1.
Forest management
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This includes management for aesthetics, fish, recreation, urban values, water, wilderness, wildlife, wood products, forest genetic resources, and other forest resource values. Management can be based on conservation, economics, or a mixture of the two, techniques include timber extraction, planting and replanting of various species, cutting roads and pathways through forests, and preventing fire. The forest is a system that can supply different products. The working of this system is influenced by the environment, climate, topography, soil, etc. The actions of humans in forests constitute forest management, in developed societies, this management tends to be elaborate and planned in order to achieve the objectives that are considered desirable. Some forests have been and are managed to obtain traditional forest products such as firewood, fiber for paper, nevertheless, as a result of the progression of environmental awareness, management of forests for multiple use is becoming more common. There has been increased public awareness of natural resource policy, including forest management, increased environmental awareness may contribute to an increased public mistrust of forest management professionals. But it can lead to greater understanding about what professionals do re forests for nature conservation. The importance of taking care of the forests for ecological as well as economical sustainable reasons has been shown in the TV show Ax Men, many tools like GIS and photogrammetry modelling have been developed to improve forest inventory and management planning. Since 1953, the volume of standing trees in the United States have increased by 90% due to sustainable forest management, the abundance and diversity of birds, mammals, amphibians and other wildlife are affected by strategies and types of forest management. Forest management varies in intensity from a leave alone, natural situation to a highly intensive regime with silvicultural interventions, management is generally increased in intensity to achieve either economic criteria or ecological criteria
2.
Sustainable development
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The desirable end result is a state of society where living conditions and resource use continue to meet human needs without undermining the integrity and stability of the natural systems. As the concept developed, it has shifted to more on economic development, social development. The concept of development has been — and still is — subject to criticism. What, exactly, is to be sustained in sustainable development, Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social, political, and economic challenges faced by humanity. Sustainability science is the study of the concepts of sustainable development, there is an additional focus on the present generations responsibility to regenerate, maintain and improve planetary resources for use by future generations. Sustainable development has its roots in ideas about sustainable forest management which were developed in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1713 Hans Carl von Carlowitz, a mining administrator in the service of Elector Frederick Augustus I of Saxony published Sylvicultura oeconomica. Building upon the ideas of Evelyn and French minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and his work influenced others, including Alexander von Humboldt and Georg Ludwig Hartig, eventually leading to the development of a science of forestry. Two years later, the United Nations World Charter for Nature raised five principles of conservation by which human conduct affecting nature is to be guided and judged. In 1987 the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development released the report Our Common Future, the report included what is now one of the most widely recognised definitions of sustainable development. In 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development published the Earth Charter, which outlines the building of a just, sustainable and it emphasises that in sustainable development everyone is a user and provider of information. Furthermore, Agenda 21 emphasises that broad public participation in making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development. Broadly defined, sustainable development is an approach to growth and development and to manage natural, produced. A2013 study concluded that sustainability reporting should be reframed through the lens of four interconnected domains, ecology, economics, politics, the goals are to be implemented and achieved in every country from the year 2016 to 2030. Sustainable development, or sustainability, has described in terms of three spheres, dimensions, domains or pillars, i. e. the environment, the economy. The three-sphere framework was proposed by the economist René Passet in 1979. It has also been worded as economic, environmental and social or ecology, economy and this has been expanded by some authors to include a fourth pillar of culture, institutions or governance. The ecological stability of human settlements is part of the relationship between humans and their natural, social and built environments, also termed human ecology, this broadens the focus of sustainable development to include the domain of human health
3.
Natural environment
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The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some part of Earth and this environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather, and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a system in the desert. Though many animals build things to provide an environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams. People seldom find absolutely natural environments on Earth, and naturalness usually varies in a continuum, more precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. If, for instance, in a field, the mineralogic composition and the structure of its soil are similar to those of an undisturbed forest soil. Natural environment is used as a synonym for habitat. For instance, when we say that the environment of giraffes is the savanna. Earth science generally recognizes 4 spheres, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere as correspondent to rocks, water, air, and life respectively. Some scientists include, as part of the spheres of the Earth, Earth science, is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. There are four major disciplines in sciences, namely geography, geology, geophysics. These major disciplines use physics, chemistry, biology, chronology, the Earths crust, or lithosphere, is the outermost solid surface of the planet and is chemically and mechanically different from underlying mantle. It has been generated greatly by igneous processes in which magma cools, beneath the lithosphere lies the mantle which is heated by the decay of radioactive elements. The mantle though solid is in a state of rheic convection and this convection process causes the lithospheric plates to move, albeit slowly. The resulting process is known as plate tectonics, volcanoes result primarily from the melting of subducted crust material or of rising mantle at mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes. An ocean is a body of saline water, and a component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earths surface is covered by ocean, a body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans. More than half of area is over 3,000 meters deep
4.
Earth Summit
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In 2012, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development was also held in Rio, and is also commonly called Rio+20 or Rio Earth Summit 2012. It was held from 13 to 22 June,172 governments participated, with 116 sending their heads of state or government. Some 2,400 representatives of non-governmental organizations attended, with 17,000 people at the parallel NGO Global Forum, another agreement was to not to carry out any activities on the lands of indigenous peoples that would cause environmental degradation or that would be culturally inappropriate. Twelve cities were also honoured by the Local Government Honours Award for innovative local environmental programs, critics point out that many of the agreements made in Rio have not been realized regarding such fundamental issues as fighting poverty and cleaning up the environment. Green Cross International was founded to build upon the work of the Summit, the first edition of Water Quality Assessments, published by WHO/Chapman & Hall, was launched at the Rio Global Forum. United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Documents from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development Archived 19 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Rio+20 on India Environment Portal Water Quality Assessments pdf
5.
Sustainability
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In ecology, sustainability is the property of biological systems to remain diverse and productive indefinitely. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of biological systems. In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems, the organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains, ecology, economics, politics and culture. Sustainability science is the study of development and environmental science. Sustainability can also be defined as a process characterized by the pursuit of a common ideal. An ideal is by definition unattainable in a time and space. However, by persistently and dynamically approaching it, the results in a sustainable system. Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival of humans, ways of reducing negative human impact are environmentally-friendly chemical engineering, environmental resources management and environmental protection. Information is gained from green chemistry, earth science, environmental science, Ecological economics studies the fields of academic research that aim to address human economies and natural ecosystems. Moving towards sustainability is also a challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles. The name sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere, sustain can mean “maintain, support, or endure”. ”The 2005 World Summit on Social Development identified sustainable development goals, such as economic development, social development and environmental protection. This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing, in fact, the three pillars are interdependent, and in the long run none can exist without the others. The three pillars have served as a ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years. Standards which today explicitly refer to the bottom line include Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade. Some sustainability experts and practitioners have illustrated four pillars of sustainability, one such pillar is future generations, which emphasizes the long-term thinking associated with sustainability. There is also an opinion that considers resource use and financial sustainability as two pillars of sustainability. Sustainable development consists of balancing local and global efforts to meet human needs without destroying or degrading the natural environment. The question then becomes how to represent the relationship between those needs and the environment, a study from 2005 pointed out that environmental justice is as important as sustainable development
6.
United Nations General Assembly
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The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation. The General Assembly is the deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. It has also established a number of subsidiary organs. It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions and its composition, functions, powers, voting, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, other questions are decided by a straightforward majority. Each member country has one vote, apart from approval of budgetary matters, including adoption of a scale of assessment, Assembly resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace, the one state, one vote power structure potentially allows states comprising just five percent of the world population to pass a resolution by a two-thirds vote. During the 1980s, the Assembly became a forum for the North-South dialogue and these issues came to the fore because of the phenomenal growth and changing makeup of the UN membership. In 1945, the UN had 51 members and it now has 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing countries. Because of their numbers, developing countries are able to determine the agenda of the Assembly, the character of its debates. For many developing countries, the UN is the source of much of their diplomatic influence, the Assembly can consider the matter immediately with a view to making recommendations to Members for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security. The first session of the UN General Assembly was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, the next few annual sessions were held in different cities, the second session in New York, and the third session was in Paris. It moved to the permanent United Nations Headquarters in New York at the start of its seventh regular annual session, on 14 October 1952. In December 1988, in order to hear Yasser Arafat, the General Assembly organised its 29th session in the Palace of Nations, all 193 members states of the United Nations are members of the General Assembly. The agenda for each session is planned up to seven months in advance and this is refined into a provisional agenda 60 days before the opening of the session. Items on the agenda are numbered, the General Assembly votes on many resolutions brought forth by sponsoring states. These are generally statements symbolizing the sense of the community about an array of world issues. Most General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable as a legal or practical matter, the General Assembly has authority to make final decisions in some areas such as the United Nations budget
7.
