Australian Ranger Federation

The Australian Ranger Federation represents Australian park rangers.
History.
The Australian Ranger Association (ARA) was formed in Adelaide, South Australia in 1996 to provide representation and a national approach to the Rangers profession within Australia. The ARA focused on setting industry national standards for protected areas; professional networks; sharing of training, endorsement of specific standout providers; social networks for moral boosting and renewed energy. Individual state/territory ranger bodies generally started as industrial organisations but slowly over time and through engagement at a national level morphed to more professional level. The growing representation in each state/territory of separate industrial organisations allowed the ARA to develop representation on professional issues.
The ARA was renamed into the Australian Ranger Federation in 2004. This change was made to better reflect the professional focus of the organisation and more closely affiliate with the International Ranger Federation (IRF). The description of Federation in the title was also considered to better represent the ideals of members. The Australian Rangers Federation developed a network and provided a forum for rangers to communication on professional issues.
Each state and territory progressively established its own association, and directly affiliated with the IRF. The operations of the Australian Rangers Federation become duplicated and obsolete. The ARF was further renamed into the Council of Australian Ranger Associations (CARA) at the Queensland Rangers Association AGM in 2008, re-establish itself the principle professional body representing people that work in the conservation of natural and cultural heritage on conserved lands. Many of the state and territory association retain close links with industrial organisations, government conservation agencies, and NGO’s.
Purpose.
The Australian Ranger Association (ARA) was established to provide representation and a national approach to the Rangers profession within Australia. The association was successful in establishing a national network that enabled Rangers to communicate directly and discuss industrial and professional workplace issues.
The Australian Rangers Federation (ARF) was a professional body supporting Rangers and other professional officers involved in the conservation and management of our natural and cultural resources. The ARF represents its members at an international level through the International Ranger Federation (IRF). Membership to the ARF provided automatic membership to the IRF, and provision to attend the IRF world congresses. The ARF represented Australian Rangers through providing forums that enable international communication and rangers to discuss topics of interest and exchange ideas.
The Council of Australian Ranger Associations (CARA) comprises representation from each state and territory associations in Australia which are themselves directly affiliated with the IRF. CARA is a professional body that represents and supports Rangers and other professional officers involved in the conservation and management of our natural and cultural resources. CARA represents not just only rangers, but all people that work within and supportive roles of staff of government and private conservation organisations.
Operations.
Membership to the individual state or territory association automatically entitles members to CARA and the IRF. Members of each state territory association have the opportunity to attend the IRF World congress, CARA annual general meetings, and input to the operations of CARA and the IRF.
Each state/territory association undertake the facilitation of CARA on an annual rotation basis. Representatives from each member state/territory association meet annual to discuss the operations of CARA and to maintain communication between each association
CARA is working with NGO’s and state conservation agencies to improve the profession within Australia.
This includes:


Nonnenmattweiher

The Nonnenmattweiher is a lake that has been impounded by an embankment in the Southern Black Forest in Germany. Together with the surrounding area it forms a nature reserve of the same name in the High Black Forest in the state of Baden-Württemberg.
Name.
The name of the lake goes back to the formerly common word for the mast intended as feed for cattle – the so-called "Nonnen" or "Nunnen". It used to be pastured on the meadows in the bottom of the cirque. Later people presumed that the name came from a nunnery ("Nonnenkloster") which, according to legend, sank into the lake as a result of God’s judgement.
Geography.
The pond and the nature reserve lie near Heubronn, a village in the parish of Neuenweg (in the municipality of Kleines Wiesental), in the Southern Black Forest in Baden-Württemberg. Other nearby villages are Badenweiler and Münstertal. The lake lies on the eastern slopes of the Köhlgarten massif at about and is almost 325 metres long, 200 metres wide and up to 7 metres deep. (3.7 ha) The lake – excluding the large island in the south – has an area of 3.1 ha and is crossed by the "Weiherbach" which rises on the "Heubronner Hang" to the west and heads east, draining via the (Heubronner) "Klemmbach", the "Belchenwiese" and the "Kleine Wiese" into the Wiese.
Development history.
The Nonnenmattweiher was originally formed as a cirque lake by a glacier during the ice age, but silted up in the Middle Ages and became part of an area of raised bog and boggy pasture. It was impounded as a millpond for mills further down the valley in 1758, but was intended to support the breeding of trout and carp. But when the lake was dammed, the flooded bog tore away and floated (as a result of the formation of pockets of gas due to fermentation processes in the bog structure), and fish breeding was impractical. On 1 March 1922 the rain-sodden bank could no longer resist the water pressure and the burst, destroying the riverbanks as far as the valley of the Little Wiese. The lake basin dried out until the reconstruction of the embankment in the early 1930s. In early June 1934 the inauguration of the new reservoir which was 2 metres higher than before. The bog floated up to the surface again and covered an even greater area than before. It still forms a floating island of peat, like that of the Huzenbacher See in the Northern Black Forest and the Kleiner Arbersee in the Bohemian Forest.
In 2004 the area hit the headlines when a number of environmentalists complained that tree felling had significantly changed the character of the cirque. In 2007 more tree felling and other incursions of the nature reserve took place.
Protected areas.
Nature reserve.
By order of the Regierungspräsidium Freiburg dated 31 July 1987 the Nonnenmattweiher was declared a nature reserve (Protected Area Number 3.161) with an area of 70.8 hectares. It is classed as IUCN Category IV. The CDDA Code is 164836 and corresponds with the WDPA ID.
The conservation aim is the preservation of the region as an especially beautifully formed cirque with high rock faces, the Nonnenmattweiher as a tarn with its moraine banks in front as a habitat for numerous rare and endangered animal and plant species.
Protected areas.
The Nonnenmattweiher had been declared a protected area as early as 20 January 1941. After designating the nature reserve, a small area of around 2.8 hectares is still a protected area.
Vegetation.
Around and in the lake are numerous rare plants. One rarity is the floating peat island that has fen and transitional bog vegetation. The island is out of bounds.
About half the lake is bordered by a barrier of floating logs enabling the rest to be used as a bathing lake.


Programme for Belize

The Programme for Belize is a private initiative, the first project undertaken in 1988. Financial and management assistance was generously given by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. After the project was identified and started, loans were provided by Nature Conservancy and donations provided by the World Land Trust. The goal of the project was to purchase and protect tropical rainforests in Belize to prevent them being sold and cleared to make way for ranching. The project (and also the Trust) was launched at the London Butterfly House in May 1989. The famous naturalists Gerald Durrell and his wife Lee Durrell were guests of honour, and also visited Belize in 1989 to help with in-situ conservation efforts there. By 1996, more than of land had been purchased and was under the ownership and protection of PfB. The World Land Trust then initiated Friends of Belize to help raise funds to cover costs of continuing protection of the purchased lands, as well as to aid in-situ conservation efforts. Since 2006 World Land Trust has organised regular symposia for the decision-makers of their project partners, and in 2008 PfB hosted the event at their La Milpa ecolodge. The Managing Director of PfB has attended subsequent symposia held in Brazil, Netherlands and the UK.


