosts the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte, eventually the name Las Islas Filipinas would be used to cover all the islands of the archipelago. Before that became commonplace, other such as Islas del Poniente. The official name of the Philippines has changed several times in the course of its history, during the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the República Filipina or the Philippine Republic. From the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the name Philippines began to appear, since the end of World War II, the official name of the country has been the Republic of the Philippines. The metatarsal of the Callao Man, reliably dated by uranium-series dating to 67,000 years ago is the oldest human remnant found in the archipelago to date and this distinction previously belonged to the Tabon Man of Palawan, carbon-dated to around 26,500 years ago. Negritos were also among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, but their first settlement in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, there are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos
18.
Thailand
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Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, formerly known as Siam, is a country at the centre of the Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total area of approximately 513,000 km2, Thailand is the worlds 51st-largest country and it is the 20th-most-populous country in the world, with around 66 million people. The capital and largest city is Bangkok, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and has switched between parliamentary democracy and military junta for decades, the latest coup being in May 2014 by the National Council for Peace and Order. Its capital and most populous city is Bangkok and its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India on the Andaman Sea to the southwest. The Thai economy is the worlds 20th largest by GDP at PPP and it became a newly industrialised country and a major exporter in the 1990s. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy and it is considered a middle power in the region and around the world. The country has always been called Mueang Thai by its citizens, by outsiders prior to 1949, it was usually known by the exonym Siam. The word Siam has been identified with the Sanskrit Śyāma, the names Shan and A-hom seem to be variants of the same word. The word Śyâma is possibly not its origin, but a learned, another theory is the name derives from Chinese, Ayutthaya emerged as a dominant centre in the late fourteenth century. The Chinese called this region Xian, which the Portuguese converted into Siam, the signature of King Mongkut reads SPPM Mongkut King of the Siamese, giving the name Siam official status until 24 June 1939 when it was changed to Thailand. Thailand was renamed Siam from 1945 to 11 May 1949, after which it reverted to Thailand. According to George Cœdès, the word Thai means free man in the Thai language, ratcha Anachak Thai means kingdom of Thailand or kingdom of Thai. Etymologically, its components are, ratcha, -ana- -chak, the Thai National Anthem, written by Luang Saranupraphan during the extremely patriotic 1930s, refers to the Thai nation as, prathet Thai. The first line of the anthem is, prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai, Thailand is the unity of Thai flesh. There is evidence of habitation in Thailand that has been dated at 40,000 years before the present. Similar to other regions in Southeast Asia, Thailand was heavily influenced by the culture and religions of India, Thailand in its earliest days was under the rule of the Khmer Empire, which had strong Hindu roots, and the influence among Thais remains even today. Voretzsch believes that Buddhism must have been flowing into Siam from India in the time of the Indian Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire, later Thailand was influenced by the south Indian Pallava dynasty and north Indian Gupta Empire. The Menam Basin was originally populated by the Mons, and the location of Dvaravati in the 7th century, the History of the Yuan mentions an embassy from the kingdom of Sukhothai in 1282
19.
Sphagnum
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Sphagnum is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as peat moss. The empty cells help retain water in drier conditions, hence, as sphagnum moss grows, it can slowly spread into drier conditions, forming larger mires, both raised bogs and blanket bogs. These peat accumulations then provide habitat for an array of peatland plants, including sedges and ericaceous shrubs, as well as orchids. Sphagnum and the formed from it do not decay readily because of the phenolic compounds embedded in the mosss cell walls. In addition, bogs, like all wetlands, develop anaerobic soil conditions, Peat moss can also acidify its surroundings by taking up cations, such as calcium and magnesium, and releasing hydrogen ions. Under the right conditions, peat can accumulate to a depth of many meters, different species of Sphagnum have different tolerance limits for flooding and pH, so any one peatland may have a number of different Sphagnum species. Individual peat moss plants consist of a stem, with tightly arranged clusters of branch fascicles usually consisting of two or three spreading branches and two to four hanging branches. The top of the plant, or capitulum, has compact clusters of young branches, along the stem are scattered leaves of various shapes, named stem leaves, the shape varies according to species. The leaves consist of two kinds of cells, small, green, living cells, and large, clear, structural, the latter have the large water-holding capacity. Sphagnum, like all other plants, has an alternation of generations, like other bryophytes. Unlike other mosses, the long-lived gametophytes do not rely upon rhizoids to assist in water uptake, Sphagnum species can be unisexual or bisexual, In North America, 80% of Sphagnum species are unisexual. Gametophytes have substantial asexual reproduction by fragmentation, producing much of the material in sphagnum peatlands. Swimming sperm fertilize eggs contained in archegonia that remain attached to the female gametophyte, the sporophyte is relatively short-lived, and consists almost entirely of a shiny green, spherical spore capsule that becomes black with spores. Sporophytes are raised on stalks to facilitate spore dispersal, but unlike other mosses, the spores germinate to produce minute protonemae, which start as filaments, can become thalloid, and can produce a few rhizoids. Soon afterwards the protonema develops buds and these differentiate into its characteristic, erect, leafy, branched gametophyte with chlorophyllose cells and this stage dominates the environment where Sphagnum grows, obliterating and burying the protonema and eventually building up into layers of dead moss called peat. Carpets of living Sphagnum may be attacked by fungi, and one fungus that is also a mushroom, Sphagnurus paluster. It is unknown whether the stage can produce such gemmae. Peat moss can be distinguished from other species by its unique branch clusters
20.
PH
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In chemistry, pH is a numeric scale used to specify the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. It is approximately the negative of the base 10 logarithm of the concentration, measured in units of moles per liter. More precisely it is the negative of the logarithm to base 10 of the activity of the hydrogen ion, solutions with a pH less than 7 are acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic. Pure water is neutral, at pH7, being neither an acid nor a base, contrary to popular belief, the pH value can be less than 0 or greater than 14 for very strong acids and bases respectively. The pH scale is traceable to a set of standard solutions whose pH is established by international agreement, the pH of aqueous solutions can be measured with a glass electrode and a pH meter, or an indicator. In the first papers, the notation had the H as a subscript to the p, as so. The exact meaning of the p in pH is disputed, but according to the Carlsberg Foundation and it has also been suggested that the p stands for the German Potenz, others refer to French puissance. Another suggestion is that the p stands for the Latin terms pondus hydrogenii, potentia hydrogenii and it is also suggested that Sørensen used the letters p and q simply to label the test solution and the reference solution. Currently in chemistry, the p stands for decimal cologarithm of, PH is defined as the decimal logarithm of the reciprocal of the hydrogen ion activity, aH+, in a solution. P H = − log 10 = log 10 For example and this definition was adopted because ion-selective electrodes, which are used to measure pH, respond to activity. For H+ number of electrons transferred is one and it follows that electrode potential is proportional to pH when pH is defined in terms of activity. The reference electrode may be a silver chloride electrode or a calomel electrode, the hydrogen-ion selective electrode is a standard hydrogen electrode. Reference electrode | concentrated solution of KCl || test solution | H2 | Pt Firstly, the cell is filled with a solution of hydrogen ion activity. Then the emf, EX, of the cell containing the solution of unknown pH is measured. PH = pH + E S − E X z The difference between the two measured emf values is proportional to pH and this method of calibration avoids the need to know the standard electrode potential. The proportionality constant, 1/z is ideally equal to 12.303 R T / F the Nernstian slope, to apply this process in practice, a glass electrode is used rather than the cumbersome hydrogen electrode. A combined glass electrode has a reference electrode. It is calibrated against buffer solutions of hydrogen ion activity
21.