United Nations Forum on Forests
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The United Nations Forum on Forests is a high-level intergovernmental policy forum. The forum includes all United Nations Member States and Permanent Observers, the UNFF Secretariat, the IPF/IFF processes resulted in a set of 270 proposals for action for the promotion of the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests. On December 17,2007, the UN General Assembly adopted the Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests negotiated by the UNFF earlier that year, the CPF works to support the work of the UNFF and its member countries and to foster increased cooperation and coordination on forests. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations helps developing countries and countries in transition modernise and improve their agriculture, forestry, the International Tropical Timber Organization promotes the conservation and sustainable management, use and trade of tropical forest resources. It develops internationally agreed policies and assists tropical member countries to adapt policies to local circumstances. As of 2009, it has supported more than 900 projects, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature is a conservation network of states, government agencies, nongovernment organisations, scientists and experts. The International Union of Forest Research Organizations is a not-for-profit, nongovernmental international network of forest scientists and it promotes global cooperation in forest-related research and enhances the understanding of the ecological, economic and social aspects of forests and trees. It disseminates scientific knowledge to stakeholders and decision makers and contributes to forest policy, as a financial mechanism for the three environmental conventions dealing with forests, the GEF has been funding activities in the field of sustainable forest management since its inception in 1991. Of the GEFs six focal areas, biodiversity, climate change, the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification works with member countries to implement the UNCCD. This convention is the international, legally binding framework set up to address desertification and is based on the principles of participation, partnership. The UNCCD focuses on improving productivity, rehabilitating land. The United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat provides support to the international dialogue on sustainable forest management. The Secretariat works with a range of international organizations and stakeholders to facilitate cooperation and coordination on global forest issues. It serves as the point on all forest-related issues for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change provides the basis for concerted action to mitigate climate change. The UNFCCC Secretariat supports all institutions involved in the change process. It operates on the ground in 166 countries, UNDP is an implementing agency for the Global Environment Facility. The United Nations Environment Programme is the voice for the environment in the UN system, UNEP is an implementing agency for the Global Environment Facility
8.
Forest
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A forest is a large area dominated by trees. Hundreds of more precise definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as density, tree height, land use, legal standing. According to the widely used Food and Agriculture Organization definition, forests covered four billion hectares or approximately 30 percent of the land area in 2006. Forests are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are distributed across the globe, Forests account for 75% of the gross primary productivity of the Earths biosphere, and contain 80% of the Earths plant biomass. Forests at different latitudes and elevations form distinctly different ecozones, boreal forests near the poles, tropical forests near the equator, higher elevation areas tend to support forests similar to those at higher latitudes, and amount of precipitation also affects forest composition. Human society and forests influence each other in both positive and negative ways, Forests provide ecosystem services to humans and serve as tourist attractions. Forests can also affect peoples health, human activities, including harvesting forest resources, can negatively affect forest ecosystems. Although forest is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition, there are three broad categories of forest definitions in use, administrative, land use, and land cover. Land use definitions are based upon the purpose that the land serves. For example, a forest may be defined as any land that is used primarily for production of timber, land cover definitions define forests based upon the type and density of vegetation growing on the land. Such definitions typically define a forest as an area growing trees above some threshold and these thresholds are typically the number of trees per area, the area of ground under the tree canopy or the section of land that is occupied by the cross-section of tree trunks. Under such land cover definitions, and area of land only be defined as forest if it is growing trees, areas that fail to meet the land cover definition may be still included under while immature trees are establishing if they are expected to meet the definition at maturity. Under land use definitions, there is variation on where the cutoff points are between a forest, woodland, and savanna. Under some definitions, forests require high levels of tree canopy cover, from 60% to 100%, excluding savannas. Other definitions consider savannas to be a type of forest, the term was not endemic to Romance languages, and cognates in Romance languages, such as Italian foresta, Spanish and Portuguese floresta, etc. are all ultimately borrowings of the French word. The exact origin of Medieval Latin foresta is obscure, uses of the word forest in English to denote any uninhabited area of non-enclosure are now considered archaic. The word was introduced by the Norman rulers of England as a term denoting an uncultivated area legally set aside for hunting by feudal nobility. These hunting forests were not necessarily wooded much, if at all, however, as hunting forests did often include considerable areas of woodland, the word forest eventually came to mean wooded land more generally
9.
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
10.
Rainforest
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The monsoon trough, alternatively known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating the climatic conditions necessary for the Earths tropical rainforests. Around 40% to 75% of all species are indigenous to the rainforests. It has been estimated there may be many millions of species of plants, insects. Tropical rainforests have been called the jewels of the Earth and the worlds largest pharmacy, the undergrowth in some areas of a rainforest can be restricted by poor penetration of sunlight to ground level. If the leaf canopy is destroyed or thinned, the ground beneath is soon colonized by a dense, tangled growth of vines, shrubs and small trees, the term jungle is also sometimes applied to tropical rainforests generally. Tropical rainforests are characterized by a warm and wet climate with no dry season. Mean monthly temperatures exceed 18 °C during all months of the year, average annual rainfall is no less than 168 cm and can exceed 1,000 cm although it typically lies between 175 cm and 200 cm. Many of the tropical forests are associated with the location of the monsoon trough. The broader category of tropical moist forests are located in the zone between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Tropical forests have been called the Earths lungs, although it is now known that rainforests contribute little net oxygen addition to the atmosphere through photosynthesis, Tropical forests cover a large part of the globe, but temperate rainforests only occur in few regions around the world. Temperate rainforests are rainforests in temperate regions and they occur in North America, in Europe, in East Asia, in South America and also in Australia and New Zealand. A tropical rainforest typically has a number of layers, each with different plants, examples include the emergent, canopy, understorey and forest floor layers. They need to be able to withstand the hot temperatures and strong winds that occur above the canopy in some areas, eagles, butterflies, bats and certain monkeys inhabit this layer. The canopy layer contains the majority of the largest trees, typically 30 metres to 45 metres tall, the densest areas of biodiversity are found in the forest canopy, a more or less continuous cover of foliage formed by adjacent treetops. The canopy, by some estimates, is home to 50 percent of all plant species, epiphytic plants attach to trunks and branches, and obtain water and minerals from rain and debris that collects on the supporting plants. The fauna is similar to found in the emergent layer. A quarter of all species are believed to exist in the rainforest canopy. Scientists have long suspected the richness of the canopy as a habitat, true exploration of this habitat only began in the 1980s, when scientists developed methods to reach the canopy, such as firing ropes into the trees using crossbows
11.
Clay
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Clay is a fine-grained natural rock or soil material that combines one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure. Clays are plastic due to water content and become hard, brittle. Depending on the content in which it is found, clay can appear in various colours from white to dull grey or brown to deep orange-red. Although many naturally occurring deposits include both silts and clay, clays are distinguished from other fine-grained soils by differences in size, silts, which are fine-grained soils that do not include clay minerals, tend to have larger particle sizes than clays. There is, however, some overlap in size and other physical properties. The distinction between silt and clay varies by discipline, geologists and soil scientists usually consider the separation to occur at a particle size of 2 µm, sedimentologists often use 4–5 μm, and colloid chemists use 1 μm. Geotechnical engineers distinguish between silts and clays based on the plasticity properties of the soil, as measured by the soils Atterberg limits, ISO14688 grades clay particles as being smaller than 2 μm and silt particles as being larger. These solvents, usually acidic, migrate through the rock after leaching through upper weathered layers. In addition to the process, some clay minerals are formed through hydrothermal activity. There are two types of deposits, primary and secondary. Primary clays form as residual deposits in soil and remain at the site of formation, secondary clays are clays that have been transported from their original location by water erosion and deposited in a new sedimentary deposit. Clay deposits are associated with very low energy depositional environments such as large lakes. Depending on the source, there are three or four main groups of clays, kaolinite, montmorillonite-smectite, illite, and chlorite. Chlorites are not always considered to be a clay, sometimes being classified as a group within the phyllosilicates. There are approximately 30 different types of clays in these categories. Varve is clay with visible annual layers, which are formed by deposition of those layers and are marked by differences in erosion. This type of deposit is common in glacial lakes
12.