British nature conservation statuses

In Britain, a variety of status categorisation schemes exist, for sites, species and habitats. These include, for species and habitats, Red Data Book threat categories, national rarity and scarcity assessments and Biodiversity Action Plan statuses, and for sites, statutory statuses such as the SSSI concept, and non-statutory statuses such as county wildlife sites.
The most widely established assessment system for rarity and scarcity is based around presence of species in the hectads of the Ordnance Survey National Grid. Nationally Rare is conventionally defined as species which are found in 15 or fewer hectads. Nationally Scarce (also termed Nationally Notable) relates to species which are found in between 16 and 100 hectads. This category is subdivided into Nationally Scarce (Nationally Notable) A—species found in 16 to 30 hectads, and Nationally Scarce (Nationally Notable) B—species found in between 31 and 100 hectads. A status of Local is also sometimes used, referring to species found in between 101 and 300 hectads.
Sites of Special Scientific Interest are sites which are of importance for their biological or geological interest, and are protected from damage under legislation such as the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
A Special Protection Area is an area of importance for birds, protected under European legislation.


Delizia di Belriguardo

Delizia di Belriguardo is the headquarters of the Museo civico di Belriguardo. It was built by Niccolò III d'Este. Lucrezia Borgia stayed here frequently.
At the end of the 1400s, Sabadino degli Arienti wrote a description of the palazzo. In 1493, Ludovico il Moro wrote a letter to Beatrice d'Este saying:


John Smith (Conservative politician)

Sir John Lindsay Eric Smith (3 April 1923 – 28 February 2007) was a British banker, Conservative Member of Parliament, and Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire. He was involved with many architectural, industrial and maritime conservation charities. He founded the Landmark Trust in 1965.
Early and private life.
Smith was born in London, the son of Captain Evan Cadogan Eric Smith MC of Ashfold in Sussex and his wife, Beatrice "Helen" (née Williams). He was a scion of an old banking family: Smiths of Nottingham was founded in the 1650s, and merged with the National Provincial Bank after the First World War, and his father became its chairman. His mother was the daughter of Albert Williams and granddaughter of Sir George Williams, founder of the YMCA, and a great-granddaughter of Thomas Cook. His elder sister, Fortune, married Hugh FitzRoy, Earl of Euston (later 11th Duke of Grafton) in 1946; she was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth II from 1953 and 1966, and has been the Mistress of the Robes since 1967.
Smith was educated at Eton, where he was Captain of the Oppidans and won the Rosebery Prize for History. He joined the Fleet Air Arm in 1942 and trained as an observer at HMS "Daedalus". He served in the Second World War in a Fairey Swordfish squadron in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, then as a liaison officer to the US Ninth Air Force, and then with a squadron of Fairey Barracuda in the North Atlantic. He flew as a navigator in an operation to dive-bomb the German battleship "Tirpitz" in Kvænangen fjord in July 1944. He joined the aircraft carrier , and served in the Far East with 845 Naval Air Squadron, flying Grumman Avengers. He was in Ceylon at the end of the War.
After the War, he read history at New College, Oxford, where he later became an honorary fellow in 1979. He met his future wife, Christian Carnegy, in Oxford, where she was reading English. They married in 1952.
They had two sons and three daughters:
Smith owned a property at No. 1, Smith Square, in his former constituency. However, he resided at Shottesbrooke Park, near Maidenhead in Berkshire, the ancient home of the Vansittart family which he inherited from his father's second cousin in 1962.
He died in Windsor. He was survived by his wife, their two sons, and two of their three daughters.
Financial and political career.
He followed the family tradition of being a director of Coutts and Co, the private bank and a subsidiary of National Provincial, in 1950. He was the ninth generation of Smiths to work in the bank. He remained a director for 43 years, until 1993.
He also joined the boards of many other companies, including Rolls-Royce Limited, the Ottoman Bank and the Financial Times. He was also a deputy-governor of Royal Exchange Assurance. He was awarded the OBE in 1964.
He was a Conservative politician. After the death of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Harry Hylton Foster in 1965, Smith was elected to succeed him in the subsequent by-election as Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster. Smith served until he stood down in 1970. He was appointed a CBE in 1975.
He served as High Steward of Maidenhead, and as Lord-Lieutenant of Berkshire from 1975 to 1978. He was knighted in 1988 and became a Companion of Honour in 1994.
He greatly enjoyed travelling, and claimed to be the first man to visit all of the explorers' huts in Antarctica.
Conservation.
Smith served on committees of the National Trust from 1952 to 1995, and was deputy chairman from 1980 to 1995. He assisted financially with repairs to Barlaston Hall, damaged by subsidence due to coal mining. He also served on the Standing Committee for Museums and Galleries from 1958 to 1966, the Historic Buildings Council from 1971 to 1978, the Redundant Churches Fund from 1972 to 1974, and the National Heritage Memorial Fund from 1980 to 1982.
He founded the Manifold Trust in 1962, to raise money for charity by buying long leases close to the date of their expiry. The rather speculative venture was very successful, producing a "cataract of gold" which funded many of his charitable interests, including the Landmark Trust, which he and Lady Smith founded three years later, and which still operates from their estate at Shottesbrooke. Sir John identified and acquired properties for restoration, while Lady Smith supervised their fitting out, commissioning soft furnishings for each inspired by objects or design features associated with the buildings.
He was involved in canal restoration through his friendship with L. T. C. Rolt, and was a driving force behind the preservation of HMS "Belfast", HMS "Warrior" and SS "Great Britain".


Cuatro Balam

Cuatro Balam is an initiative by the government of Guatemala to dramatically increase tourism in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, focusing on the region's numerous archeological sites. The Reserve is a protected area of 21,602 km² in Guatemala's northernmost Petén Department. The Reserve contains national parks and wildlife preserves, and "multiple use" zones where limited human settlement and activity are permitted.
The Cuatro Balam plan is being promoted as a means of conserving Guatemala's biodiversity and archaeological heritage, while fostering regional economic development. The Guatemalan government says the plan will cover about 22,500 km², an area slightly larger than the Maya Biosphere Reserve.
The plan is touted as the largest archaeological tourism project in Latin America. Archaeological sites in the Reserve include Tikal, Guatemala’s most famous Maya city, which attracts 120,000 to 180,000 visitors per year, and El Mirador, a lesser-known but larger Maya city dating from the preclassic period. El Mirador is located in the remote, dense jungle about 7 km south of the Mexican border. A government press release lists Tikal, El Mirador, Piedras Negras, and Uaxactún as the Maya sites that will anchor tourism development. Tens of other sites are also being excavated in the region.
' is a word for "jaguar" in many Mayan languages, and ' is Spanish for "four"; hence the intended meaning, "four jaguars." "Cuatro Balam" also refers to the four main figures of the K'iche' Maya sacred text "Popol Vuh", linked to the four cardinal directions.
The project was officially presented to the press and the public by Guatemala's president Alvaro Colom on July 16, 2008 preceded by months of speculation and discussion. At the presentation, a video was shown depicting aspirations for the first fifteen years of the project, which include attracting 12 million visitors to the region. At El Mirador specifically, Colom says he hopes to increase the annual number of tourists to 40,000. According to President Colom and Eugenio Gabriel, whom Colom has put in charge of the project, the Reserve will be divided into three zones: an archeological park in the north, a tourism hub in the center, and an agricultural zone in the south, intended to prevent further northward migration by Guatemalan farmers and ranchers. Key features of the plan include a small train that will carry tourists to and from archaeological sites at a speed of 16 kilometers per hour and a new university that will promote the study of the region's biodiversity and genetic material, as well as Maya studies. President Colom did not specify exactly how the project will be financed, but said it will require investment from both the public and private sector. At the announcement of the project, Colom said that some of plan objectives could be achieved within just two years, while others would take up to fifteen to realize.
In his announcement of Cuatro Balam, Colom also said that for the project to succeed, the region would have to be protected from invasive farmers and rancher and drug traffickers, who are concentrated in the western part of the Maya Biosphere Reserve.
The plan will be a subject of discussion in the “mesas multisectoriales” or multisectoral roundtables, an ongoing series of talks between government officials, NGOs and community groups to discuss economic development and environmental conservation around El Mirador.