Tannin
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A tannin is an astringent, polyphenolic biomolecule that binds to and precipitates proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids. The term tannin refers to the use of wood tannins from oak in tanning hides into leather, hence the words tan. The tannin compounds are distributed in many species of plants, where they play a role in protection from predation, and perhaps also as pesticides. The astringency from the tannins is what causes the dry and puckery feeling in the following the consumption of unripened fruit or red wine or tea. Likewise, the destruction or modification of tannins with time plays an important role when determining harvesting times, Tannins have molecular weights ranging from 500 to over 3,000 and up to 20,000. There are three classes of tannins, Shown below are the base unit or monomer of the tannin. Particularly in the flavone-derived tannins, the base shown must be heavily hydroxylated and polymerized in order to give the high molecular weight polyphenol motif that characterizes tannins, typically, tannin molecules require at least 12 hydroxyl groups and at least five phenyl groups to function as protein binders. Oligostilbenoids are oligomeric forms of stilbenoids and constitute a class of tannins, pseudo tannins are low molecular weight compounds associated with other compounds. They do not change color during the Goldbeaters skin test, unlike hydrolysable and condensed tannins, some examples of pseudo tannins and their sources are, Ellagic acid, gallic acid, and pyrogallic acid were first discovered by chemist Henri Braconnot in 1831. Julius Löwe was the first person to synthesize ellagic acid by heating gallic acid with arsenic acid or silver oxide, maximilian Nierenstein studied natural phenols and tannins found in different plant species. Working with Arthur George Perkin, he prepared ellagic acid from algarobilla and he suggested its formation from galloyl-glycine by Penicillium in 1915. Tannase is an enzyme that Nierenstein used to produce acid from gallotannins. He proved the presence of catechin in cocoa beans in 1931 and he showed in 1945 that luteic acid, a molecule present in the myrobalanitannin, a tannin found in the fruit of Terminalia chebula, is an intermediary compound in the synthesis of ellagic acid. At these times, molecule formulas were determined through combustion analysis, the discovery in 1943 by Martin and Synge of paper chromatography provided for the first time the means of surveying the phenolic constituents of plants and for their separation and identification. There was an explosion of activity in this field after 1945, none more so than that of Edgar Charles Bate-Smith and it is referred to as the White–Bate-Smith–Swain–Haslam definition. Tannins are distributed in species throughout the plant kingdom and they are commonly found in both gymnosperms as well as angiosperms. Mole studied the distribution of tannin in 180 families of dicotyledons and 44 families of monocotyledons, most families of dicot contain tannin-free species. To the family of the oak, Fagaceae, 73% of the species tested contain tannin, for those of acacias, Mimosaceae, only 39% of the species tested contain tannin, among Solanaceae rate drops to 6% and 4% for the Asteraceae
22.
Carbon sink
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A carbon sink is a natural or artificial reservoir that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound for an indefinite period. The process by which carbon sinks remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is known as carbon sequestration, public awareness of the significance of CO2 sinks has grown since passage of the Kyoto Protocol, which promotes their use as a form of carbon offset. There are also different strategies used to enhance this process, because growing vegetation takes in carbon dioxide, the Kyoto Protocol allows Annex I countries with large areas of growing forests to issue Removal Units to recognize the sequestration of carbon. The additional units make it easier for them to achieve their target emission levels and it is estimated that forests absorb between 10 and 20 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare each year, through photosynthetic conversion into starch, cellulose, lignin, and wooden biomass. While this has been documented for temperate forests and plantations. Some countries seek to trade rights in carbon emission markets. If overall limits on greenhouse gas emission are put into place, cap, there is as yet no carbon audit regime for all such markets globally, and none is specified in the Kyoto Protocol. In the Clean Development Mechanism, only afforestation and reforestation are eligible to produce certified emission reductions in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Forest conservation activities or activities avoiding deforestation, which would result in emission reduction through the conservation of existing stocks, are not eligible at this time. Also, agricultural carbon sequestration is not possible yet, soils represent a short to long-term carbon storage medium, and contains more carbon than all terrestrial vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Plant litter and other biomass including charcoal accumulates as organic matter in soils, more recalcitrant organic carbon polymers such as cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin, aliphatic compounds, waxes and terpenoids are collectively retained as humus. Organic matter tends to accumulate in litter and soils of colder regions such as the forests of North America. Leaf litter and humus are rapidly oxidized and poorly retained in sub-tropical and tropical climate due to high temperatures. Areas where shifting cultivation or slash and burn agriculture are practiced are generally only fertile for 2–3 years before they are abandoned. These tropical jungles are similar to coral reefs in that they are efficient at conserving and circulating necessary nutrients. Much organic carbon retained in many areas worldwide has been severely depleted due to intensive farming practices. Grasslands contribute to organic matter, stored mainly in their extensive fibrous root mats. Due in part to the conditions of these regions, these soils can accumulate significant quantities of organic matter
23.
