1.
Phoenix Islands
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The Phoenix Islands or Rawaki are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs, lying in the central Pacific Ocean east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. They are a part of the Republic of Kiribati, during the late 1930s, they became the site of the last attempted colonial expansion of the British Empire through the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme. The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, established in 2008, is one of the worlds largest protected areas, the group is uninhabited except for a few families on Kanton. The United States unincorporated territories of Baker Island and Howland Island are often considered northerly outliers of the group, Howland and Baker are statistically grouped with the United States Minor Outlying Islands, however. The United States previously claimed all the Phoenix Islands under the Guano Islands Act, the Treaty of Tarawa released all US claims to the Phoenix Islands, excluding Baker and Howland. At various times, the islands were considered part of the Gilbert group, the name Phoenix for this group of islands seems to have been settled on in the 1840s, after an island of that name within the group. Phoenix Island was probably named after one of the many whaleships of that name plying these waters in the early 19th century, the Phoenix Islands are a group of eight islands, totalling 28 square kilometres in land area, located in the central Pacific, north of Samoa. The chain comprises a portion of Kiribati, the only island of any commercial importance is Kanton Island. The other islands include Enderbury, Rawaki, Manra, Birnie, McKean, Nikumaroro, Kanton, or Abariringa Island, is the northernmost and sole inhabited island in the Phoenix group. It is a ribbon of land 9 km2, enclosing a lagoon of approximately 40 km2. Kanton is mostly bare coral, covered with herbs, bunch grasses, low shrubs and its lagoon teems with 153 known species of marine life, including sharks, tuna, stingrays and eels. Land fauna includes at least 23 bird species, lizards, rats, hermit crabs, today, the island still exhibits the remains of the airline and military presence, with 41 persons residing there, most living in abandoned structures from the U. S. /UK occupation. Enderbury is a low, flat, small coral atoll lying 63 km ESE of Kanton and its lagoon is rather tiny, comprising only a small percentage of the islands area. Herbs, bunchgrass, morning-glory vines and a few clumps of trees form the main vegetation on the island, while birds, rats and a species of beetle are the known fauna. Heavily mined for guano in the late 19th century, Enderbury has seen little human impact following the evacuation of the last few colonists in 1942, during World War II. Birnie Island is a small, flat coral island about 20 hectares in area and it contains a tiny lagoon, which has all but dried up. A nesting place for flocks of seabirds, Birnie is devoid of trees and is covered with low shrubs. Unlike most of the other Phoenix Islands, Birnie does not appear to have worked for guano or otherwise exploited by humans
2.
Kiribati
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Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean. The permanent population is just over 100,000, more than half of live on Tarawa Atoll. The nation comprises 33 atolls and reef islands and one raised coral island and they have a total land area of 800 square kilometres and are dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometers. Their spread straddles the equator and the 180th meridian, although the International Date Line is indented to bring the Line Islands in the day as the Kiribati Islands. The International Date Line circumscribes Kiribati by swinging far to the east, almost reaching the 150°W meridian, Kiribatis easternmost islands, the southern Line Islands south of Hawaii, have the most advanced time on Earth, UTC+14 hours. Kiribati became independent from the United Kingdom in 1979, the capital and now most populated area, South Tarawa, consists of a number of islets, connected by a series of causeways. These comprise about half the area of Tarawa Atoll, Kiribati is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the IMF and the World Bank, and became a full member of the United Nations in 1999. The name Kiribati was adopted at independence and it is local enunciation of Gilberts. This name derives from the archipelago that forms the nation. It was named the Gilbert Islands after the British explorer Thomas Gilbert and he sighted many of the islands in 1788 while mapping out the Outer Passage route from Port Jackson to Canton. The Kiribati archipelago was named Îles Gilbert, in about 1820, by Russian admiral Adam von Krusenstern, both their maps, published in 1820, were written in French. The archipelagos name was incorporated in the entire Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony from 1916, the spelling of Gilberts in the Gilbertese language as Kiribati may be found in books in Gilbertese prepared by missionaries and others. It is often suggested that the name for the Gilbert Islands proper is Tungaru. The pronunciation differs, Kiribas is the pronunciation as ti in Kiribatese makes an s sound. The area now called Kiribati has been inhabited by Micronesians speaking the same Oceanic language since sometime between 3000 BC and AD1300, the area was not isolated, invaders from Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji, later introduced Polynesian and Melanesian cultural aspects, respectively. Intermarriage tended to blur cultural differences and resulted in a significant degree of cultural homogenisation, chance visits by European ships occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries, as these ships attempted circumnavigations of the world or sought sailing routes from the south to north Pacific Ocean. The passing trade gave rise to European, Chinese, Samoan and other residents from the 1830s, they included beachcombers, castaways, traders and missionaries. In 1892 local authorities on each of the Gilbert Islands agreed to Captain Davis RN declaring them part of a British protectorate with the nearby Ellice Islands
3.