Vigan

', officially the ' (; ), is a and capital of the province of , . According to the , it has a population of people.
Located on the western coast of the large island of Luzon, facing the South China Sea, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is one of the few Spanish colonial towns left in the Philippines whose old structures have mostly remained intact, and it is well known for its sett pavements and a unique architecture of the Spanish Philippines colonial era which fuses Native Philippine and Oriental building designs and construction, with colonial Spanish architecture that is still abundant in the area, mainly the Bahay na Bato houses and an Earthquake Baroque church. Former Philippine president Elpidio Quirino, the sixth President of the Philippines, was born in Vigan, at the former location of the Provincial Jail (his father was a warden); he resided in the Syquia Mansion. The entire city of Vigan was later inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage City after being declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a member of the Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC).
In May 2015, Vigan City was officially recognized as one of the New7Wonders Cities together with Beirut, Doha, Durban, Havana, Kuala Lumpur and La Paz. New7Wonders Foundation president and founding member Bernard Weber led a ceremony held at St. Paul Cathedral where he handed a bronze plaque to Vigan Mayor Eva Grace Singson-Medina, signifying the heritage city's election as one of the world's wonder cities.
Etymology.
The area of Vigan was originally a settlement of traders coming from the Fujian Province, China. At the time of Spanish colonisation, the Chinese settlers, whose language was Southern Min (Min Nan, often referred to as "Hokkien" by most Filipinos), referred to the area as "Bee Gan" (), which means "Beautiful Shore." Since the Spanish conquistadors interchanged V and the B to refer to the /b/ sound, they spelled the Hokkien Chinese name "Bee Gan" as "Vigan", which is the name used to this day.
Vigan's Chinese heritage is still evident from the numerous elite Chinese creole families who come from the area, many of whom adopted Hispanic family names. Others, such as the Syquia family, have retained Chinese-derived surnames, though most, if not all, of the Christian Chinese creole families fully Hispanicised themselves culturally.
The most commonly known source of the city's name is from the Biga'a plant, which once grew abundantly along the banks of the Mestizo River, from which captain Juan de Salcedo derived the city's name (after a misunderstanding with the locals, thinking he was asking the name of the plants).
Other names.
The city's full name at the time of its Spanish foundation was "Villa Fernandina", or "Town of Ferdinand", in honor of Prince Ferdinand, the firstborn son of King Philip II of Spain. As the city grew, and the seat of the Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia transferred to Vigan, it was later renamed "Ciudad Fernandina de Vigan" ("Ferdinand's City of Vigan/Fernandine City of Vigan").
History.
Due to silting of the Mestizo River, Vigan City is no longer separated from the mainland, therefore no longer an island. The city is unique in the Philippines because it is one of many extensive surviving Philippine historic cities, dating back to the 16th century.
Vigan was a coastal trading post long before the Spaniards arrived; Chinese traders sailing from the West Philippine Sea came to "Isla de Vigan" (Island of Vigan) via the Mestizo River that surrounded it. On board their ships were seafaring merchants who came to trade goods from other Asian kingdoms in exchange for gold, beeswax, and other mountain products brought by the indigenous peoples from the Cordillera region.
In the book "The Philippine Island" (Vol. III, p. 276, Blair and Robertson) two letters from Governor-General Guido de Lavezaris to King Philip II of Spain mention: "It seemed best to send Captain Juan de Salcedo with 70 or 80 soldiers to explore the coast of Los Ilocanos on the shores of the river called Bigan." The Spaniards led by Salcedo marched north from Manila on May 20, 1572. They arrived in Vigan on June 13, 1572. Tirad Pass, declared a National Shrine, had been the last stand of the Filipino Revolutionary Forces under General Emilio Aguinaldo during the same period.
Thus, after the successful expedition and the exploration of the North, Juan de Salcedo founded "Villa Fernandina de Vigan" in honor of King Philip II's son, Prince Ferdinand, who died at the age of four. From Vigan, Salcedo rounded the tip of Luzón and proceeded to pacify Camarines, Albay, and Catanduanes. As a reward for his services to the King of Spain, Salcedo was awarded the old province of Ilocos, which consisted of the modern provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Abra, La Union and part of Mountain Province as his hacienda (estate), and was accorded the title of "Justicia Mayor de esta Provincia de Ylocos" (Province Mayor of Ilocos).
In 1574, Salcedo returned to the capital of his "encomienda" (trusteeship), Vigan, bringing with him his soldiers and some Augustinian missionaries to pioneer the evangelization of the Ilocos region. He established a Spanish city for the purpose of controlling the neighboring country.
Governor General Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, in his account of "encomienda" dated in Manila on May 31, 1591, states: "The town of Vigan called "Villa Fernandina" consisted of Spanish settlers; a priest; a Justice Alcalde Mayor (Governor); and a Deputy. The King collects 800 tributes (equivalent to 3,200 subjects)." During this period, Vigan was composed of 19 "barrio"s (districts).
Between 1645 and 1660, Vigan was divided into 21 "Cabezas de Barrio" (Town Mayors) as mentioned in the "Libro de Casamiento" (Book of Marriage); from the records of the parish house of Vigan found in its archives. Separated from the indigenous population, the Chinese migrants were residents in a neighbourhood called El Pariancillo, los Sangleyes del parian (The Sangleyes of the Parian); and the Spanish settlers were residents in a town called "Los Españoles de la Villa" (The Town Spaniards).
During the Philippine Revolution, revolutionary forces under Manuel Tinio, supported by the Ilocano rebels, attacked and defeated the Spanish colonial forces and captured the city in the Siege of Vigan. During the Philippine–American War, American forces led by Commander McCracken and Lt. Col. James Parker occupied the town in Nov. 1899.
At the start of World War II, Vigan was one of the first places in the Philippines invaded by Japan on 10 December 1941. In 1945, combined U.S. and Philippine Commonwealth ground troops, aided by Ilocano resistance fighters, defeated the Japanese Imperial forces and liberated Vigan.
In 1999, Vigan was listed by UNESCO as the best preserved example of Spanish colonial towns in Asia. Its architecture is the conglomeration of cultural elements from the Philippines, China, and Spain, making it unique in the world.
Republic Act No. 8988 of December 27, 2000 "revalidated and recognized" Vigan's city status granted by royal decree in the mid 18th century. This legislation serves as Vigan's present city charter.
On December 7, 2014, Vigan was named as one of the "New7Wonders Cities".
Geography.
Vigan can be found 120 23’ 15’’ east longitude and 17 34’ 30’’ north latitude. It is situated in the northern part of Luzon, the Philippines’ largest island. It serves as the capital of Ilocos Sur and has been a major political and trading center since before the Spanish colonizers arrived in the Philippines.
Its favorable geographical features and location continues to make it a very accessible center. It is away from Manila, away from Laoag City, and away from San Fernando, La Union, the regional capital of Ilocos Region.
Topography.
Its 2,511 hectares of land consists mostly of plains with gentle hills. Its boundaries on the north, east, south, and west are the municipalities of Bantay, Santa, Caoayan, and Santa Catalina, respectively. The South China Sea is on its southwest portion.
Majority of its land, 60 percent of it, is used for agriculture. Around 32 percent is made up of residential area, nearly three percent are for commercial and industrial use, and around one percent is for institutional purposes. There are also forest reserves and fishponds included in Vigan's land area.
Vigan is made up of 39 barangays. Thirty of them are classified as rural, but they occupy only 2,366 hectares. The remaining nine are classified as "poblacion" barangays and are together 144.75 hectares big.
The barangays of Pagburnayan, Paoa, and Tamag are on the area of rolling plains. On the other hand, portions of Barangays Tamag and the barangays of Bulala and Salindeg are found on the city's hilly parts.
Its most dominant hill feature is the Vigan Gap Hill in the eastern part, just 10 kilometers away from the city. Vigan used to be separated from the rest of the mainland by the rivers of Abra, Mestizo and Govantes, making it an island during that time. The Govantes River cuts the current Vigan plain from North to South.
The large Abra and Mestizo rivers, together with the rivers of Bantay, Bantaoay, Nauman and Santo Tomas serve as part of a network that drain the Vigan plains. These rivers are not only important in safekeeping the city from floods, they also served as important ways of transport for trade-related activities from the 15th century to the 19th century, that helped make Vigan a thriving center. The most vital of these rivers is said to be the Mestizo River which was used by the small vessels to transport goods and people.
There is a faulting trend in the Vigan plain that ends in Santa Catalina.
Soil type.