Mega Rice Project (Kalimantan)
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The Mega Rice Project was initiated in 1996 in the southern sections of Kalimantan, the Indonesian section of Borneo. The goal was to one million hectares of unproductive and sparsely populated peat swamp forest into rice paddies in an effort to alleviate Indonesias growing food shortage. The government made an investment in constructing irrigation canals and removing trees. The project did not succeed, and was abandoned after causing considerable damage to the environment. The peat swamp forest in the south of Kalimantan is an ecology that is home to many unique or rare species such as orangutans, as well as to slow-growing. Peat is a store of carbon. If broken down and burned it contributes to CO2 emissions, a source of global warming, unlike northern forests, which regenerate in 10–30 years even after clear-cut felling, the peat swamp forest may take several centuries to regenerate. The peat swamp forests of Kalimantan were being cleared for small scale farming and plantations before 1997. In 1996 the Indonesian government initiated the Mega Rice Project, which aimed to one million hectares of peat swamp forest to rice paddies. Between 1996 and 1998, more than 4,000 km of drainage and irrigation channels were dug, the water channels, and the roads and railways built for legal forestry, opened up the region to illegal forestry. In the MRP area, forest cover dropped from 64. 8% in 1991 to 45. 7% in 2000 and it appears that almost all the marketable trees have now been removed from the areas covered by the MRP. Where the forests had often flooded up to 2m deep in the rainy season, the government has therefore abandoned the MRP, but the drying peat is vulnerable to fires which continue to break out on a massive scale. Peat forest destruction is causing sulphuric acid pollution of the rivers, in the rainy seasons, the canals are discharging acidic water with a high ratio of pyritic sulphate into rivers up to 150 km upstream from the river mouth. This may be a factor contributing to lower fish catches
24.
Borneo peat swamp forests
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The Borneo peat swamp forests ecoregion, within the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, are on the island of Borneo, which is divided between Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Peat swamp forests occur where waterlogged soils prevent dead leaves and wood from fully decomposing, there are also areas of inland river-fed peat forest at higher elevations in central Kalimantan around the Mahakam Lakes and Lake Sentarum on the Kapuas River. Borneo has a monsoon climate. Over the past decade, the government of Indonesia has drained over 1 million hectares of the Borneo peat swamp forests for conversion to agricultural land under the Mega Rice Project. Between 1996 and 1998, more than 4,000 km of drainage and irrigation channels were dug, the water channels, and the roads and railways built for legal forestry, opened up the region to illegal forestry. In the MRP area, forest cover dropped from 64. 8% in 1991 to 45. 7% in 2000 and it appears that almost all the marketable trees have now been removed from the areas covered by the MRP. What happened was not what had expected, the channels drained the peat forests rather than irrigating them. Where the forests had often flooded up to 2m deep in the rainy season, the Indonesian government has now abandoned the MRP. Fires were used in an attempt to create agricultural lands, including large palm tree plantations to supply palm oil, the dried-out peat ignites easily and also burns underground, travelling unseen beneath the surface to break out in unexpected locations. The destruction had a negative impact on the livelihoods of people in the area. It caused major smog-related health problems amongst half a million people, the dry years of 1997-8 and 2002-3 in particular saw huge fires in the drained and drying-out peat swamp forests. Using satellite images from before and after the 1997 fires, scientists calculated that of the 790,000 hectares that had burned 91. 5% was peatland 730,000 hectares. Indonesia is currently the third largest carbon emitter, to a large extent due to the destruction of its ancient peat swamp forests. About 62% of the worlds tropical peat lands occur in the Indo-Malayan region and they are unusual ecosystems, with trees up to 70 m high - vastly different from the peat lands of the north temperate and boreal zones. The spongy, unstable, waterlogged, anaerobic beds of peat can be up to 20 m deep with low pH and low nutrients, the water is stained dark brown by the tannins that leach from the fallen leaves and peat – hence the name ‘blackwater swamps’. During the dry season, the peat remains waterlogged and pools remain among the trees, despite the extreme conditions the Borneo peat swamp forests have as many as 927 species of flowering plants and ferns recorded. Many trees have buttresses and stilt roots for support in the unstable substrate, the trees have thick, root mats in the upper 50 cm of the peat to enable oxygen and nutrient uptake. In order to cope with the lack of nutrients, the plants invest heavily in defences against herbivores such as chemical and physical defences and it is these defences that prevent the leaves from decaying and so they build up as peat
25.
Illegal logging
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Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase or sale of timber in violation of laws. Illegality may also occur during transport, such as processing and export, fraudulent declaration to customs, the avoidance of taxes and other charges. Illegal logging is a problem, causing enormous damage to forests, local communities. Therefore, a basis for normative acts against timber imports or other products manufactured out of illegal wood is missing. Scientific methods to pinpoint the origin of timber are currently under development. Possible actions to restrict imports cannot meet with WTO regulations of non-discrimination and they must instead be arranged in bilateral agreements. TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, strives to monitor the illegal trade of timber and provide expertise in policy. It is estimated that illegal logging on public land alone causes losses in assets, available figures and estimates must be treated with caution. On the other hand, environmental NGOs publish alarming figures to raise awareness, however, for many countries, NGOs are the only source of information apart from state institutions, which probably clearly underestimate the true figures. For example, the Republic of Estonia calculated a rate of 1% illegally harvested timber in 2003, in Latvia, the situation is comparable, anecdotal evidence points towards 25% of logging being illegal. Illegal logging contributes to deforestation and by extension global warming, causes loss of biodiversity, Illegal logging has serious economic and social implications for the poor and disadvantaged with millions of dollars worth of timber revenue being lost each year. This unfair competition affects those European companies, especially the small and medium-sized companies that are behaving responsibly, a joint UK-Indonesian study of the timber industry in Indonesia in 1998 suggested that about 40% of throughput was illegal, with a value in excess of $365 million. More recent estimates, comparing legal harvesting against known domestic consumption plus exports, malaysia is the key transit country for illegal wood products from Indonesia. In Brazil, 80% of logging in the Amazon violates government controls, at the core of illegal logging is widespread corruption. Often referred to as ‘green gold’, mahogany can fetch over US$1,600 m-3, Illegal mahogany facilitates the illegal logging of other species, and widespread exploitation of the Brazilian Amazon. Recent Greenpeace investigations in the Brazilian state of Pará reveal just how deeply rooted the problem remains, no reliable legal chain of custody exists for mahogany, and the key players in its trade are ruthless. The World Bank estimates that 80% of logging operations are illegal in Bolivia and 42% in Colombia,10 while in Peru, WWF estimates that illegal logging in Russia is at least 20%, reaching up to 50% in its far eastern regions. Between 50% and 90% of logging from the key countries in these regions is being carried out by organised criminal entities, the East Asia Forest Law Enforcement and Governance Ministerial Conference took place in Bali in September 2001
26.