Civil engineering
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Civil engineering is traditionally broken into a number of sub-disciplines. It is the second-oldest engineering discipline after military engineering, and it is defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering, Civil engineering takes place in the public sector from municipal through to national governments, and in the private sector from individual homeowners through to international companies. Engineering has been an aspect of life since the beginnings of human existence, during this time, transportation became increasingly important leading to the development of the wheel and sailing. The construction of pyramids in Egypt were some of the first instances of large structure constructions, the Romans developed civil structures throughout their empire, including especially aqueducts, insulae, harbors, bridges, dams and roads. In the 18th century, the civil engineering was coined to incorporate all things civilian as opposed to military engineering. The first self-proclaimed civil engineer was John Smeaton, who constructed the Eddystone Lighthouse, in 1771 Smeaton and some of his colleagues formed the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers, a group of leaders of the profession who met informally over dinner. Though there was evidence of some meetings, it was little more than a social society. In 1818 the Institution of Civil Engineers was founded in London, the institution received a Royal Charter in 1828, formally recognising civil engineering as a profession. The first private college to teach engineering in the United States was Norwich University. The first degree in engineering in the United States was awarded by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1835. The first such degree to be awarded to a woman was granted by Cornell University to Nora Stanton Blatch in 1905, throughout ancient and medieval history most architectural design and construction was carried out by artisans, such as stonemasons and carpenters, rising to the role of master builder. Knowledge was retained in guilds and seldom supplanted by advances, structures, roads and infrastructure that existed were repetitive, and increases in scale were incremental. Brahmagupta, an Indian mathematician, used arithmetic in the 7th century AD, based on Hindu-Arabic numerals, Civil engineers typically possess an academic degree in civil engineering. The length of study is three to five years, and the degree is designated as a bachelor of engineering. The curriculum generally includes classes in physics, mathematics, project management, design, after taking basic courses in most sub-disciplines of civil engineering, they move onto specialize in one or more sub-disciplines at advanced levels. In most countries, a degree in engineering represents the first step towards professional certification. After completing a degree program, the engineer must satisfy a range of requirements before being certified. Once certified, the engineer is designated as a engineer, a chartered engineer
13.
Center for International Forestry Research
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CIFOR has its headquarters in Bogor, Indonesia. The current Director General is Peter Holmgren and it has three regional offices, in Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Kenya. It has project offices in Ethiopia and Zambia, Vietnam and Laos, CIFOR is one of 15 centers within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. CRP6 objective is to enhance the management and use of forests, agroforestry and tree genetic resources across the landscape, from forests to farms. Although many link CIFOR’s creation to the 1992 Earth Summit because it came into existence the following year, in 1991, the CGIAR appointed the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research as the implementing agency responsible for establishing CIFOR and setting up a Board of Trustees. Over time, CIFOR increased the focus of its research on forest policy rather than on technical forestry or tree breeding, in order to complement the efforts of national and private-sector institutes. Instead of having laboratories, CIFOR would be a ‘center without walls’, the organisation has relationships with partners at international, national and regional levels. A significant portion of CIFOR’s funding comes from CGIAR sources, CIFOR works with Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry, particularly the Forestry Research and Development Agency, to identify areas of collaboration in research and outreach. The CPF’s mission is to promote the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forest, CIFOR’s first strategy, set out in 1996, provided the foundations and direction for research that affected the understanding and practice of forest management throughout the tropics. But the world’s forests and the way they are perceived have changed dramatically since CIFOR was established, foremost among many changes is that forests are today centre-stage in the global debate on how to tackle climate change. Almost 20 per cent of carbon emissions are caused by deforestation. Also the promotion of biofuels by governments concerned about global warming is driving forest clearance in some areas, to respond to these and other challenges, CIFOR devised a new strategy for a new era. Approved by the Board of Trustees in May 2008, the strategy will guide CIFOR’s work until 2018, CIFOR is the leading center for the CGIAR Research Programme Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. The programme will convene expertise across the CGIAR system, and will partner with research, Research for the global comparative study is being undertaken in 11 countries — Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Nepal, Peru, Tanzania and Vietnam. The Poverty and Environment Network is a research project and network launched by CIFOR in September 2004. PEN still exists as a database containing survey data on more than 8,000 households in more than 40 study sites in 25 developing countries, Forests News Blog The Forests News Blog reports on the latest scientific research, activities and events from CIFOR. It contains news stories, analysis, features, videos and infographics, social Media CIFOR has a twitter account, youtube channel and facebook page. Thousands more participated online or through nationwide broadcasts, there were special learning events with leading global experts on the Green Economy, the Southeast Asian haze crisis, climate change negotiations and the Sustainable Development Goals
14.
University of British Columbia
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The University of British Columbia, commonly referred to as UBC, is a public research university with campuses and facilities in British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1908 as the McGill University College of British Columbia and it is British Columbias oldest institution of higher learning and has over 60,000 students at its Vancouver and Okanagan Valley campuses. Most students are enrolled in five faculties, Arts, Science, Applied Science, UBC Faculty of Medicine. UBCs 4.02 km2 Vancouver campus is within the University Endowment Lands, the 2.09 km2 Okanagan campus, acquired in 2005, is in Kelowna. UBCs admission standards is the 2nd most rigorous in Canada with the average of 89. 95% high school GPA for all incoming domestic students in 2015 for the Vancouver Campus. According to the annual rankings compiled by Macleans and U. S. News, in 2015 U. S. News and World Report and Times Higher Education ranked UBC among the 20 best public universities worldwide. With an annual research budget valued at $600 million, UBC funds 8,442 projects as of 2014, the university has also educated three Canadian prime ministers, most recently Justin Trudeau, the current prime minister. One of the largest research libraries in Canada, the UBC Library system has over 9.9 million volumes among its 21 branches, since 1968, UBC is home to TRIUMF, Canadas national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics which houses the worlds largest cyclotron. In 1877, only six years after British Columbia joined Canada, the provincial legislature passed An Act Respecting the University of British Columbia in 1890, but disagreements arose over whether to build the university on Vancouver Island or the mainland. The British Columbia University Act of 1908 formally called a university into being. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and to perform institutional leadership, the Act constituted a twenty-one member senate with Francis Carter-Cotton of Vancouver as Chancellor. Before the University Act, there had been attempts at creating a degree-granting university with help from the Universities of Toronto. Building on an affiliation between Vancouver and Victoria high schools with McGill University, Henry Marshall Tory helped establish the McGill University College of British Columbia. From 1906 to 1915, McGill BC operated as an institution providing the first few years toward a degree at McGill University or elsewhere. The Henry Marshall Tory Medal was established in 1941 by Tory, founding President of the University of Alberta and of the National Research Council of Canada, and a co-founder of Carleton University. In the meantime, appeals were made to the government to revive the legislation for a provincial institution, leading to the University Endowment Act in 1907. In 1910 the Point Grey site was chosen, and the government appointed Dr. Frank Fairchild Wesbrook as President in 1913, on the first day of lectures was September 30,1915, the new independent university absorbed McGill University College. The University of British Columbia awarded its first degrees in 1916, World War I dominated campus life, and the student body was decimated by enlistments for active service, with three hundred UBC students in Company D alone
15.