The land area of Vigan is generally flat. Slopes of 20 are found at Barangay V, Tamag, and Paoa. There are no forest reserves in the city in terms of potential and raw materials. Bamboo is the only forest product in Vigan.
There are five soil types in the city. First, the "Bantay Loam", located at the southern portion of Raois, has a land area of 36.67 hectares, and is good as pastureland. The second, "Umingan sandy", with a land area of 1191.57 hectares, is good for upland rice and vegetables. The third, "San Manuel clay loam", which is best for bananas, cotton and vegetables, has an area of 1244.57 hectares. The fourth, "Bantog clay"—considered as the most significant type for soil, and the best clay material for making pots, jars and all earthenware, has a land area of 31.65 hectares. The fifth, "beach sand", with a land area of 7.28 hectares, is generally found on the shores of all the beaches of Vigan, and is best for coconut plantation.
Barangays.
Vigan City is subdivided into 39 barrios or barangays.
Urban structures.
When Juan de Salcedo founded Vigan in 1572, he decided to pattern its urban plan with that of Intramuros, the walled city in Manila.
The urban planners of the Spanish government also followed a basic pattern that can be observed in most old towns in the country, whose establishment dates back to the Spanish colonial period. This pattern is detailed in the "Ley de las Indias," the Law of the Indies, and was put into force in the 18th century. Under the Law of the Indies streets were to follow a grid pattern, the center of which being a plaza or central park.
In Vigan, the central park is the Plaza Salcedo. Next to it are the administrative buildings—the Casa Real or provincial administrative office, and the "municipio" (municipal hall). A stone's throw away are the religious buildings—the seminary of the archdiocese, the Arzobispado (Archbishop's Palace), and the St. Paul's Cathedral. Beside these religious structures is the church-run school, the Saint Paul College, known in its early days as the "Colegio de Niñas." After the full transfer of the said school to the neighboring towns of Bantay and San Vicente, the building was handed over to the Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia and is currently being occupied by a retail store chain, with only a commemorative plaque at the building's entrance and the old "ROSARY COLLEGE" concrete sign at its rear reminding visitors of its past (the school's old logo, once found at the building's facade, has been removed sometime later).
A unique thing is the existence of another plaza, the "Plaza Burgos", which is immediately beside the St. Paul's Cathedral. After the first tier emanating from Plaza Salcedo are the houses of prominent residents that now make up the preserved heritage houses of Vigan. This urban plan remained relatively intact despite wars and natural calamities that have been endured by Vigan since its foundation.
The major changes to the original urban landscape were caused by fires. The Casa Real was replaced with a provincial capitol building during the American period when the original structure burned down. The archdiocese seminary was also destroyed by fire in 1968, and it lay in ruins until the late 1990s, when part of a shopping mall was built on the site.
The residential areas were not spared. Some of the houses on Crisologo Street were casualties of fire during the Japanese period; several houses on Quezon Avenue were destroyed by fire as well in 1952; while in 1971, some houses near Plaza Burgos burned down as well. The houses along Crisologo Street that were burned were later reconstructed faithfully following the architecture of the former structures.
Presently, there are other major areas of activities other than the two plazas, though these are still where most recreation and shopping are done. One may also go to the southern part of the city to reach the commercial area and public market. The current Public Market is a new one, as the old one (formerly the Imelda Socio-Commercial Complex), on the same site, was (also) destroyed by fire. A new mall (opened in December 2017) has risen from the site of the city's first Public Market, found in the center of the business district, after being the site of some business establishments and a tricycle-for-hire terminal.
Geologic base and mineral resources.
The sedimentary and metamorphic rocks that are present in the city are alluvium, fluviatile, lacuatine, pludal and beach deposits such as coral, stools, and beach rock. These are predominantly found along the coastal areas of Vigan. An important non-metallic mineral resource found in Vigan is the kind of clay that is used in making earthen jars locally called "burnay." Earthenware of different uses and sizes are made of this kind of clay. Known as "Bantog clay", the mineral is the basic material in making bricks. These bricks are the original materials in building the Hispanic houses of Vigan.
Physiography.
Vigan is situated in a Quaternary Age sedimentary plain called the Vigan-Bantay Plain which is part of the Ilocos coastal plain. The Vigan-Bantay Plain is bounded on the east by a moderately rugged Miocene sediments consisting of interbedded sandstones and shale to very rugged Meta-volcanics and Meta sediment topography; on the south is the Municipality of Santa where the north–south trending fault terminates; to the west is the South China Sea; while the northern boundary opens to the northern extension of the Ilocos coastal plain.
The central part of the plain is characterized by a dissected ridge of Plio-Pleistocene age that trends in a northeast–southwest direction. The ridge divides the Vigan-Bantay Plain into northern and southern plains.
The northern part of the plain is drained by minor rivers namely: Bantaoay, Santo Tomas, and Nauman rivers, while the Abra River is the main drainage network of the southern portion of the plain. The Abra River meanders into the hinterland but exhibits a braided pattern across the plain.
The drainage network of the eastern margin of Vigan-Bantay plain consist of deeply cut valleys whose pattern is strongly controlled by main faulting trends, particularly those in the northerly and easterly directions.
Vigan is being drained by the Vigan River and Bantay River, respectively, on the north and on the south by Mestizo River whose water discharge comes from the Bantaoay head waters.
The relief of the Vigan-Bantay plain is actively level to undulating with a slope ranging from 0% to 8%. Vigan in particular is generally in level with several hills in Barangays Tamag, Bulala, and Salindeg, sometimes reaching about 50 meters in elevation and has a slope ranging from 3% to 8%.
The eastern margin of the plain characterized by a steep to very steep slope, about 40% to 60%, the relief often reaches an elevation of more that 600 meters especially the northerly and easterly portion.
The dominant topographic feature in the eastern margin of the town is the Vigan Gap Hill where the continuously shifting Vigan River cuts its way. The Gap Hill is located approximately 10 kilometers east of Vigan.
Weather and climate.
The city of Vigan falls under (tropical savanna), which is characterized by two pronounced seasons – the dry season which starts from the month of November and ends in April; and the wet season which spans the months of May to October. The average annual rainfall is and the heaviest registered rainfall is .
The average temperature is 26 °C. The average warmest temperature is 30.9 °C and the average coldest temperature is 21.1 °C. An average of 7-10 typhoons visit Vigan annually. The average relative humidity is 81%.
Demographics.
In the , the population of Vigan was people, with a density of .
Transportation.
Metro transport.
Modes of transport within the city are purely land-based. Vehicles for public use include jeepneys, tricycles, vans-for-hire (or PUVs/public utility vehicles) and "calesa"s (horse-drawn vehicles). Buses, mini-buses and jeepneys provide transportation to and from Vigan. The metro Vigan transport system is mostly served by tricycles, which are color- and number-coded to identify their municipality of origin.
Land transportation.
Vigan City is well-served by a network of roads and a major highway that connects to Manila North Road, the highway leading to Manila and the rest of the country. Major bus companies such as Dominion Bus Lines, Viron Transit, Partas, and Aniceto/St. Joseph operate terminals in Vigan. GMW Florida Transport operates a terminal in Bantay, just outside Vigan. Bus companies such as Maria de Leon and Fariñas pass by Vigan on their way to Laoag. They operate direct and/or indirect bus services from Vigan City to points in Luzon, mostly to Manila, Baguio, and Laoag and vice versa. There are also independent bus operators plying the Laoag-Vigan-Carmen and Vigan-Abra routes, and have a joint terminal found at the New Vigan Public Market Annex.
Air transportation.
A secondary airport called Mindoro Airport (also known as Vigan Airport) is located at Barangay Mindoro. It has one asphalted runway, 900 meters long and 30 meters wide. The airport was once a dormant asset of the city for it does not generate revenue, with only chartered and private planes using it; it is currently being upgraded and is on its way toward commercialization.
Tourism.
Popular sites include Calle Crisologo located in the Mestizo district- the old quarters of the city. Syquia Mansion Museum, Plaza Salcedo's Dancing Fountain, Padre Burgos House, and the National Museum of the Philippines. Nearby is the Bantay Church Bell Tower. Of special note is the Hotel Luna, which houses an extensive collection of art, including La Mandolinera by Jose Luna. Centuries-old Sta. Maria Church, designated also as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