European Space Agency
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The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states, dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a staff of about 2,000. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching, after World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work with the United States. The meeting was attended by representatives from eight countries, including Harrie Massey. The Western European nations decided to have two different agencies, one concerned with developing a system, ELDO, and the precursor of the European Space Agency. The latter was established on 20 March 1964 by an agreement signed on 14 June 1962, from 1968 to 1972, ESRO launched seven research satellites. ESA in its current form was founded with the ESA Convention in 1975, ESA has 10 founding member states, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. These signed the ESA Convention in 1975 and deposited the instruments of ratification by 1980, during this interval the agency functioned in a de facto fashion. ESA launched its first major scientific mission in 1975, Cos-B, ESA joined NASA in the IUE, the worlds first high-orbit telescope, which was launched in 1978 and operated very successfully for 18 years. A number of successful Earth-orbit projects followed, and in 1986 ESA began Giotto, its first deep-space mission, to study the comets Halley and Grigg–Skjellerup. Hipparcos, a mission, was launched in 1989 and in the 1990s SOHO, Ulysses. Recent scientific missions in co-operation with NASA include the Cassini–Huygens space probe, as the successor of ELDO, ESA has also constructed rockets for scientific and commercial payloads. Ariane 1, launched in 1979, brought mostly commercial payloads into orbit from 1984 onward, the successor launch vehicle of Ariane 5, the Ariane 6 is already in the definition stage and is envisioned to enter service in the 2020s. The beginning of the new millennium saw ESA become, along with agencies like NASA, JAXA, ISRO, CSA and Roscosmos, one of the major participants in scientific space research. Although ESA had relied on co-operation with NASA in previous decades, especially the 1990s, changed circumstances led to decisions to rely more on itself, a 2011 press issue thus stated, Russia is ESAs first partner in its efforts to ensure long-term access to space. ESA maintains its scientific and research projects mainly for astronomy-space missions such as Corot, launched on 27 December 2006 and this is the reason space exploration is an integral part of overall space activities. It has always been so, and it will be more important in the future. ESA describes its work in two overlapping ways, For the general public the various fields of work are described as Activities, Member states participate to varying degrees in the mandatory and optional space programmes
27.
Borneo Orangutan Survival
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It is audited by a multinational auditor company and operates under the formal agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Forest to conserve and rehabilitate orangutans. BOS manages orangutan rescue, rehabilitation and re-introduction programmes in East, with 804 orangutans in its care and employing between six hundred and a thousand people at a hundred sites BOS is the biggest primate conservation NGO worldwide. Nyaru Menteng and Samboja Lestari are the BOS sites that have received most extensive media coverage, Nyaru Menteng, founded and run by Lone Drøscher Nielsen, has been the subject of a number of TV series, including Orangutan Diary and Orangutan Island. Samboja Lestari featured recently in a 2009 TED talk, Willie Smits restores a rainforest in which Smits describes how he recreated forest to provide habitat for rescued orangutans. In 1989 Dr. Willie Smits, then a forest ecologist, had his first encounter with an orangutan and he was struck by the saddest eyes he had ever seen and going back later found her on a rubbish heap and took her home. He nursed her back to health and a few weeks later was another to care for. As its sphere of activity broadened, it was renamed the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in 1994, since then it has received increasing recognition in Indonesia and globally, with sister organizations in 11 other countries. The Bornean orangutans are endangered according to the IUCN Red List of mammals and their habitat is so much reduced that they are now only to be found in pockets of remaining rainforest. The largest remaining population is found in the forest around the Sabangau River, according to the IUCN, it is expected that in 10 to 30 years orangutans will be extinct if there is no serious effort to overcome the threats that they are facing. Wanariset began as a tropical forest research station near Balikpapan in the Indonesian Province of East Kalimantan and was developed as an orangutan rescue, Nyaru Menteng 2°6′34″S 113°49′14″E is an orangutan rescue and rehabilitation centre 28 km from Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan. Lone Drøscher Nielsen sought the advice of Dr Smits about the possibility of creating a new project in Central Kalimantan to deal with the numbers of orphaned orangutans. Dr Smits agreed to help and, with the backing of the Gibbon Foundation and BOS Indonesia. She was able to build the facility under an agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, the sanctuary was designed to hold up to 100 orphaned orangutans while they go through rehabilitation. In addition to quarantine cages, medical clinic, and nursery, Nyaru Menteng quickly became the largest primate rescue project in the world, with nearly 700 orphaned and displaced orangutans in its care at the present. Many of these orangutans are only weeks old when they arrive, as of 2009, up to 20 young orangutans arrive every month. The centres running costs are $1. 5m a year, there are 170 staff, babysitters, assistants, people working in the medical department, guards and other workers. Associated with the centre are, The Workers Village which accommodates workers from outside the locality, The Islands, Kaja, Palas I. the Fruit plantation, Nyaru Menteng Lestari,3 ha planted with fruit-bearing trees, such as mango, pineapple and rambutan. A planned airlift of 48 orangutans scheduled to take place in July 2009 was cancelled as BHP Billiton intended to withdraw from the area for strategic reasons
28.
Carbon finance
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Carbon finance is a new branch of Environmental finance. Carbon finance explores the implications of living in a carbon-constrained world. Financial risks and opportunities impact corporate balance sheets, and market-based instruments are capable of transferring environmental risk, issues regarding climate change and GHG emissions must be addressed as part of strategic management decision-making. The general term is applied to investments in GHG emission reduction projects, joint Implementation, is another mechanism, allowing investments in developed countries to generate emission credit for the same or another developed country. The market for the purchase of carbon has grown exponentially since its conception in 1996, the World Bank is particularly supportive of Program of Activities development. Carbon Finance Advisory Carbon Finance TV Carbon Finance International Carbon Finance Services Daily carbon finance news Glossary of Terms
29.
Debt-for-nature swap
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Debt-for-nature swaps are financial transactions in which a portion of a developing nations foreign debt is forgiven in exchange for local investments in environmental conservation measures. Since the first swap occurred between Conservation International and Bolivia in 1987, many governments and conservation organizations have engaged in debt-for-nature swaps. Most swaps occur in countries, which contain many diverse species of flora. Since 1987, debt-for-nature agreements have generated over US$1 billion for conservation in developing countries, the financing mechanism for debt-for-nature swaps is an agreement among the funder, the national government of the debtor country, and the conservation organization using the funds. The national government of the indebted country agrees to a payment schedule on the amount of the debt forgiven, usually paid through the central bank. The process is shown in Figure 1, participation in debt-for-nature swaps has been restricted primarily to countries where the risk of default on debt payments is high. In these circumstances, the funder can purchase the debt at well below its face value, bilateral debt-for-nature swaps take place between two governments. In a bilateral swap, a creditor country forgives a portion of the public debt of a debtor nation in exchange for environmental commitments from that country. An example of a bilateral swap occurred when the U. S and these funds established the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica in 1993. Multilateral debt-for-nature swaps are similar to bilateral swaps but involve international transactions of more than two national governments, recorded bilateral and multilateral debt-for-nature swaps have generated nearly US$900 million in total conservation funding from 1987-2010. The following table shows the countries which have received funds from swaps, debt for nature swaps have often been described as agreements in which all parties benefit and that there are no disadvantages. The benefits to the country, creditor, and conservation organizations are outlined below. Through a debt-for-nature swap, a debtor country reduces its total outstanding external debt, the debtor country is able to buy back part of its debt in more favorable terms and pay for conservation initiatives rather than debt service. This leads to higher international purchasing power for the debtor country, also, some argue that converting outstanding debts in USD to local currency debts lowers the long-term debt burden on developing countries. Additionally, debt-for-nature terms enable long-term planning and funding, if the country is interested in funding conservation, debt-for-nature swaps provide an additional source of funds for that purpose. In contrast to debt-for-equity swaps, debt-for-nature swaps do not compromise national sovereignty since no property exchange takes place, creditors see debt-for-nature swaps as a method to rid themselves of high-risk claims. By selling the claim, they can re-invest the proceeds from the sale in higher-performing ventures. Creditors faced with low-performance loans may also seek to limit their exposure, the donor organizations also purchase the debt at a value below its face value and usually redeem it above its market value
30.