CSA Group
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The CSA Group, is a not-for-profit standards organization which develops standards in 57 areas. CSA publishes standards in print and electronic form and provides training, CSA is composed of representatives from industry, government, and consumer groups. CSA began as the Canadian Engineering Standards Association in 1919, federally chartered to create standards, during World War I, lack of interoperability between technical resources led to the formation of a standards committee. CSA is accredited by the Standards Council of Canada, a corporation which promotes efficient. This accreditation verifies that CSA is competent to carry out development and certification functions. The CSA registered mark shows that a product has been tested and certified to meet recognized standards for safety or performance. During World War I, lack of interoperability between technical resources led to frustration, injury, and death, Britain requested that Canada form a standards committee. Sir John Kennedy as chairman of the Civil Engineers Canadian Advisory Committee led the investigation into the necessity of an independent Canadian standards organization, as a result, the Canadian Engineering Standards Association was established in 1919. CESA was federally chartered to create standards, at the beginning, they attended to specific needs, aircraft parts, bridges, building construction, electrical work, and wire rope. The first standards issued by CESA were for steel railway bridges, in 1927, CESA published the Canadian Electrical Code. Enforcing the code called for testing, and in 1933. In 1940, CESA assumed responsibility for testing and certifying electrical products intended for sale, CESA was renamed the Canadian Standards Association in 1944. The certification mark was introduced in 1946, in the 1950s, CSA established international alliances in Britain, Japan, and the Netherlands, to expand its scope in testing and certification. Testing labs were expanded from their first in Toronto, to labs in Montreal, Vancouver, in the 1960s, CSA developed national Occupational Health and Safety Standards, creating standards for headgear and safety shoes. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the CSA began to expand its involvement in consumer standards, including bicycles, credit cards, in 1984, CSA established QMI, the Quality Management Institute for registration of ISO9000 and other standards. In 1999, CSA International was established to provide of international product testing and certification services while CSA shifted its focus to standards development. In 2001, these three divisions were joined under the name CSA Group, in 2004, OnSpeX was launched as the fourth division of CSA Group. In 2008, QMI was sold to SAI-Global for $40 million, most standards are voluntary, meaning there are no laws requiring their application
16.
Biodiversity
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Biodiversity, a contraction of biological diversity, generally refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. One of the most widely used definitions defines it in terms of the variability within species and it is a measure of the variety of organisms present in different ecosystems. This can refer to genetic variation, ecosystem variation, or species variation within an area, biome, terrestrial biodiversity tends to be greater near the equator, which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productivity. Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth, and is richest in the tropics and these tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 10 per cent of earths surface, and contain about 90 percent of the worlds species. Marine biodiversity tends to be highest along coasts in the Western Pacific, there are latitudinal gradients in species diversity. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots, and has been increasing through time, the number and variety of plants, animals and other organisms that exist is known as biodiversity. It is a component of nature and it ensures the survival of human species by providing food, fuel, shelter, medicines. The richness of biodiversity depends on the conditions and area of the region. All species of plants taken together are known as flora and about 300,000 species of plants are known to date, all species of animals taken together are known as fauna which includes birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, insects, crustaceans, molluscs, etc. Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions, more than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037 and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living on Earth. The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, there are microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia. Other early physical evidence of a substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old meta-sedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland. More recently, in 2015, remains of life were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. According to one of the researchers, If life arose relatively quickly on Earth, then it could be common in the universe
17.
Convention on Biological Diversity
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The Convention on Biological Diversity, known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. In other words, its objective is to develop strategies for the conservation. It is often seen as the key document regarding sustainable development, the Convention was opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on 5 June 1992 and entered into force on 29 December 1993. At the 2010 10th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October in Nagoya, Japan, the notion of an international convention on biological diversity was conceived at a United Nations Environment Programme Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts on Biological Diversity in November 1988. In 1991, a negotiating committee was established, tasked with finalizing the conventions text. A Conference for the Adoption of the Agreed Text of the Convention on Biological Diversity was held in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1992, the Conventions text was opened for signature on 5 June 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. By its closing date,4 June 1993, the convention had received 168 signatures and it entered into force on 29 December 1993. The agreement covers all ecosystems, species, and genetic resources and it links traditional conservation efforts to the economic goal of using biological resources sustainably. It sets principles for the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources and it also covers the rapidly expanding field of biotechnology through its Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, addressing technology development and transfer, benefit-sharing and biosafety issues. Importantly, the Convention is legally binding, countries that join it are obliged to implement its provisions, the convention reminds decision-makers that natural resources are not infinite and sets out a philosophy of sustainable use. While past conservation efforts were aimed at protecting particular species and habitats, however, this should be done in a way and at a rate that does not lead to the long-term decline of biological diversity. The Convention acknowledges that substantial investments are required to conserve biological diversity and it argues, however, that conservation will bring us significant environmental, economic and social benefits in return. The Convention on Biological Diversity of 2010 banned some forms of geoengineering, some of the many issues dealt with under the convention include, Measures the incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. Regulated access to resources and traditional knowledge, including Prior Informed Consent of the party providing resources. Access to and transfer of technology, including biotechnology, to the governments and/or local communities that provided traditional knowledge and/or biodiversity resources, coordination of a global directory of taxonomic expertise. National reporting on efforts to implement treaty commitments, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety of the Convention, also known as the Biosafety Protocol, was adopted in January 2000. The Biosafety Protocol seeks to protect biological diversity from the risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology. The Biosafety Protocol makes clear that products from new technologies must be based on the precautionary principle, the required number of 50 instruments of ratification/accession/approval/acceptance by countries was reached in May 2003
18.
Malawi
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Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, Malawi is over 118,000 km2 with an estimated population of 16,777,547. Its capital is Lilongwe, which is also Malawis largest city, the second largest is Blantyre, the third is Mzuzu, the name Malawi comes from the Maravi, an old name of the Nyanja people that inhabit the area. The country is also nicknamed The Warm Heart of Africa, Malawi is among the smallest countries in Africa. Lake Malawi takes about a third of Malawis area, the area of Africa now known as Malawi was settled by migrating Bantu groups around the 10th century. Centuries later in 1891 the area was colonised by the British, in 1953 Malawi, then known as Nyasaland, a protectorate of the United Kingdom, became a protectorate within the semi-independent Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The Federation was dissolved in 1963, in 1964 the protectorate over Nyasaland was ended and Nyasaland became an independent country under Queen Elizabeth II with the new name Malawi. Two years later it became a republic, upon gaining independence it became a one-party state under the presidency of Hastings Banda, who remained president until 1994, when he lost an election. Arthur Peter Mutharika is the current president, Malawi has a democratic, multi-party government. The country has a Malawian Defence Force that includes an army, a navy, Malawi is among the worlds least-developed countries. The economy is based in agriculture, with a largely rural population. The Malawian government depends heavily on aid to meet development needs. The Malawian government faces challenges in building and expanding the economy, improving education, healthcare, environmental protection, Malawi has a low life expectancy and high infant mortality. There is a prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which is a drain on the labour force. There is a population of native peoples, Asians and Europeans, with several languages spoken. Although there was periodic regional conflict fuelled in part by ethnic divisions in the past, by 2008 it had diminished considerably and the concept of a Malawian nationality had re-emerged. The area of Africa now known as Malawi had a small population of hunter-gatherers before waves of Bantu peoples began emigrating from the north around the 10th century. Although most of the Bantu peoples continued south, some remained permanently, by 1500 AD, the tribes had established the Kingdom of Maravi that reached from north of what is now Nkhotakota to the Zambezi River and from Lake Malawi to the Luangwa River in what is now Zambia
19.
Cultural diversity
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Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural decay. The phrase cultural diversity can also refer to having different cultures respect each others differences, the phrase cultural diversity is also sometimes used to mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. Globalization is often said to have an effect on the worlds cultural diversity. There are many societies that emerged around the globe differed markedly from each other. Cultural diversity can be seen as analogous to biodiversity, firstly, like most evolutionary accounts of human nature, the importance of cultural diversity for survival may be an un-testable hypothesis, which can neither be proved nor disproved. In the same manner that the promotion of poverty in underdeveloped nations as cultural diversity is unethical and it is unethical to promote all religious practices simply because they are seen to contribute to cultural diversity. Particular religious practices are recognized by the WHO and UN as unethical, including female genital mutilation, polygamy, child brides, with the onset of globalization, traditional nation-states have been placed under enormous pressures. Today, with the development of technology, information and capital are transcending geographical boundaries, in particular, the growth of the mass media industry has largely impacted on individuals and societies across the globe. Although beneficial in some ways, this increased accessibility has the capacity to affect a societys individuality. With information being so easily distributed throughout the world, cultural meanings, as a result, the strength of identity of individuals and societies may begin to weaken. Nowadays, communication between different countries becomes more and more frequent, and more and more students choose to study overseas for experiencing culture diversity. Their goal is to broaden their horizons and develop themselves from learning overseas, for example, according to Fengling, Chen, Du Yanjun, and Yu Mas paper Academic Freedom in the Peoples Republic of China and the United States Of America. They pointed out that Chinese education more focus on traditionally, teaching has consisted of spoon feeding, chinas traditional system of education has sought to make students accept fixed and ossified content. And In the classroom, Chinese professors are the laws and authorities, on another hand, in United States of America education American students treat college professors as equals. Also American students are encouraged to debate topics, the free open discussion on various topics is due to the academic freedom which most American colleges and universities enjoy. Discussion above gives us an idea about the differences between China and the United States on education. But we cannot simply judge which one is better, because each culture has its own advantages and features, thanks to those difference forms the culture diversity and those make our world more colorful. Especially, with current process of global economics, people who owned different perspectives on cultures stand at a competitive position in current world
20.