Bay of Husum

The Bay of Husum, Husum Bight or Husum Bay () is a bay on the North Sea coast of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Its German name is used for the marketing the holiday region around the town of Husum.
The bight is part of the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Location.
In the south of Husum Bay is the peninsula of Eiderstedt, in the north is the "Schobüll Geest". The geest is adjoined by the peninsula of Nordstrand, and linked by the Adler Express ferry via Hallig Hooge with the island of Sylt. In the east is the riparian landscape of the rivers Eider, Treene and Sorge. Well known settlements are Husum and its surrounding villages as far as the Südermarsch.
Fauna.
The Wadden Sea provides migrating birds with shelter and is home to various species of white fish, perch, pike, carp, asp, tench, catfish and zander. The land around the bay is grazed by sheep and goats, the natural lawn mowers on the dykes.


Nahal Alexander

Nahal Alexander () is a river in Israel that flows from the western side of the Samaria mountain belt in the West Bank to the Mediterranean Sea, north of Netanya. The length of the river is about 45 km. Several small streams flow into Nahal Alexander: Nablus, Te'enim, Ometz, Bahan, and Avihail. Most of the river is located in the Hefer Valley.
Flora and fauna.
Nahal Alexander is the habitat of soft-shell turtles that can reach a size of 1.20 meters and weigh up to 50 kilograms. In addition to giant turtles, there are coots and other waterfowl, nutrias and swamp cats. Indigenous fish include catfish, tilapia, river eels and mullet. On the southern bank there are shifting sand dunes and on the northern bank, a eucalyptus grove.
History.
Hurvat Samra, an ancient ruin on a hill overlooking Nahal Alexander, may have been a customs station for goods transported down the river to the port near the estuary.
Beit Yanai beach is located where the river flows into the Mediterranean. North of the beach are remnants of a quay built in 1938, during the British Mandate. It was used for clandestine Jewish immigration to Palestine when British authorities turned away ships of European Jews fleeing the Nazis.
In the winter of 1991, Nahal Alexander overflowed and most of its soft-shelled turtle population drifted into the Mediterranean. When the remaining eggs that failed to hatch, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority launched a project to collect the eggs, incubate them and return the turtles to the water.
In 2003, Nahal Alexander was part of a cleanup project that won first prize in the Riverprize environmental rehabilitation competition in Australia after being one of the most polluted lakes in Israel for.


Properties of the Holy See

The properties of the Holy See are regulated by the 1929 Lateran Treaty signed with the Kingdom of Italy. Although part of Italian territory, some of them enjoy immunities, similar to those of foreign embassies.
Outside Rome.
Non-extraterritorial property.
The Fundamental Accord, signed in 1993, grants property rights and tax exemptions to the Holy See over various Christian holy sites in Israel, but the agreement was never finalized because of diplomatic problems between the Vatican and Israeli governments.


Samaria (ancient city)