Tanjung Puting
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Tanjung Puting National Park is a national park in Indonesia located in the southeast part of West Kotawaringin Regency in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan. The nearest main town is the capital of the Regency, Pangkalan Bun, the park is famous for its orangutan conservation. The park is composed of 416,040 hectares of dryland dipterocarp forest, peat swampforest, heath forest, mangrove and coastal beach forest, and secondary forest. The park may be accessed from Kumai by speedboat along the Kumai River and then the Sekonyer River to Camp Leakey, the Kumai River forms the northern border of the park. Beyond that the peat forest has been removed to make way for oil palm plantations, despite being a protected national park, approximately 65% of the parks primary forest is degraded. It is the loss of habitat that is the greatest threat to the wildlife. Friends of National Parks Foundation is an Indonesian NGO that has been working to restore the habitat in the Pasalat and it also operates a conservation education centre in Pasalat. Four research centers have been established within the park for the study and rehabilitation of orangutans, Camp Leakey, founded in 1971 with assistance from the Leakey Foundation, was the first of these centers. It was here where Dr. Birute Galdikas began her career studying the behavior of rescued and orphaned orangutans that were reintroduced into the wild and her research was highlighted as the cover article of National Geographic in October 1975. Dr. Galdikas is now considered one of the leading experts on orangutan behaviour and is the founder. In addition to orangutans and proboscis monkeys, the park is home to gibbons, macaques, clouded leopards, sun bears, wild boars, porcupines. The park also features many reptiles, including crocodiles, monitor lizards, and pythons, birds, including hornbills and kingfishers, the Pondok Ambung Tropical Forest Research Station was established in 2005 for the study of all wild species found in the park. Today Tanjung Puting National Park is an ecotourism destination, with many local tour companies offering multi-day boat tours to view wildlife. The park was home to 105,000 people as of 1997, the park was heavily damaged by fires in 1997 and 1998, and today remains threatened by illegal logging, illegal mining, and forest clearing for agricultural uses. Conservation efforts by Indonesian NGO Friends of the National Parks Foundation is leading towards a slow and their reforestation work has seen the planting of thousands of saplings in the area to recreate habitat for the endemic wildlife in the area. Orangutan Foundation International The Orangutan Foundation The Friends of National Parks Foundation
31.
Sabangau National Park
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Sabangau National Park is a national park in Central Kalimantan, a province of Indonesia in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo established in 2004. By 2012 only less than 1 percent of the total area has been reforested and need several centuries to restore it back to its pre-logged state. The national park is centered on Sabangau River, a blackwater river and it flows through the Kelompok Hutan Kahayan or Sabangau peat swamp forest, between the Katingan and Kahayan rivers. The severely degraded eastern part of the forest, between the Sabangau and the Kayahan, is designated for agriculture. The forest has been damaged by legal and illegal forestry, there is no longer any continuous forest cover where orangutans may cross the river. A satellite view shows a grid of logging roads throughout most of the forest, however, the western part is now protected as either National Park or National Laboratory Research Area. The forest is home to the world’s largest orangutan population, estimated at 6,910 individuals in 2003, the total agile gibbon population in the Sabangau catchment is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, but is declining fast. Vulnerable bird species include the green pigeon and possibly Storms stork. Efforts are underway to establish long-term ecological monitoring in the forest
32.
Palm oil
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Palm oil is naturally reddish in color because of a high beta-carotene content. It is not to be confused with palm oil derived from the kernel of the same fruit. The differences are in color, and in saturated fat content, palm oil is 49% saturated, while palm kernel oil and coconut oil are 81% and 86% saturated fats. Along with coconut oil, palm oil is one of the few highly saturated vegetable fats and is semisolid at room temperature, Palm oil is a common cooking ingredient in the tropical belt of Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of Brazil. Its use in the food industry in other parts of the world is widespread because of its lower cost. In 2004, a group called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil was formed to work with the palm oil industry to address these concerns. It is believed that traders brought the oil palm to Egypt, Palm oil from E. guineensiss has long been recognized in West and Central African countries, and is widely used as a cooking oil. European merchants trading with West Africa occasionally purchased palm oil for use as an oil in Europe. Palm oil became a highly sought-after commodity by British traders, for use as a lubricant for machinery during Britains Industrial Revolution. Palm oil formed the basis of soap products, such as Lever Brothers Sunlight soap, by around 1870, palm oil constituted the primary export of some West African countries, such as Ghana and Nigeria, although this was overtaken by cocoa in the 1880s. Palm oil, like all fats, is composed of fatty acids, Palm oil has an especially high concentration of saturated fat, specifically, of the 16-carbon saturated fatty acid palmitic acid, to which it gives its name. Monounsaturated oleic acid is also a constituent of palm oil. Unrefined palm oil is a significant source of tocotrienol, part of the vitamin E family. The approximate concentration of fatty acids in palm oil is, Red palm oil is rich in carotenes, such as alpha-carotene, beta-carotene and lycopene, many processed foods either contain palm oil or various ingredients derived from it. After milling, various oil products are made using refining processes. First is fractionation, with crystallization and separation processes to obtain solid, then melting and degumming removes impurities. Then the oil is filtered and bleached, RBDPO is the basic palm oil product sold on the worlds commodity markets. Many companies fractionate it further to produce palm olein for cooking oil, since the mid-1990s, red palm oil has been cold-pressed and bottled for use as cooking oil, and blended into mayonnaise and salad oil
33.