Certified wood
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Certified wood and paper products come from responsibly managed forests – as defined by a particular standard. Forest certification programs typically require that forest management practices conform to existing laws, third-party certification audits performed by accredited certification bodies. Multi-stakeholder involvement in a development process. Today there are more than 50 certification programs worldwide addressing the many types of forests, the two largest international forest certification programs are the Forest Stewardship Council and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. The PEFC is the largest certification framework in terms of forest area, the FSC program is the fastest growing. Third-party forest certification was pioneered in the early 1990s by the FSC, competing systems quickly emerged throughout the world. In the United States and Canada, there are a number of forest certification programs, three of these programs are endorsed by the PEFC. They are the American Tree Farm System, the Canadian Standards Association’s Sustainable Forest Management Standard, ATFS is applicable only in the United States, the Canadian Standards Association SFM Standard is applicable only in Canada. SFI is applicable to both the United States and Canada, the FSC, program is applied throughout North America. SFI is the world’s largest regional forest certification program in terms of total certified forest area, the ATFS, FSC, and SFI systems include the fundamental elements of credibility and make positive contributions to forest sustainability. No certification program can claim to be ‘best’, and no certification program that promotes itself as the only certification option can maintain credibility. Forest ecosystems are complex and a simplistic ‘one size fits all’ approach to certification cannot address all sustainability needs. ”, the forest management standards of the Canadian Standards Association, the FSC and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative are all used in Canada. Governments in Canada accept that these standards demonstrate, and promote the sustainability of forest management practices in Canada and it provides evidence that certified material in a certified product originates from certified forests. The United Nations reports that between January 2009 and May 2010, the number of PEFC and FSC chain-of-custody certificates issued worldwide increased by 88% for a total of 23,717 certificates. Forest certification is a voluntary process about 10% of the world’s forest under at least one certification program, customers that choose to buy certified products are supporting land managers, land owners and forest product companies that have made a commitment to meeting the standards of forest certification. Third-party forest certification is a tool for those seeking to purchase paper and wood products that come from forests that are well-managed. Green public procurement – governments such as the UK and the Netherlands have adopted green timber procurement policies, including recognition of FSC, an example is the UK’s Central Point of Expertise on Timber. Green building – standards for green building incentivize and reward the use of certified wood products, Certification does not relieve importers of the requirement to submit appropriate import declaration information to U. S. government agencies
21.
Environmentalism
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While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologism combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. ‘Ecologism’ is more used in continental European languages while ‘environmentalism’ is more commonly used in English. For this reason, concepts such as an ethic, environmental ethics, biodiversity, ecology. The exact measures and outcomes of this balance is controversial and there are different ways for environmental concerns to be expressed in practice. Environmentalism and environmental concerns are represented by the color green. Environmentalism denotes a movement that seeks to influence the political process by lobbying, activism. The word was first coined in 1922, an environmentalist is a person who may speak out about our natural environment and the sustainable management of its resources through changes in public policy or individual behavior. In various ways, environmentalists and environmental organizations seek to give the world a stronger voice in human affairs. In general terms, environmentalists advocate the sustainable management of resources, in its recognition of humanity as a participant in ecosystems, the movement is centered around ecology, health, and human rights. A concern for environmental protection has recurred in diverse forms, in different parts of the world, for example, in Europe, King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal by proclamation in London in 1272, after its smoke had become a problem. The fuel was so common in England that this earliest of names for it was acquired because it could be carted away from some shores by the wheelbarrow. Earlier in the Middle East, the Caliph Abu Bakr in the 630s commanded his army to Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, at the advent of steam and electricity the muse of history holds her nose and shuts her eyes. The origins of the movement lay in the response to increasing levels of smoke pollution in the atmosphere during the Industrial Revolution. An Alkali inspector and four sub-inspectors were appointed to curb this pollution, typically the highest priority went to water and air pollution. The Coal Smoke Abatement Society was formed in 1898 making it one of the oldest environmental NGOs and it was founded by artist Sir William Blake Richmond, frustrated with the pall cast by coal smoke. Although there were pieces of legislation, the Public Health Act 1875 required all furnaces and fireplaces to consume their own smoke. It also provided for sanctions against factories that emitted large amounts of black smoke, financial incentives were offered to householders to replace open coal fires with alternatives, or for those who preferred, to burn coke instead which produces minimal smoke. Smoke control areas were introduced in some towns and cities in which only smokeless fuels could be burnt, the act formed an important impetus to modern environmentalism, and caused a rethinking of the dangers of environmental degradation to peoples quality of life
22.
Consumer demand
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In economics, demand is the quantity of a commodity or a service that people are willing or able to buy at a certain price. The relationship between price and quantity demanded is also known as demand curve, preferences and choices, which underly demand, can be represented as functions of cost, benefit, odds and other variables. Innumerable factors and circumstances could affect a buyers willingness or ability to buy a good, Some of the more common factors are, Goods own price, The basic demand relationship is between potential prices of a good and the quantities that would be purchased at those prices. Generally the relationship is negative meaning that an increase in price will induce a decrease in the quantity demanded and this negative relationship is embodied in the downward slope of the consumer demand curve. The assumption of a relationship is reasonable and intuitive. If the price of a new novel is high, a person decide to borrow the book from the public library rather than buy it. Price of related goods, The principal related goods are complements, a complement is a good that is used with the primary good. Examples include hotdogs and mustard, beer and pretzels, automobiles, If the price of the complement goes up the quantity demanded of the other good goes down. Mathematically, the representing the price of the complementary good would have a negative coefficient in the demand function. For example, Qd = a - P - Pg where Q is the quantity of automobiles demanded, P is the price of automobiles, the other main category of related goods are substitutes. Substitutes are goods that can be used in place of the primary good, the mathematical relationship between the price of the substitute and the demand for the good in question is positive. If the price of the substitute goes down the demand for the good in question goes down, personal Disposable Income, In most cases, the more disposable income a person has the more likely that person is to buy. Tastes or preferences, The greater the desire to own a good the more one is to buy the good. There is a distinction between desire and demand. Desire is a measure of the willingness to buy a good based on its intrinsic qualities, demand is the willingness and ability to put ones desires into effect. It is assumed that tastes and preferences are relatively constant, consumer expectations about future prices, income and availability, If a consumer believes that the price of the good will be higher in the future, he/she is more likely to purchase the good now. If the consumer expects that his/her income will be higher in the future, availability as well as predicted or expected availability also affects both price and demand. Population, If the population grows this means that demand will also increase, nature of the good, If the good is a basic commodity, it will lead to a higher demand This list is not exhaustive
23.