Samaria (, "Shomron"; , "Samareia"; , "as-Samira") was an ancient capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel in the 9th and 8th centuries BC. The ruins of the city are located in the Samaria mountains, almost to the northwest of Nablus.
History.
Israelite Shomron (lit. "watch-tower"; also written "Shomeron") was located in the heart of the mountains of Samaria, a few miles northwest of Shechem. The ruins of the Israelite town, as well the ruins of towns built at this same location later in history, are all adjacent or within the modern Palestinian village of Sebastia. The earliest reference to a settlement at this location may be the town of Shamir, the home of the judge Tola in the 12th century BC ().
The "hill of Shomron" is an oblong hill, with steep but not inaccessible sides, and a long flat top. According to the Bible, Omri, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel (reigned c. 870s BC), purchased this hill from Shemer its owner for two talents of silver, and built on its broad summit the city to which he gave the name of "Shomron", i.e., Samaria, as the new capital of his kingdom instead of Tirzah (). As such it possessed many advantages. Omri resided here during the last six years of his reign.
Omri is thought to have granted the Arameans the right to "make streets in Samaria" as a sign of submission (). This probably meant permission was granted to the Aramean merchants to carry on their trade in the city. This would imply the existence of a considerable Aramean population.
It was the only great city of Israel created by the sovereign. All the others had been already consecrated by patriarchal tradition or previous possession. But Samaria was the choice of Omri alone. He, indeed, gave to the city which he had built the name of its former owner, but its especial connection with himself as its founder is proved by the designation which it seems Samaria bears in Assyrian inscriptions, "Beth-Khumri" ("the house or palace of Omri"). (Stanley)
According to Biblical tradition, Samaria was frequently besieged. In the days of Ahab, Benhadad II came up against it with thirty-two vassal kings, but was defeated with a great slaughter (). A second time, next year, he assailed it; but was again utterly routed, and was compelled to surrender to Ahab (), whose army, as compared with that of Ben Hadad, was no more than "two little flocks of kids" ().
The Bible teaches that in the days of Jehoram, Ben Hadad again laid siege to Samaria. But just when success seemed to be within their reach, they suddenly broke off the siege, alarmed by a mysterious noise of chariots and horses and a great army, and fled, leaving their camp with all its contents behind them. The famished inhabitants of the city were soon relieved from the abundance of the spoil of the Syrian camp; and it came to pass, according to the word of Elisha, that "a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gates of Samaria" ().
According to Josephus, the ancient name of the site "Shomron" (Samaria) was changed to "Sebaste" by King Herod the Great, in honor of Augustus Caesar.
Assyrian invasion.
During the reign of the last king of the northern kingdom, Hoshea (), the Assyrians invaded in 722/721 BC. (initially under Shalmaneser V and finally under Sargon II) when they established complete control over the capital city and the remainder of the northern kingdom. The fragment of a stela with an Assyrian inscription attributed to Sargon II was found on the eastern slope of the acropolis testifying to their presence. In addition, according to inscriptions from Sargon's palace at Khorsabad, the inhabitants of Samaria were deported to Assyria.
Also,
The remains of a wall relief in Room 5 of Sargon's palace is thought to depict Samaria and its defeated defenders. New inhabitants were brought in (from Kutha and the Syro-Mesopotamian area, ) and they formed a new Samaritan population, also known as Cuthim. The city together with the neighboring highland area became known as Samerina and was ruled by an Assyrian governor. There are only meager remains from the succeeding Babylonian period and it was only in the Persian period, in the mid 5th century, that the city reemerged in importance. The tensions between the ruling family of Sanballat and Jerusalem under the governorship of Nehemiah are documented in the Bible (, ). Samaria became a Hellenistic town in 332 BC and thousands of Macedonian soldiers were settled there following a revolt by the Samaritans. Three 13 m diameter round towers dating to that period have been excavated (the first two by Harvard who attribute them to the Israelite period) and a later, massive, fortification wall with square towers. These fortifications were breached during the destruction of the city by John Hyrcanus in 108. Traces of the destruction wrought by Hyrcanus were found by the excavators, but the city was apparently resettled under Alexander Yannai. In 63 BC Samaria was annexed to the Roman province of Syria.
Sebaste.
In 30 BC the emperor Augustus awarded the city to Herod the Great who renamed it Sebaste (), in honor of Augustus ("Sebaste" is the feminine form of Gr. Sebastos = Augustus). The outstanding remains from this period are; the Augusteum, consisting of a temple and a large forecourt built over the Omride palace at the summit of the acropolis; a city gate and an east–west colonnaded street; a theater on the north-east slope of the acropolis; a Temple to Kore on a terrace north of the acropolis, and a stadium to the north-east in the valley below. East of the acropolis, and in an area that today links the ancient city with the modern village of Sebastia, lies the forum flanked on the west by a partially excavated basilica. Water for the Roman city Sebaste was provided by an underground aqueduct that led into the area of the forum from springs in the east. The city was encompassed by a city wall 2½ miles (4 km) long, with imposing towers that linked the gateways in the west and north. A number of mausoleums with ornate sarcophagi were excavated in the area of the modern village and adjoining fields.
New Testament.
In we have the record of Jesus traveling through Samaria, and His well known conversation there with a Samaritan woman, at the well.
In it is recorded that Philip the Evangelist went down to the city of Samaria and preached the Christian gospel and healed the sick there. Simon the Magician, a noted sorcerer, was among those converted.
Roman reconstruction and later.
The city was rebuilt without any major changes in the 2nd century AD by Septimius Severus when the city was established as a colony.
Samaria has been associated with John the Baptist, whose body was believed to be buried there.
In about August 362 AD, in continuation of his policy against Christianity, Roman emperor Julian, more commonly known as Julian the Apostate and who was based in Antioch, in the course of the Persian expedition, ordered the destruction of the tomb of John the Baptist and the cremation of his body; the event was recorded by historian and theologian Tyrannius Rufinus. A small basilica church, first founded in the 5th century, was excavated on the southern slope of the acropolis. The church was believed to be the burial place of the head of John the Baptist. A monastery was added to it at a later date.
In the 12th century AD, a Latin (i.e. Western or Catholic) cathedral also dedicated to John the Baptist was built east of the Roman forum and combined elements of the Roman period city wall. It later became the Sebaste village mosque, the Nabi Yahya Mosque ("mosque of the Prophet John"), preserving the old Christian tradition.
Modern era.
In 1867, visitors found the village to have a population of 400, 'almost all Moslems'.
In late 1976, the Israeli settlers movement, Gush Emunim, attempted to re-establish a settlement at the Ottoman train station. The Israeli government did not approve and the group that was removed from the site would later found the settlement of Elon Moreh adjacent to Nablus/Shechem.
Archaeology.
The site was first excavated by the Harvard Expedition, initially directed by Gottlieb Schumacher in 1908 and then by George Andrew Reisner in 1909 and 1910; with the assistance of architect C.S. Fisher and D.G. Lyon.
The second expedition was known as the Joint Expedition, a consortium of 5 institutions directed by John Winter Crowfoot between 1931 and 1935; with the assistance of Kathleen Mary Kenyon, Eliezer Sukenik and G.M. Crowfoot. The leading institutions were the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, the Palestine Exploration Fund, and the Hebrew University. In the 1960s small scale excavations directed by Fawzi Zayadine were carried out on behalf of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan.


Laem Son National Park

Laem Son National Park is located in Ranong and Phangnga provinces, Thailand. It is situated south of Ranong on the country's west coast, with of Andaman Sea coastline, making it Thailand's longest protected shore. The marine national park is named after the pines along the cape's shore. It was established in 1983, and is in size.
The NP is a coastal area with beaches, coral reefs, mangrove swamps, and a rainforest jungle. From the beach at Hat Bang Ben, some of the 20 offshore islands are visible, such as Ko Kam Yai, Ko Kam Noi, Mu Ko Yipun, Ko Khang Khao, and Ko Phayam, while Ko Kam Tok (alternate Ko Ao Khao Khwai) and Ko Kam Yai are not visible from this beach. The islands of Piak Nam Yai and Thao are noted for stone-tool usage by long-tailed macaques. In 2002, the Laemson National Park-Kapoe Estuary-Kra Buri River Estuary area became a designated Ramsar site. Subsequent to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the park headquarters were flattened, and Ao Khao Khwai (Bull Horn Bay) was split into two small islands. A consortium of institutional partners are facilitating a mangrove restoration project at Laem Son.


Vila Velha State Park

Vila Velha State Park () is a state park in Paraná State, Brazil. It covers .


Makalali Conservancy

Makalali Conservancy, also known as the Greater Makalali Private Game Reserve, is situated west of Phalaborwa, and north of Hoedspruit, in the Limpopo province, South Africa, and has an area of about 24,500 Ha. Makalali means ‘place of rest’ in the Shangaan language.