Palm oil production in Indonesia
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Palm oil production is important to the economy of Indonesia as the country is the worlds biggest producer and consumer of the commodity, providing about half the world supply. Oil palm plantations stretch across 6 million hectares, Indonesia plans by 2015 to add 4 million additional hectares towards oil palm biofuel production. As of 2012, Indonesia produces 35 percent of the worlds certified sustainable palm oil, in addition to servicing traditional markets, Indonesia is looking to put more effort into producing biodiesel. China and India are the major importers of oil, accounting for more than a third of global palm oil imports. Production of palm oil in Indonesia has, since 1964, recorded an increase from 157,000 tonnes to 33.5 million tonnes in 2014. Palm oil accounts for 11% of Indonesias export earnings of $5. 7bn, maintaining its status as the world’s largest producer of palm oil, Indonesia has projected a figure of 40 million tonnes by 2020. In this context, the global production figure given by Food and Agricultural Organization was 50 million tonnes for 2012, double the production of 2002. This increase is reflected also in increases of Indonesia’s production of oil for the same period. The entire production of the oil is derived from Indonesias rainforest which ranks third in the world, according to the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, one third of this production is attributed to smallholder farmers and the remaining to the multinationals. Borneo and Sumatra are the two islands which account for 96 percent of Indonesia’s palm oil production, Palm oil use in Asia is very wide as cooking medium and for noodles which has created a $44 billion industry. According to trade reports one third of oil production in the world is exported to China. Major local and global companies are building mills and refineries, including PT Astra Agro Lestari Terbuka, PT Bakrie Group, robert Kuoks Wilmar International Limited has plantations and 25 refineries across Indonesia, to supply feedstock to new biodiesel refineries in Singapore, Riau, Indonesia and Rotterdam. Musim Mas Group has plantations and refineries in Malaysia and Indonesia - Kalimantan, Medan etc. although they are headquartered in Singapore, in the past Marihat Reaserch Station which located in Pematang Siantar known as the first research centre for Palm Oil Plantation for Indonesia. One of its experts in the soil was Ir. Indonesian palm oil producer Triputra Agro Persada will reportedly increase its area by about two-thirds from 2013 by 2015. A major environmental threat that palm oil production faces is the destruction of rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia, also reported are human rights abuse in the form of using child labour and debt bondage in the plantations of Borneo and Sumatra. In Kalimantan, deforestation for oil palm plantation development is said to endanger the living space of indigenous tribes, a government moratorium on the clearing of new forest has become effective from 2011 which will be effective till 2015. Of the total logging in Indonesia, up to 80% is reported to be performed illegally, the Indonesian Palm Oil Board has planned to adopt new planting materials on the older plantations which could double the yield from the present annual rate of four tonnes of oil per hectare
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Kalimantan
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Kalimantan is the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. It comprises 73% of the islands area, the non-Indonesian parts of Borneo are Brunei and East Malaysia. In Indonesian, the term Kalimantan refers to the island of Borneo. It consists of the two words kal and manthan, the word Kalamanthana is spelled Kalmantan, and then the indigenous people fixed it into Klemantan. The Indonesian territory makes up 73% of the island by area, the non-Indonesian parts of Borneo are of Brunei and East Malaysia, the latter comprising the states of Sabah, Sarawak and the federal territory of Labuan. The region within Indonesia is also known as Indonesian Borneo, kalimantans total area is 544,150 square kilometres. Kalimantan is divided into five provinces, 1)North Kalimantan split off East Kalimantan with resulting population, languages of Kalimantan Kalimantan travel guide from Wikivoyage
35.
Sclerophyll
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Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that has hard leaves, short internodes and leaf orientation parallel or oblique to direct sunlight. The word comes from the Greek sklēros and phyllon, sclerophyllous plants occur in many parts of the world, but are most typical in the chaparral biomes. The term was coined by A. F. W, schimper in 1898, originally as a synonym of xeromorph, but later was changed. Most areas of the Australian continent able to support woody plants are occupied by sclerophyll communities as forests, common plants include the Proteaceae, tea-trees, acacias, boronias, and eucalypts. The most common sclerophyll communities in Australia are savannas dominated by grasses with an overstorey of eucalypts, acacia shrublands also cover extensive areas. These traits make the majority of plants in these woodlands largely unpalatable to domestic livestock. It is therefore important from a perspective that these woodlands support a more or less continuous layer of herbaceous ground cover dominated by grasses. Sclerophyll forests cover a smaller area of the continent, being restricted to relatively high rainfall locations. They have a eucalyptus overstory with the understory also being hard-leaved, dry sclerophyll forests are the most common forest type on the continent, and although it may seem barren dry sclerophyll forest is highly diverse. For example, a study of vegetation in Seal Creek, Victoria. Even less extensive are wet sclerophyll forests and they have a taller eucalyptus overstory than dry sclerophyll forests,30 metres or more, and a soft-leaved, fairly dense understory. They require ample rainfall — at least 1000mm, sclerophyllous plants are all part of a specific environment and are anything but newcomers. By the time of European settlement, sclerophyll forest accounted for the vast bulk of the forested areas, most of the wooded parts of present-day Australia have become sclerophyll dominated as a result of the extreme age of the continent combined with Aboriginal fire use. Deep weathering of the crust over millions of years leached chemicals out of the rock, leaving Australian soils deficient in nutrients. Such nutrient deficient soils support non-sclerophyllous plant communities elsewhere in the world, however such deficient soils cannot support the nutrient losses associated with frequent fires and are rapidly replaced with sclerophyllous species under traditional Aboriginal burning regimens. With the cessation of traditional burning non-sclerophyllous species have re-colonised sclerophyll habitat in parts of Australia. Sclerophyllous plants generally resist dry conditions well, making them successful in areas of seasonally variable rainfall, the leaves are hard due to lignin, which prevents wilting and allows plants to grow, even when there isnt enough phosphorus for substantial new cell growth
36.
Stenochlaena palustris
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Stenochlaena palustris is an edible medicinal fern species. In the folk medicines of India and Malaysia, the leaves of this fern are used as remedies for fever, skin diseases, ulcers and this plant is a long-climbing fern with thin black scales and stems that can reach up to 20 m. It has pinnate fronds that are 30–100 cm long, petioles that are 7–20 cm long, the ferns sporophylls are long and narrow, and have brownish sori undernwath. Acylated flavonol glycosides isolated from the fern were found to have antibacterial activities, crude and partially purified extracts prepared from the fern have been shown to exhibit antifungal, antioxidant, and antiglucosidase activities. The district of Diliman in Quezon City, one of the Philippines most important educational districts, is named after this fern
37.