Forest Stewardship Council
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The Forest Stewardship Council is an international non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization established in 1993 to promote responsible management of the world’s forests. The FSC does this by setting standards on forest products, along with certifying and labeling them as eco-friendly, the FSC’s stated mission is to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the worlds forests. To this end the body has published a Global Strategy with five Goals, ensure equitable access to the benefits of FSC systems. Ensure integrity, credibility and transparency of the FSC system, create business value for products from FSC certified forests. Strengthen the global network to deliver on goals 1 through 4, using the FSC logo signifies that the product comes from responsible sources — environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable. The FSC label is used on a range of timber and non-timber products from paper and furniture to medicine. And aims to give consumers the option of supporting responsible forestry, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, half of the world’s forests have already been altered, degraded, destroyed or converted into other land uses. Much of the remaining forests today suffer from illegal exploitation and otherwise poor management, FSC was established as a response to these concerns over global deforestation. Prior to this, a number of economic and regulatory mechanisms such as financial aid, policy frameworks. These include the International Tropical Timber Agreement, the Convention of International Trade on Endangered Species, in the lead up to the Earth Summit, social groups, NGOs and industries were also beginning to consult on the issue of deforestation. Through stakeholder involvement it became apparent that a body would be required to verify the source of wood products. After 18 months of consultation in ten different countries, the Forest Stewardship Council was finally established in 1993, FSC is an international membership organization with a governance structure based on participation, democracy, equity and transparency. It is a platform for forest owners, timber industries, social groups, FSC has three levels of decision making bodies, The General Assembly, the Board of Directors and the Executive Director. The General Assembly, which place every three years, is made up of the three membership chambers and is the highest decision-making body in FSC. The most recent General Assembly took place in 2014, every member has the right to attend, formulate and submit motions, and vote. The General Assembly represents an opportunity for everybody to share, learn, establish new alliances and exchange, the FSC Board of Directors is accountable to the FSC members. It is made up of nine elected individuals who are FSC members, one member of the Board of Directors is elected from each sub-chamber of the General Assembly. The Executive Director runs FSC on a basis with the support of a multi-cultural professional team at the FSC International Center
24.
Developing country
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Also, the general term less-developed country should not be confused with the specific least developed country. The term developing describes a currently observed situation and not a dynamic or expected direction of progress, since the late 1990s developing countries tended to demonstrate higher growth rates than the developed ones. There is criticism of the use of the developing country. The term implies inferiority of a country or undeveloped country compared with a developed country. It assumes a desire to develop along the traditional Western model of development which a few countries, such as Cuba and Bhutan. An alternative measurement that has suggested is that of gross national happiness. Countries on the boundary between developed and developing are often categorized under the newly industrialized countries. In the 2016 edition of its World Development Indicators, the World Bank made a decision to no longer distinguish between “developed” and “developing” countries in the presentation of its data, nobody has ever agreed on a definition for these terms in the first place. Various terms are used for whatever is not a developed country, terms used include less developed country or less economically developed country, and for the more extreme, least developed country or least economically developed country. But according to the United Nations Statistics Division, There is no established convention for the designation of developed, the World Bank classifies countries into four income groups. These are set each year on July 1, economies were divided according to 2016 GNI per capita using the following ranges of income, Low income countries had GNI per capita of US$1,025 or less. Lower middle income countries had GNI per capita between US$1,026 and US$4,035, upper middle income countries had GNI per capita between US$4,036 and US$12,475. High income countries had GNI per capita above US$12,476 and this may be by absolute numbers or country ranking. The UN has developed the Human Development Index, an indicator of the above statistics. The UN sets Millennium Development Goals from a blueprint developed by all of the countries and leading development institutions. There is an association between low income and high population growth. The terms utilized when discussing developing countries refer to the intent, other terms sometimes used are less developed countries, least economically developed countries, underdeveloped nations or Third World nations, and non-industrialized nations. Conversely, developed countries, most economically developed countries, First World nations and that is, LEDCs are the poorest subset of LDCs
25.
Neoliberalism
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Neoliberalism refers primarily to the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. These market-based ideas and the policies they inspired constitute a paradigm shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus which lasted from 1945 to 1980, as such, neoliberalism shares many attributes with other contested concepts, including democracy. The definition and usage of the term have changed over time, in the 1960s, usage of the term neoliberal heavily declined. When the term was reintroduced in the 1980s in connection with Augusto Pinochets economic reforms in Chile, once the new meaning of neoliberalism was established as a common usage among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy. By 1994, with the passage of NAFTA and the Zapatistas reaction to development in Chiapas. Scholarship on the phenomenon of neoliberalism has been growing, the impact of the global 2008–2009 crisis has also given rise to new scholarship that critiques neoliberalism and seeks developmental alternatives. In 1938 at the Colloque Walter Lippmann, the term neoliberalism was proposed, among other terms, the colloquium defined the concept of neoliberalism as involving the priority of the price mechanism, free enterprise, the system of competition, and a strong and impartial state. To be neoliberal meant advocating an economic policy with state intervention. Neoliberal state interventionism brought a clash with the opposing camp of classical liberals. Although Hayek had intellectual ties to the German neoliberals, his name was occasionally mentioned in conjunction with neoliberalism during this period due to his more pro-free market stance. During the military rule under Augusto Pinochet in Chile, opposition scholars took up the expression to describe the economic reforms implemented there, once this new meaning was established among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy. Another center-left movement from modern American liberalism that used the term neoliberalism to describe its ideology formed in the United States in the 1970s, according to David Brooks, prominent neoliberal politicians included Al Gore and Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party of the United States. The neoliberals coalesced around two magazines, the New Republic and the Washington Monthly, the godfather of this version of neoliberalism was the journalist Charles Peters who in 1983 published A Neoliberals Manifesto. Neoliberal theory argues that a market will allow efficiency, economic growth, income distribution. Any state intervention to encourage these phenomena will worsen economic performance, yet the handbook argues to view the term as merely a pejorative or radical political slogan is to reduce its capacity as an analytic frame. If neoliberalism is to serve as a way of understanding the transformation of society over the last few decades then the concept is in need of unpacking. Other scholars note that neoliberalism is associated with the policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. There are several usages of the term that can be identified, As a development model
26.
Market (economics)
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A market is one of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers and it can be said that a market is the process by which the prices of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enable the distribution and allocation of resources in a society, Markets allow any trade-able item to be evaluated and priced. A market emerges more or less spontaneously or may be constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights of services, Markets can also be worldwide, for example the global diamond trade. National economies can be classified, for example as developed markets or developing markets, in mainstream economics, the concept of a market is any structure that allows buyers and sellers to exchange any type of goods, services and information. The exchange of goods or services, with or without money, is a transaction, a major topic of debate is how much a given market can be considered to be a free market, that is free from government intervention. However it is not always clear how the allocation of resources can be improved since there is always the possibility of government failure, a market is one of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers and it can be said that a market is the process by which the prices of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enables the distribution and allocation of resources in a society, Markets allow any trade-able item to be evaluated and priced. A market sometimes emerges more or less spontaneously but is often constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights of services. Markets of varying types can spontaneously arise whenever a party has interest in a good or service that other party can provide. Hence there can be a market for cigarettes in correctional facilities, another for chewing gum in a playground, and yet another for contracts for the future delivery of a commodity. Markets vary in form, scale, location, and types of participants, as well as the types of goods and services traded, nevertheless, violence and they apply the market dynamics to facilitate information aggregation. However, market prices may be distorted by a seller or sellers with monopoly power, such price distortions can have an adverse effect on market participants welfare and reduce the efficiency of market outcomes. Also, the level of organization and negotiating power of buyers and sellers markedly affects the functioning of the market. Markets are a system, and systems have structure, the structure of a well-functioning market is defined by the theory of perfect competition. Market failures are often associated with time-inconsistent preferences, information asymmetries, non-perfectly competitive markets, principal–agent problems, externalities, among the major negative externalities which can occur as a side effect of production and market exchange, are air pollution and environmental degradation. There exists a popular thought, especially among economists, that markets would have a structure of a perfect competition
27.
Environmental degradation
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It is defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable. Environmental degradation is one of the ten threats officially cautioned by the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, environmental degradation is of many types. When natural habitats are destroyed or natural resources are depleted, the environment is degraded, efforts to counteract this problem include environmental protection and environmental resources management. One major component of environmental degradation is the depletion of the resource of water on Earth. Approximately only 2. 5% of all of the water on Earth is fresh water, 69% of the fresh water is frozen in ice caps located on Antarctica and Greenland, so only 30% of the 2. 5% of fresh water is available for consumption. Fresh water is an important resource, since life on Earth is ultimately dependent on it. Water scarcity is a problem due to many foreseen issues in the future, including population growth, increased urbanization, higher standards of living. Climate change affects the Earths water supply in a number of ways. Transpiration from plants can be affected by a rise in atmospheric CO2, which can decrease their use of water, warmer winter temperatures cause a decrease in snowpack, which can result in diminished water resources during summer. Sea-level rise may also consequently be caused by a depletion of groundwater, a rise in air temperature results in a rise in water temperature, which is also very significant in water degradation, as the water would become more susceptible to bacterial growth. It is generally expected that, on average, global precipitation will increase, with some areas receiving increases, naturally, the distribution of precipitation across the planet is very uneven, causing constant variations in water availability in respective locations. Changes in precipitation affect the timing and magnitude of floods and droughts, shift runoff processes, vegetation patterns and growth rates will be directly affected by shifts in precipitation amount and distribution, which will in turn affect agriculture as well as natural ecosystems. Groundwater reserves will be depleted, and the water has a greater chance of being of poor quality from saline or contaminants on the land surface. The human population on Earth is expanding rapidly which goes hand in hand with the degradation of the environment at large measures, humanitys appetite for needs is disarranging the environments natural equilibrium. Production industries are venting smoke and discharging chemicals that are polluting water resources, the smoke that is emitted into the atmosphere holds detrimental gases such as carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. The high levels of pollution in the atmosphere form layers that are absorbed into the atmosphere. Organic compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons have generated an unwanted opening in the ozone layer, the available fresh water being affected by the climate is also being stretched across an ever-increasing global population. Even though some areas may see an increase in supply from an uneven distribution of precipitation increase
28.