Barn Hill Meadows

Barn Hill Meadows is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is located close to the town of Howden. The site, which was designated a SSSI in 1987, lies on the flood plain of the Old Derwent river. The site is important for its herb-rich, unimproved, neutral grassland. Several of the fields have been traditionally managed for hay and some retain remnant ridge and furrow features.
The dominant grasses are red fescue and sweet vernal-grass. There is also an abundance of great burnet, pepper saxifrage and meadow cranes bill.


Ethel Pedley

Ethel Charlotte Pedley (19 June 1859 – 6 August 1898) was an English-Australian author and musician.
Early life.
Ethel Charlotte Pedley was born on 19 June 1859 at Acton, near London. She was the daughter of Frederick Pedley and his wife Eliza, née Dolby. Pedley began piano lessons aged 5. Pedley migrated to Australia with her family in the 1870s but returned to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with her uncle Prosper Sainton, professor of violin, and won a medal. She was also trained by her aunt, the famous contralto Charlotte Sainton-Dolby, at her Vocal Academy.
Career.
Musician and music teacher.
Pedley returned to Sydney in 1882, and began teaching singing and the violin. In 1896 Emmeline Woolley and Pedley visited London and persuaded the Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music to extend their examinations to the Australian colonies. Pedley was appointed the solo representative of the Royal Academy of Music for New South Wales. The first examiner visited in 1897.
Author.
Pedley's only published book is "Dot and the Kangaroo", which featured a little girl named Dot who becomes lost in the Australian outback, and is helped to find her way back home by a friendly kangaroo. The illustrations were drawn by Frank P. Mahony.
Pedley was a believer in the conservation of the Australian flora and fauna, and usually wrote from this perspective, singling out 'man' as disconnected from nature and the rest of the animals. It is thought her writing was inspired by her visits to the property owned by her brother Arthur, near Walgett.
Ethel's preface to "Dot and the Kangaroo" is as follows:
<poem style="font-style:italic">
</poem>
Illness and death.
Stricken with cancer, Pedley died on 6 August 1898 at the Darlinghurst home of her companion Emmeline Woolley at the age of 39. Her only novel, "Dot and the Kangaroo" would be published posthumously the following year. Pedley was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley Cemetery. Following her death, her brother established the Ethel Pedley memorial travelling scholarship for music students.