World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
4.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
5.
Hawaii
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Hawaii is the 50th and most recent state to have joined the United States of America, having received statehood on August 21,1959. Hawaii is the only U. S. state located in Oceania and it is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean. Hawaii is the only U. S. state not located in the Americas, the state encompasses nearly the entire volcanic Hawaiian archipelago, which comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles. At the southeastern end of the archipelago, the eight main islands are—in order from northwest to southeast, Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and the Island of Hawaiʻi. The last is the largest island in the group, it is called the Big Island or Hawaiʻi Island to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago. The archipelago is physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania, Hawaii has over a million permanent residents, along with many visitors and U. S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaii is the 8th-smallest and the 11th-least populous, but the 13th-most densely populated of the fifty U. S. states. It is the state with an Asian plurality. The states coastline is about 750 miles long, the fourth longest in the U. S. after the coastlines of Alaska, Florida, the state of Hawaii derives its name from the name of its largest island, Hawaiʻi. A common Hawaiian explanation of the name of Hawaiʻi is that was named for Hawaiʻiloa and he is said to have discovered the islands when they were first settled. The Hawaiian language word Hawaiʻi is very similar to Proto-Polynesian *Sawaiki, cognates of Hawaiʻi are found in other Polynesian languages, including Māori, Rarotongan and Samoan. According to linguists Pukui and Elbert, lsewhere in Polynesia, Hawaiʻi or a cognate is the name of the underworld or of the home, but in Hawaii. A somewhat divisive political issue arose in 1978 when the Constitution of the State of Hawaii added Hawaiian as an official state language. The title of the constitution is The Constitution of the State of Hawaii. Article XV, Section 1 of the Constitution uses The State of Hawaii, diacritics were not used because the document, drafted in 1949, predates the use of the okina and the kahakō in modern Hawaiian orthography. The exact spelling of the name in the Hawaiian language is Hawaiʻi. In the Hawaii Admission Act that granted Hawaiian statehood, the government recognized Hawaii as the official state name. Official government publications, department and office titles, and the Seal of Hawaii use the spelling with no symbols for glottal stops or vowel length
6.
Marine protected area
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Marine protected areas are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or large lakes. MPAs restrict human activity for a purpose, typically to protect natural or cultural resources. Such marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, national, or international authorities and differ substantially among and between nations. This variation includes different limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and bans on removing or disrupting marine life. In some situations, MPAs also provide revenue for countries, potentially equal to the income that they would have if they were to grant companies permissions to fish.55 million km2 in the Ross Sea. MPA is a term for protected areas that includes some area of marine landscape and/or biodiversity. Several types of compliant MPA can be distinguished, A totally marine area with no significant terrestrial parts, an area containing both marine and terrestrial components, which can vary between two extremes, those that are predominantly maritime with little land, or that is mostly terrestrial. Marine ecosystems that contain land and intertidal components only, for example, a mangrove forest would contain no open sea or ocean marine environment, but its river-like marine ecosystem nevertheless complies with the definition. IUCN offered seven categories of protected area, based on management objectives, related protected area categories include the following, World Heritage Site – an area exhibiting extensive natural or cultural history. Maritime areas are represented, however, with only 46 out of over 800 sites. Man and the Biosphere – UNESCO program that promotes a relationship between humans and the biosphere. Under article 4, biosphere reserves must encompass a mosaic of ecological systems, in structure they are similar to Multiple-use MPAs, with a core area ringed by different degrees of protection. Ramsar site – must meet criteria for the definition of Wetland to become part of a global system. These sites do not necessarily receive protection, but are indexed by importance for later recommendation to an agency that could designate it a protected area. While area refers to a single location, terms such as network, system. At the 2004 Convention on Biological Diversity, the agreed to use network on a global level. The network is a mechanism to establish regional and local systems, no take zones, are areas designated in a number of the worlds MPAs, where all forms of exploitation are prohibited and severely limits human activities. These no take zones can cover an entire MPA, or specific portions, for example, the 1,150,000 square kilometres Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the worlds largest MPA, is a 100% no take zone
7.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
8.