Decentralization
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Decentralization is the process of redistributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority. While centralization, especially in the sphere, is widely studied and practiced. The meaning of decentralization may vary in part because of the different ways it is applied, the word centralization came into use in France in 1794 as the post-French Revolution French Directory leadership created a new government structure. The word decentralization came into usage in the 1820s, centralization entered written English in the first third of the 1800s, mentions of decentralization also first appear during those years. In the mid-1800s Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the French Revolution began with a push towards decentralization. in the end, pierre-Joseph Proudhon, influential anarchist theorist wrote, All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words, agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a formula, political federation or decentralization. In early twentieth century America a response to the centralization of economic wealth and it blamed large-scale industrial production for destroying middle class shop keepers and small manufacturers and promoted increased property ownership and a return to small scale living. The decentralist movement attracted Southern Agrarians like Robert Penn Warren, as well as journalist Herbert Agar, hatfield, Mildred J. Loomis and Bill Kauffman. In the next few years a number of best-selling books promoted decentralization. ”Alvin Toffler published Future Shock, naisbitt’s book outlines 10 “megatrends”, the fifth of which is from centralization to decentralization. In 1996 David Osborne and Ted Gaebler had a best selling book Reinventing Government proposing decentralist public administration theories which became labeled the New Public Management, stephen Cummings wrote that decentralization became a revolutionary megatrend in the 1980s. In 1983 Diana Conyers asked if decentralization was the latest fashion in development administration, Cornell Universitys project on Restructuring Local Government states that decentralization refers to the global trend of devolving responsibilities to regional or local governments. In 1983, Decentralization was identified as one of the Ten Key Values of the Green Movement in the United States, according to a 1999 United Nations Development Programme report, A large number of developing and transitional countries have embarked on some form of decentralization programmes. The movement toward local accountability and greater control over ones destiny is, however, not solely the result of the negative attitude towards central government. Rather, these developments, as we have noted, are principally being driven by a strong desire for greater participation of citizens and private sector organizations in governance. ”Those studying the goals and processes of implementing decentralization often use a systems theory approach. ”However. Norman Johnson of Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote in a 1999 paper, an important property of agent systems is the degree of connectivity or connectedness between the agents, a measure global flow of information or influence. If each agent is connected to all agents, then the system is highly connected. Instead each party, also called a peer, makes local autonomous decisions towards its goals which may possibly conflict with those of other peers. Peers directly interact with other and share information or provide service to other peers
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Devolution
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Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization, devolved territories have the power to make legislation relevant to the area. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority may be temporary and are reversible. Thus, the state de jure unitary. Legislation creating devolved parliaments or assemblies can be repealed or amended by central government in the way as any statute. In federal systems, by contrast, sub-unit government is guaranteed in the constitution, the sub-units therefore have a lower degree of protection under devolution than under federalism. It has six states and two territories with power than states. The Northern Territory of Australia refused statehood in a 1998 referendum, the rejection was a surprise to both the Australian and Northern Territory governments. Territory legislation can be disallowed by the Commonwealth Parliament in Canberra, although Canada is a federal state, a large portion of its land mass in the north is under the legislative jurisdiction of the federal government. This has been the case since 1870, since the 1970s, the federal government has been transferring its decision-making powers to northern governments. This means greater local control and accountability by northerners for decisions central to the future of the territories, Yukon was carved from the Northwest Territories in 1898 but it remained a federal territory. Subsequently, in 1905, the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created from the Northwest Territories, other portions of Ruperts Land were added to the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, extending the provinces northward from their previous narrow band around the St. Lawrence and lower Great Lakes. The District of Ungava was an administrative district of Canadas Northwest Territories from 1895 to 1912. The continental areas of district were transferred by the Parliament of Canada with the adoption of the Quebec Boundary Extension Act,1898. The status of the interior of Labrador which was believed part of Ungava was settled in 1927 by the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which ruled in favour of Newfoundland. In 1999, the government created Nunavut pursuant to a land claim agreement reached with Inuit. The offshore islands to the west and north of Quebec remained part of the Northwest Territories until the creation of Nunavut in 1999, since that time, the federal government has slowly devolved legislative jurisdiction to the territories. Enabling the territories to become more self-sufficient and prosperous and to play a role in the Canadian federation is considered a key component to development in Canada’s North
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Land use
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It also has been defined as the total of arrangements, activities, and inputs that people undertake in a certain land cover type. Land use practices vary considerably across the world, as of the early 1990s, about 13% of the Earth was considered arable land, with 26% in pasture, 32% forests and woodland, and 1. 5% urban areas. As Albert Guttenberg wrote many years ago, Land use is a key term in the language of city planning, commonly, political jurisdictions will undertake land-use planning and regulate the use of land in an attempt to avoid land-use conflicts. Land use plans are implemented through land division and use ordinances and regulations, Management consulting firms and non-governmental organizations will frequently seek to influence these regulations before they are codified. In colonial America, few regulations existed to control the use of land, as society shifted from rural to urban, public land regulation became important, especially to city governments trying to control industry, commerce, and housing within their boundaries. The first zoning ordinance was passed in New York City in 1916, in the 1970s, concerns about the environment and historic preservation led to further regulation. Today, federal, state, and local governments regulate growth, the majority of controls on land, however, stem from the actions of private developers and individuals. In these situations, judicial decisions and enforcement of private land-use arrangements can reinforce public regulation, two major federal laws have been passed in the last half century that limit the use of land significantly. These are the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, Land use and land management practices have a major impact on natural resources including water, soil, nutrients, plants and animals. Land use information can be used to develop solutions for natural resource management issues such as salinity, for instance, water bodies in a region that has been deforested or having erosion will have different water quality than those in areas that are forested. Forest gardening, a food production system, is believed to be the oldest form of land use in the world. The major effect of use on land cover since 1750 has been deforestation of temperate regions. More recent significant effects of use include urban sprawl, soil erosion, soil degradation, salinization. Land-use change, together with use of fuels, are the major anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide. As a consequence the result has often been misery for large segments of the population and destruction of valuable ecosystems. Such narrow approaches should be replaced by a technique for the planning and management of resources that is integrated and holistic. This will ensure the quality of the land for human use, the prevention or resolution of social conflicts related to land use. The urban growth boundary is one form of land-use regulation, for example, Portland, Oregon is required to have an urban growth boundary which contains at least 20,000 acres of vacant land
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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
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Genetic diversity
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Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary, genetic diversity serves as a way for populations to adapt to changing environments. With more variation, it is likely that some individuals in a population will possess variations of alleles that are suited for the environment. Those individuals are likely to survive to produce offspring bearing that allele. The population will continue for more generations because of the success of these individuals, the academic field of population genetics includes several hypotheses and theories regarding genetic diversity. The neutral theory of evolution proposes that diversity is the result of the accumulation of neutral substitutions, diversifying selection is the hypothesis that two subpopulations of a species live in different environments that select for different alleles at a particular locus. This may occur, for instance, if a species has a large relative to the mobility of individuals within it. Frequency-dependent selection is the hypothesis that as alleles become more common and this occurs in host–pathogen interactions, where a high frequency of a defensive allele among the host means that it is more likely that a pathogen will spread if it is able to overcome that allele. According to the researcher in the study, Dr. Richard Lankau, If any one type is removed from the system, the cycle can break down. The interdependence between genetic and species diversity is delicate, changes in species diversity lead to changes in the environment, leading to adaptation of the remaining species. Changes in genetic diversity, such as in loss of species, loss of genetic diversity in domestic animal populations has also been studied and attributed to the extension of markets and economic globalization. Genetic diversity plays an important role in the survival and adaptability of a species, variation in the populations gene pool provides variable traits among the individuals of that population. These variable traits can be selected for, via natural selection, ultimately leading to a change in the population. Genetic diversity is essential for a species to evolve, with very little gene variation within the species, healthy reproduction becomes increasingly difficult, and offspring are more likely to have problems resulting from inbreeding. The vulnerability of a population to certain types of diseases can also increase with reduction in genetic diversity, concerns about genetic diversity are especially important with large mammals due to their small population size and high levels of human-caused population effects. When humans initially started farming, they used selective breeding to pass on traits of the crops while omitting the undesirable ones. Selective breeding leads to monocultures, entire farms of nearly genetically identical plants, If the genetic variation that the bacterium is best at attacking happens to be that which humans have selectively bred to use for harvest, the entire crop will be wiped out. A very similar occurrence is the cause of the infamous Potato Famine in Ireland, in the 1840s, much of Irelands population depended on potatoes for food