Ratargul Swamp Forest
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Ratargul Swamp Forest is a freshwater swamp forest located in Gowainghat, Sylhet, Bangladesh. It is the swamp forest located in Bangladesh and one of the few freshwater swamp forest in the world. The forest is naturally conserved under the Department of Forestry, Govt. of Bangladesh, the evergreen forest is situated by the river Goain and linked with the cannel Chengir Khal. Most of the trees growing here are the Millettia pinnata, the forest goes under 20–30 feet water in the rainy season. Rest of the year the water level is about 10 feet deep, Ratargul is about 26 kilometers from Sylhet. There is a 30,325 acres wetland in Sylhet range-2 under the forest department, after reaching Gowainghat, tourists reserve local engine boat namely traller to reach forest. There are two haors namely shimul bil haor and neoa bil haor in the part of the forest. Tropical air from the north-west of Sylhet causes heavy rainfall, according to Sylhet Weather Centre, average rainfall is 4162 millimetre per year. Highest rainfall occurs in July which is 1250 millimetre, on the other hand, December is the driest season with 74% relative density which jumps up to more than 90% in July–August. The forest is linked with Gowain river through a lake namely chengir khal, in the rainy season, too much water from India enter into the lake through Gowain river and the forest become flooded. This situation prevails from May to early October and the temperature remains 32 degree Celsius which drops to 12 degree Celsius in January, in the rainy season, trees remain 10 ft under water but the forest become dry in winter season. 73 species of plants could be found in the forest till now,80 percent of the forest area is covered with umbrella of the trees. Two layer of plants can be seen in the swamp forest, the upper layer consists of trees and the lower one consists of intense Schumannianthus dichotomus. The canopy of the plants spreads up to 15 meters of height, though the forest is natural, the Forestry Department of Bangladesh has planted some watery plants like Calamus tenuis, Burflower Tree, Barringtonia acutangula, Calamus tenuis. Banyan Tree is very common in the forest, besides that, Barringtonia acutangula, Milletia Pinnata, Sacred Garlic Pear or Temple Plant, Alstonia Scholaris can also be seen. Snake and worm snake can widely be seen in this water-drown forest, mongoose can be seen in dry season. Monkey and Water Monitor also resides in the forest, heron, Egret, Kingfisher, Parrot, Bulbul, Swan, Dove, Water fowl, Eagle and Kite Bird are some of the birds of the swamp forest. Cotton Pygmy Goose and other Migratory birds and Vulture visit the forest in winter, name of some local fishes available in the forest are Batasio, Rita, Pabda, Rohu etc
38.
Sylhet District
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Sylhet, located in north-east Bangladesh, is one of the four districts in the Sylhet Division. Sylhet district was established on 3 January 1782, and until 1878 it was part of Bengal province, in that year, Sylhet was included in the newly created Assam Province, and it remained as part of Assam up to 1947. In 1947, Sylhet became a part of East Pakistan as a result of a referendum as part of Chittagong Division and it was subdivided into four districts in 1983-84. It was converted into a Division in 1995, Sylhet is the chief town of the division, where the division headquarters as well as Sylhet district headquarters are located. Its most famous natural touristic spot is Jaflong and it is home to the grave of the Muslim saint, Hazrat Shah Jalal Yamani. Sylhet District is divided into twelve sub-districts or Upazilas, List of people from Sylhet Districts of Bangladesh Sylhet Division List of colleges in Sylhet
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Bangladesh
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Bangladesh, officially the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China are located near Bangladesh but do not share a border with it. The countrys maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area, Bangladesh is the worlds eighth most populous country. Dhaka is its capital and largest city, followed by Chittagong which has the countrys largest port, Bangladesh forms the largest and eastern part of the Bengal region. Bangladeshis include people of different ethnic groups and religions, Bengalis, who speak the official Bengali, make up 98% of the population. The politically dominant Bengali Muslims make the nation the worlds third largest Muslim-majority country, most of Bangladesh is covered by the Bengal delta, the largest delta on Earth. The country has 700 rivers and 8,046 km of inland waterways, highlands with evergreen forests are found in the northeastern and southeastern regions of the country. Bangladesh has many islands and a coral reef and it is home to the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world. The countrys biodiversity includes a vast array of plant and wildlife, including critically endangered Bengal tigers, the Greeks and Romans identified the region as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom of the historical subcontinent, in the 3rd century BCE. Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which had trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region into a cosmopolitan Islamic imperial power between the 14th and 18th centuries, the region was home to many principalities which had inland naval prowess. It was also a center of the worldwide muslin and silk trade. As part of British India, the region was influenced by the Bengali renaissance, the Partition of British India made East Bengal a part of the Dominion of Pakistan, and was renamed as East Pakistan. The region witnessed the Bengali Language Movement in 1952 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after independence, a parliamentary republic was established. A presidential government was in place between 1975 and 1990, followed by a return to parliamentary democracy, the country has also been affected by poverty, natural disasters, hunger, dominant party systems and military coups. Bangladesh is a power and a major developing nation. Listed as one of the Next Eleven, it has the 46th largest economy and it is one of the largest textile exporters in the world. Its major trading partners are the European Union, the United States, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, with its strategically vital location between Southern, Eastern and Southeast Asia, Bangladesh is an important promoter of regional connectivity and cooperation
40.
Bog
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A bog is a wetland that accumulates peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses, and in a majority of cases, sphagnum moss. It is one of the four types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, quagmire, and muskeg and they are frequently covered in ericaceous shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink, Bogs occur where the water at the ground surface is acidic and low in nutrients. In some cases, the water is derived entirely from precipitation, water flowing out of bogs has a characteristic brown colour, which comes from dissolved peat tannins. In general, the low fertility and cool climate results in relatively slow plant growth, large areas of landscape can be covered many metres deep in peat. Bogs have distinctive assemblages of animal, fungal and plant species, Bogs are widely distributed in cold, temperate climes, mostly in boreal ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere. The worlds largest wetland is the bogs of the Western Siberian Lowlands in Russia. Large peat bogs also occur in North America, particularly the Hudson Bay Lowland and they are less common in the Southern Hemisphere, with the largest being the Magellanic moorland, comprising some 44,000 square kilometres. Sphagnum bogs were widespread in northern Europe but have often been cleared and drained for agriculture, a 2014 expedition leaving from Itanga village, Republic of the Congo discovered a peat bog as big as England which stretches into neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. There are many highly specialised animals, fungi and plants associated with bog habitat, most are capable of tolerating the combination of low nutrient levels and waterlogging. Sphagnum moss is generally abundant, along with ericaceous shrubs, the shrubs are often evergreen, which is understood to assist in conservation of nutrients. In drier locations, evergreen trees can occur, in case the bog blends into the surrounding expanses of boreal evergreen forest. Sedges are one of the more common herbaceous species, carnivorous plants such as sundews and pitcher plants have adapted to the low-nutrient conditions by using invertebrates as a nutrient source. Orchids have adapted to these conditions through the use of fungi to extract nutrients. Some shrubs such as Myrica gale have root nodules in which nitrogen fixation occurs, Bogs are recognized as a significant/specific habitat type by a number of governmental and conservation agencies. They can provide habitat for mammals, such as caribou, moose, the United Kingdom in its Biodiversity Action Plan establishes bog habitats as a priority for conservation. Russia has a reserve system in the West Siberian Lowland
41.