Conservation International
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Conservation International is an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Its goal is to nature as a source of food, fresh water, livelihoods. CIs work focuses on science, policy, and partnership with businesses and communities, the organization employs more than 1,000 people and works with 2, 000+ partners in more than 30 countries. CI has helped establish 1,200 protected areas across 78 countries and protected more than 730 million hectares of land, marine, in CIs first year, the organization purchased a portion of Bolivias foreign debt. The money was redirected to support conservation in the Beni Biosphere Reserve. Since this first-ever debt-for-nature swap, more than $1 billion of similar deals have made around the world. In 1989, CI formally committed to the protection of biodiversity hotspots, ultimately identifying 34 such hotspots around the world, the model of protecting hotspots became a key way for organizations to do conservation work. The organizations leadership grew to believe that CIs focus on biodiversity conservation was inadequate to protect nature, CI updated its mission in 2008 to focus explicitly on the connections between human well-being and natural ecosystems. As of FY2014, CIs expenses totaled more than US $135.3 million, CI receives high ratings from philanthropic watchdog organizations, with an A rating from Charity Watch. Charity Navigator awarded CI a score of 92.28 out of 100 for accountability, the foundation of CIs work is science, partnership and field demonstration. The organization has scientists, policy workers and other conservationists on the ground in more than 30 countries and it also relies heavily on thousands of local partners. CI works with governments, universities, NGOs and the sector with the aim of replicating these successes on a larger scale. By showing how conservation can work at all scales, CI aims to make the protection of nature a key consideration in economic development decisions around the world. In addition to the management of ocean resources, the agreement includes the worlds largest marine protected areas and sanctuaries for whales, dolphins, turtles. The organization has active in United Nations discussions on issues such as climate change and biodiversity. Its United States policy work currently highlights a connection between international conservation and Americas economic and national security interests. A few years after its founding, CI began working with McDonalds to implement sustainable agriculture, the organization expanded its commitment to working with the business sector in 2000, when it created the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business with support from the Ford Motor Company. CI has been criticized for links to companies with an environmental record such as BP, Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto and Shell
9.
New England Aquarium
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The New England Aquarium is an aquarium located in Boston, Massachusetts. The aquarium has more than 22,000 members and hosts more than 1.3 million visitors each year, planning for the aquarium began in 1962, with the principal designer being Peter Chermayeff of Cambridge Seven Associates. The building was opened to the public in 1969, the Giant Ocean Tank opened in 1970, and at the time was the largest circular ocean tank in the world. In 1974, a barge, Discovery, was moored next to the Aquarium. It served as a floating mammal pavilion for the aquarium as the lack of land limited the ability for expansion. This 1, 000-seat observer stadium overlooked a 116, 000-US-gallon pool and it hosted dolphins until they were transferred in the mid-1990s, and sea lions, until the ships decommissioning. Discovery was officially retired in the due to its old age. In 2013, the Giant Ocean Tank was given a major facelift, the new West Wing was completed in 1998 by Schwartz/Silver Architects. The glass and steel addition includes the seal exhibit on the public plaza, ticketing booth, changing exhibit galleries, gift shop, cafe. In 1999 the aquarium opened a new center for harbor porpoises in Duxbury. The facility includes a 29, 000-US-gallon rehabilitation tank that can house three porpoises at a time, the 428-seat Matthew and Marcia Simons IMAX Theatre opened in 2001 in a separate building designed by E. Verner Johnson and Associates. The six-story high screen is 85 feet wide by 65 feet high, in 2003 the aquarium opened Amazing Jellies, a $1.9 million, twelve-tank jellyfish exhibit emphasizing that jellyfish are survivors and are actually likely to increase with climate change. In 2006, the aquarium earned full accreditation from the Association of Zoos, in 2009, the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center opened. This open-air exhibit lets visitors view the aquariums Northern fur seals, in 2010, the Animal Care Center opened. In 2013, the Aquarium reopened the Giant Ocean Tank after a ten-month renovation, the new Giant Ocean Tank features a new reef designed to represent a pre-Columbian Caribbean reef, new lighting with the reflective dome, and better views with the new viewing windows along the tank. Additionally, the number of fish in the tank has increased from 800 to 2,000, the current CEO of the aquarium is Nigella Hillgarth, an Oxford-educated evolutionary biologist. Located in the open atrium of the main building, the principal feature of the Aquarium is the Giant Ocean Tank. This tank houses bonnethead sharks, sea turtles, stingrays, moray eels, barracuda, open at the top, the concrete tank is surrounded by a walkway that spirals down, allowing visitors access to 52 windows that offer views of the reef from every angle and level
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