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Climate resilience
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With the rising awareness of climate change impacts by both national and international bodies, building climate resilience has become a major goal for these institutions. The key focus of climate resilience efforts is to address the vulnerability that communities, states, currently, climate resilience efforts encompass social, economic, technological, and political strategies that are being implemented at all scales of society. Despite this, there is a robust and ever-growing movement fueled by local and national bodies alike geared towards building and improving climate resilience. The fact that climate resilience encompasses a dual function, to shock as well as to self-renew, is the primary means by which it can be differentiated from the concept of climate adaptation. In general, adaptation is viewed as a group of processes and actions that help a system changes that have already occurred. A conversation about climate resilience is incomplete without also incorporating the concepts of adaptations, vulnerability and this is framed under the assumed detrimental impacts of climate change to ecosystems and ecosystem services. Climate resilience is a novel concept that is still in the process of being established by academia. However, the basis for many of the ideas central to climate resilience have actually existed since the 1960s. However, the idea of resilience began evolving relatively quickly in the coming years, rather than minimizes imposed changes, ecosystems could integrate and manage those changes, and use them fuel the evolution of novel characteristics. By the mid 1970s, resilience began gaining momentum as an idea in anthropology, culture theory, even more compelling is the fact that there was significant work in these relatively non-traditional fields that helped facilitate the evolution of the resilience perspective as a whole. Eventually by the late 1980s and early 1990s, resilience had fundamentally changed as a theoretical framework, Resilience was no longer just about absorbing shocks, but also about harnessing the changes triggered by external stresses to catalyze the evolution the social-ecological system in question. As the issues of global warming and climate change have gained traction and become prominent since the early 1990s. To begin with, climate resilience establishes the idea of multi-stable socio-ecological systems, as discussed earlier, resilience originally began as an idea that extended from the stable equilibrium view – systems only acted to return to their pre-existing states when exposed to a disturbance. But with modern interpretations of resilience, it is now established that socio-ecological systems can actually stabilize around a multitude of possible states, secondly, climate resilience has played a critical role in emphasizing the importance of preventive action when assessing the effects of climate change. Although adaptation is always going to be a key consideration, making changes after the fact has a capability to help communities. By working to build resilience, policymakers and governments can take a more comprehensive stance that works to mitigate the harms of global warming impacts before they happen. Finally, a climate resilience perspective encourages greater cross-scale connectedness of systems, creating mechanisms of adaptation that occur in isolation at local, state, or national levels may leave the overall social-ecological system vulnerable. A resilience-based framework would require far more cross-talk, and the creation of environmental protections that are more holistically generated and implemented, however what exactly constitutes a vulnerable community is still open to debate
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Forest ecosystem
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Forest ecology is the scientific study of the interrelated patterns, processes, flora, fauna and ecosystems in forests. The management of forests is known as forestry, silviculture, a forest ecosystem is a natural woodland unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in that area functioning together with all of the non-living physical factors of the environment. The forest ecosystem is very important, Forest ecology is one branch of a biotically-oriented classification of types of ecological study. Thus, forests are studied at a number of organizational levels, however, as the term forest connotes an area inhabited by more than one organism, forest ecology most often concentrates on the level of the population, community or ecosystem. Thus, forest ecology is a diverse and important branch of ecological study. Forest ecology studies share characteristics and methodological approaches with other areas of plant ecology. However, the presence of trees makes forest ecosystems and their unique in numerous ways. Since trees can grow larger than other plant life-forms, there is the potential for a variety of forest structures. In addition, an important proportion of a forest ecosystems biomass is often underground, where soil structure, water quality and quantity, thus, forests are often highly heterogeneous environments compared to other terrestrial plant communities. This heterogeneity in turn can enable great biodiversity of species of plants and animals. It also affects the design of forest inventory sampling strategies, the results of which are used in ecological studies. For example, the wild turkey thrives when uneven heights and canopy variations exist, forests accumulate large amounts of standing biomass, and many are capable of accumulating it at high rates, i. e. they are highly productive. Such high levels of biomass and tall vertical structures represent large stores of energy that can be converted to kinetic energy under the right circumstances. Two such conversions of great importance are fires and treefalls, both of which alter the biota and the physical environment where they occur. Trees growing in arid and/or cold environments do so especially slowly, thus, tree trunks and branches can remain on the forest floor for long periods, affecting such things as wildlife habitat, fire behavior, and tree regeneration processes. Lastly, forest trees store large amounts of water because of their large size and they are therefore important regulators of hydrological processes, especially those involving groundwater hydrology and local evaporation and rainfall/snowfall patterns. Thus, forest ecological studies are sometimes closely aligned with meteorological and hydrological studies in regional ecosystem or resource planning studies, perhaps more importantly the duff or leaf litter can form a major repository of water storage. When this litter is removed or compacted, erosion and flooding are exacerbated as well as deprivation of dry season water for forest organisms
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Provenance
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Provenance, is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The practice has a value in helping authenticate objects. Comparative techniques, expert opinions, and the results of tests may also be used to these ends. It has been argued that in archaeology, when the US spelling provenience is used it has a related, any given antiquity may therefore have both a provenience and a provenance. In some cases, especially there is an inscription, the provenance may include a history that predates its burial in the ground. The provenance of works of art, antiques and antiquities is of great importance. There are a number of reasons why painting provenance is important, a good provenance increases the value of a painting, and establishing provenance may help confirm the date, artist and, especially for portraits, the subject of a painting. It may confirm whether a painting is genuinely of the period it seems to date from, the provenance of paintings can help resolve ownership disputes. For example, provenance between 1933 and 1945 can determine whether a painting was looted by the Nazis, many galleries are putting a great deal of effort into researching the provenance of paintings in their collections for which there is no firm provenance during that period. Documented evidence of provenance for an object can help to establish that it has not been altered and is not a forgery, Provenance helps assign the work to a known artist, and a documented history can be of use in helping to prove ownership. An example of a detailed provenance is given in the Arnolfini portrait. The provenance of a work of art may vary greatly in length, depending on context or the amount that is known, an expert certification can mean the difference between an object having no value and being worth a fortune. Certifications themselves may be open to question, jacques van Meegeren forged the work of his father Han van Meegeren. Jacques sometimes produced a certificate with his forgeries stating that a work was created by his father, john Drewe was able to pass off as genuine paintings, a large number of forgeries that would have easily been recognised as such by scientific examination. He established an impressive provenance and because of this galleries and dealers accepted the paintings as genuine and he created this false provenance by forging letters and other documents, including false entries in earlier exhibition catalogues. Sometimes provenance can be as simple as a photograph of the item with its original owner, simple yet definitive documentation such as that can increase its value by an order of magnitude, but only if the owner was of high renown. Many items that were sold at auction have gone far past their estimates because of a showing that item with a famous person. Some examples include antiques owned by politicians, musicians, artists, actors, the objective of provenance research is to produce a complete list of owners from when the painting was commissioned or in the artists studio through to the present time