1997 Southeast Asian haze
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The total costs of the Southeast Asian haze are estimated at US$9 billion, due mainly to health care and disruption of air travel and business activities. During the peak episode, satellite imagery showed a layer that expanded over an area of more than 3,000,000 km2, covering large parts of Sumatra. Its northward extension partially reached Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand, during this period, particulate matter concentrations frequently exceeded national ambient air quality standards. Monthly mean horizontal visibility at most locations in Sumatra and Kalimantan in September was below 1 km, Indonesia Singapore Malaysia Thailand Brunei The 1997 Southeast Asian haze was caused mainly by slash-and-burn techniques adopted by farmers in Indonesia. Slash and burn has been used for many years as the cheapest and easiest means to clear the lands for traditional agriculture. Fire may also be used as a weapon to claim property on the islands and provinces where land ownership is not clear. After burning out its previous owner, the smallholder or large operator plants their own crops there, gaining de facto control over the disputed land. During the dry season, dry fuels readily ignite and lead to wildfires, and due to the 1997–98 El Niño event. These accidental fires may have the same underlying socio-economic and institutional problems, in cases like this, fire suppression can be very difficult and costly especially when they reach the highly flammable peat-swamp areas. Atmospheric particulate matter was the form of air pollutant that predominantly contributed to the haze, in all countries affected by the smoke haze, an increase of acute health outcomes was observed. In Singapore, for instance, health surveillance showed a 30% increase in attendance due to air quality related symptoms. Generally, children and the elderly, as well as those with pre-existing respiratory, the smoke haze episode has added to the urban and industrial air pollution in Southeast Asia, causing it to reach alarming levels in many metropolitan areas. Among the economic sectors affected most were air, land and sea transportation, construction, tourism, eEPSEA/WWF roughly estimated the economic value of the damages caused by the 1997 fires and haze. They estimated one billion US$ from haze-related damages for Indonesia only, the damages to Malaysia and Singapore are figured at 0.4 billion US$. Including the fire related damages, the damages are estimated to amount to 4.5 billion US$. However, a variety of the such as decreased quality of life, loss of biodiversity
42.
2006 Southeast Asian haze
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Local sources of pollution partly contributed to the increased toxicity, particularly in high-pollution areas such as ports, oil refineries, and dense urban areas. In the highly urbanised and industrialised Klang Valley of Malaysia in particular, there is also a link to El Niño. The haze was made worse than during previous occurrences by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation which delayed the years monsoon season, air quality across the region appeared to improve in late October as heavy rainfall doused fires in Indonesia. Brunei, an independent sultanate that is surrounded by East Malaysias Sarawak state on Borneo, had been affected by the haze from Kalimantan, rains brought some relief, and on 8 October, the Pollutant Standards Index had dropped to 46, which is within the good range. There was a spell of clear skies during the first week of Hari Raya. But the haze returned on 31 October, with the Department of Environment, Parks, satellite images taken over Borneo on 4 October showing 561 hot spots areas where fires had been set. However, they conceded, most of the fires were on private land, Indonesia planned to deploy its military to aid fire fighting effort. To recruit more people to man the line, the government offered two days off for civil servants who volunteered for fire duty. But the country lacked equipment for fighting forest fires, having aeroplanes that were too small to carry water to douse the fires. In a bid to obtain bigger aircraft, the government leased two Beriev Be-200 aircraft from Russia, which are capable of skimming over water and taking on loads for sustained firefighting efforts. The planes, which will be flown by Russians and maintained by Russian technicians, were due to operations on 1 November. The fires forced schools to close, delayed and cancelled flights, disrupted shipping. Cities affected include Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan and Pekanbaru and it has caused breathing problems for people in Riau and in Jambi Province. The area was foggy and dusty as the air was filled with flying ashes, local villagers, the report said, appeared to be unconcerned with the smog, saying it was normal. If we do not burn the forest, where are we going to get our food from, on the environmental front, fires destroyed 1 km² of the Tesso Nilo National Park in Riau Province. At the Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan, the haze affected the orangutans. The effects of the started in early July and affected the northern Malaysian states severely. However, the haze had cleared substantially throughout Peninsular Malaysia from 29 August 2006 due to the arrival of the rainy season, the rain reduced the number of hotspots throughout Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula
43.
Deforestation in Borneo
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In the 1980s and 1990s the forests of Borneo underwent a dramatic transition. They were levelled at a rate unparalleled in history, burned, logged and cleared. Half of the annual global tropical timber acquisition comes from Borneo. Furthermore, palm oil plantations are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest, much of the forest clearance is illegal. The Borneo mountain rainforests lie in the highlands of the island. These areas represent habitat for endangered species, such as orangutans and elephants. As well as Borneos importance in biodiversity conservation and as a carbon sink, the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, in the north, occupy about 26% of the island. The forested area here shrank rapidly due to heavy logging for the Malaysian plywood industry, indigenous peoples of Malaysia have been impacted by logging without their free, prior and informed consent in their ancestral forests. They have used peaceful demonstrations and social media advocacy to raise awareness of their rights to the forest, questions about how and why logging licenses were granted without community consent remain unaddressed. During the great fire, hotspots could be seen on satellite images, in February 2008, the Malaysian government announced the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy plan to harvest the virgin hinterlands of northern Borneo. Further deforestation and destruction of the biodiversity are anticipated in the wake of logging commissions, hydroelectric dams and other mining of minerals and resources. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory, the Indonesian name for the island, the Mega Rice Project was initiated in 1996 in the southern sections of Kalimantan. The goal was to one million hectares of unproductive and sparsely populated peat swamp forest into rice paddies in an effort to alleviate Indonesias growing food shortage. The government made an investment in constructing irrigation canals and removing trees. The project did not succeed, and was abandoned after causing considerable damage to the environment. The peat swamp forest in the south of Kalimantan is an ecology that is home to many unique or rare species such as orangutans, as well as to slow-growing. Peat is a store of carbon. If broken down and burned it contributes to CO2 emissions, considered a source of global warming, the water channels, and the roads and railways built for legal forestry, opened up the region to illegal forestry