Kamchatka Peninsula

The Kamchatka Peninsula (, "Poluostrov Kamchatka", ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula runs the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench.
The Kamchatka Peninsula, the Commander Islands, and Karaginsky Island constitute the Kamchatka Krai of the Russian Federation. The vast majority of the 322,079 inhabitants are ethnic Russians, although about 13,000 are Koryaks (2014). More than half of the population lives in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (179,526 in 2010) and nearby Yelizovo (38,980). The Kamchatka peninsula contains the volcanoes of Kamchatka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Geography.
Politically, the peninsula forms part of Kamchatka Krai. The southern tip is called Cape Lopatka. (Lopatka is Russian for spade.) The circular bay to the north of this on the Pacific side is Avacha Bay, home to the capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Northward up the Pacific side, the four peninsulas are called Shipunsky Point, Kronotsky Point, Kamchatsky Point, and Ozernoy Point. North of Ozernoy Point is the large Karaginsky Bay, which features Karaginsky Island. Northeast of this (off the displayed map) lies Korfa Bay with the town of Tilichiki. On the opposite side is the Shelikhov Gulf.
The Kamchatka or Central (Sredinny) Range forms the spine of the peninsula. Along the southeast coast runs the Eastern Range "(Vostochny)". Between these lies the central valley. The Kamchatka River rises northwest of Avacha and flows north down the central valley, turning east near Klyuchi to enter the Pacific south of Kamchatsky Point at Ust-Kamchatsk. In the nineteenth century, a trail led west from near Klychi over the mountains to the Tegil river and town, which was the main trading post on the west coast. North of Tegil is Koryak Okrug. South of the Tegil is the Icha River. Just south of the headwaters of the Kamchatka, the Bistraya River curves southwest to enter the Sea of Okhotsk at Bolsheretsk, which once served as a port connecting the peninsula to Okhotsk. South of the Bistraya flows the Golygina River.
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and the settlements in the central part of the peninsula are connected by highway leading to Ust-Kamchatsk. The road is asphalt in its southern part and near habitations, but changes to gravel about halfway north. Another highway connects the local capital with Bolsheretsk. Bus service is available on both roads. Most other roads are gravel-covered or dirt roads, requiring off-road-capable vehicles. There is semi-regular passenger transportation with aircraft.
The obvious circular area in the central valley is the Klyuchevskaya Sopka, an isolated volcanic group southeast of the curve of the Kamchatka River. West of Kronotsky Point is the Kronotsky Biosphere Reserve with the Valley of Geysers. At the southern tip is the Southern Kamchatka Wildlife Refuge with Kurile Lake. There are several other protected areas on the peninsula.
Climate.
Kamchatka receives up to of precipitation per year. This is much higher than the rest of Eastern Russia, and is due to prevailing westerly winds blowing over the Sea of Japan and picking up moisture that rises as it hits the higher topography of the peninsula, and condenses into rain. The summers are moderately cool, and the winters are rather stormy, but the storms rarely produce lightning.
Although Kamchatka lies at similar latitudes to Scotland, cold arctic winds from Siberia combined with the cold Oyashio sea current keep the peninsula covered in snow from October to late May. Under the Köppen climate classification, Kamchatka generally has a subarctic climate ("Dfc"), but higher and more northerly areas have a polar climate ("ET"). Kamchatka is much wetter and milder than eastern Siberia. It is essentially transitional from the hypercontinental climate of Siberia and northeast China to the rain-drenched subpolar oceanic climate of the Aleutian Islands.
There is considerable variation, however, between the rain-drenched and heavily glaciated east coast and the drier and more continental interior valley. In the heavily glaciated Kronotsky Peninsula, where maritime influences are most pronounced, annual precipitation can reach as high as , whilst the southeast coast south of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky generally receives around of rainfall equivalent per year. Considerable local variations exist: southern parts of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky metropolitan area can receive as much as more than the northern part of the city. Temperatures here are very mild, with summer maxima around and winter lows around , whilst diurnal temperature ranges seldom exceed due to persistent fog on exposed parts of the coast. South of 57˚N there is no permafrost due to the relatively mild winters and heavy snow cover, whilst northward discontinuous permafrost prevails. The west coastal plain has colder and drier climate with precipitation ranging from in the south to as little as in the north, where winter temperatures become considerably colder at around .
The interior valley of the Kamchatka River, represented by Klyuchi, has much lower precipitation (at around ) and significantly more continental temperatures, reaching on a typical summer day and during extreme cold winter spells falling as low as . Sporadic permafrost prevails over the lower part of this valley, but it becomes more widespread at higher altitudes and glaciers, and continuous permafrost prevails north of 55˚N.
The summer months, when maximum temperatures range from , are popular with tourists, but a growing trend in winter sports keeps tourism pulsing year-round. The volcanoes and glaciers play a role in forming Kamchatka's climate, and hot springs have kept alive dozens of species decimated during the last ice age.
Geology, earthquakes and volcanoes.
The Kamchatka River and the surrounding central side valley are flanked by large volcanic belts containing around 160 volcanoes, 29 of them still active. The peninsula has a high density of volcanoes and associated volcanic phenomena, with 19 active volcanoes included in the six UNESCO World Heritage List sites in the Volcanoes of Kamchatka group, most of them on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the most volcanic area of the Eurasian continent, with many active cones. The Kamchatka Peninsula is also known as the "land of fire and ice".
The highest volcano is Klyuchevskaya Sopka (), the largest active volcano in the Northern Hemisphere. Many have highly symmetrical cones and Kronotsky is viewed by volcanologists Robert and Barbara Decker as a prime candidate for the world's most beautiful volcano. Somewhat more accessible are the three volcanoes visible from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky: Koryaksky, Avachinsky, and Kozelsky. In the center of Kamchatka is the Valley of Geysers, which was partly destroyed by a massive mudslide in June 2007.
These volcanic features are the site of occurrence of certain extremophile micro-organisms that can survive in extremely hot environments.
Owing to the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench, deep-focus seismic events and tsunamis occur fairly commonly. A pair of megathrust earthquakes occurred off the coast on October 16, 1737, and on November 4, 1952, with magnitudes of ≈9.3 and 8.2 respectively. A chain of more shallow earthquakes were recorded as recently as April 2006. A significant 7.7 magnitude earthquake with a shallow depth of occurred in the Pacific Ocean, ESE of Nikolskoye, on July 18, 2017.
History and exploration.
When the Russian explorer Ivan Moskvitin reached the Sea of Okhotsk in 1639, further exploration was impeded by the lack of skills and equipment to build seagoing ships and by the harsh land to the northeast inhabited by the warlike Koryak people. Consequently, Russians entered Kamchatka from the north. In 1651, after having assisted in the foundation of the Anadyrsk "ostrog", the explorer Mikhail Stadukhin went south and followed the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk from Penzhina Bay to Okhotsk. From about 1667 there were reports of a Kamchatka River to the south. Some time before 1700 a group of Russians were stranded and died on Kamchatka.
In 1695 explorer Vladimir Atlasov became commander of Anadyrsk. In 1696 he sent the Cossack Luka Morozko south. Morozko got as far as the Tigil River and returned with reports and some mysterious writings, probably Japanese. In 1697–1699 Atlasov explored nearly the whole of the peninsula. He built an "ostrog" at Verkhny-Kamchatsk, rescued or captured a Japanese castaway, and went to Moscow to report. In 1699 the Russians at Verkhny-Kamchatsk were killed on their way back to Anadyrsk by the Koryaks. In 1700 a punitive expedition destroyed a Koryak village and founded Nizhne-Kamchatsk on the lower river. Bolskeretsk was founded in 1703. From about 1705 there was a breakdown of order. There were numerous mutinies and native wars all over the peninsula and north to the Koryak country of the Penzhina River and Olyutorsky Gulf. Several people were sent out to restore order, including Atlasov, who was murdered in 1711. Vasily Merlin restored some degree of order between 1733 and 1739. There was no significant resistance after 1756. A major smallpox epidemic that hit in 1768–1769 quickly decimated the native population; the roughly 2,500 Itelmens present in 1773 were reduced to 1,900 in 1820, from an original population of 12,000–25,000. Those who survived adopted Russian customs, and there was a great deal of intermarriage, such that "Kamchadal" (the original Russian name for the Itelmens) came to mean any Russian or part-Russian born on the peninsula.
In 1713 Peter the Great sent shipbuilders to Okhotsk. A fifty-four-foot boat was built and sailed to the Tegil River in June 1716. This one-week journey, later redirected to Okhotsk-Bolseretsk, became the standard route to Kamchatka. In 1720 Ivan Yevreinov mapped Kamchatka and the Kurils. The Danish-born explorer Vitus Bering left Nezhe-Kamchatsk for his first voyage in 1728 and, as part of his second voyage, founded Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in 1740.
Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition (ca 1733–1743), in the service of the Russian Navy, began the final "opening" of Kamchatka, helped by the fact that the government began to use the area to exile people, famously the Hungarian nobleman and explorer the Count de Benyovszky in 1770. In 1755 Stepan Krasheninnikov published the first detailed description of the peninsula, "An Account of the Land of Kamchatka". The Russian government encouraged the commercial activities of the Russian-American Company by granting land to newcomers on the peninsula. By 1812 the indigenous population had fallen to less than 3,200 while the Russian population had risen to 2,500.
In 1854 the French and British, who were battling Russian forces in the course of the Crimean War, attacked Petropavlovsk. During the Siege of Petropavlovsk, 988 men with a mere 68 guns managed to defend the outpost against 6 ships with 206 guns and 2,540 French and British soldiers. Despite the successful defense, the Russians abandoned Petropavlovsk as a strategic liability after the French and British forces withdrew. The next year, when a second enemy force came to attack the port, they found it deserted. Frustrated, the ships bombarded the city and withdrew.
On 24 May 1861, the ship "Polar Star" (475 tons), of New Bedford, wrecked on the west coast of Kamchatka during a dense fog and gale. The chief officer and a boat's crew perished while attempting to reach the shore. The rest of the crew were saved by the barque "Alice", of Cold Spring, and the ship "Oliver Crocker", also from New Bedford.
On 21 May 1865, the American Civil War came to the area: the Confederate States Navy steamer "Shenandoah" sailed past the southern end of the Kamchatka Peninsula on its way to hunt United States whaling ships in the Sea of Okhotsk. As a commerce raider, the CSS "Shenandoah" aimed to destroy Union merchant shipping and thus draw off United States Navy ships in pursuit, thereby loosening the US Navy blockade of Confederate coasts. The ship spent almost three weeks in the Sea, destroying only one ship due to the dangerous ice, before moving on to the North Pacific, where it virtually captured or bonded 24 whalers, sinking most of them.
The next fifty years were lean for Kamchatka. The naval port moved to Ust-Amur, and in 1867 Russia sold Alaska to the United States, making Petropavlovsk obsolete as a transit point for traders and explorers on their way to the American territories. In 1860, a "Primorsky" (Maritime) "Region" was established and Kamchatka was placed under its jurisdiction. In 1875 Russia ceded the Kuril Islands to Japan in return for Russian sovereignty over Sakhalin island. The Russian population of Kamchatka stayed at around 2,500 until the turn of the century, while the native population increased to 5,000. During the 19th century, scientific exploration of the peninsula continued. Karl von Ditmar made an important journey to the peninsula in 1851–1854.
World War II (1939–1945) hardly affected Kamchatka except for its role as a launch site for the invasion of the Kurils in August 1945. After the war, the Soviet authorities declared Kamchatka a military zone: it remained closed to Soviet citizens until 1989 and to foreigners until 1990.
Fauna and flora.
Kamchatka boasts abundant flora. The variable climate promotes different flora zones where tundra and muskeg are dominant, succeeded by grasses, flowering shrubs, and forests of pine, birch, alder and willow. The wide variety of plant forms spread throughout the Peninsula promotes a similar diversity in animal species that feed off the flora. Although Kamchatka is mostly tundra, deciduous and coniferous trees are abundant, and forests can be found throughout the peninsula.
Kamchatka boasts diverse and abundant wildlife. This is due to many factors, including a wide range of climates; diverse topography and geography; many free-flowing rivers; proximity to the highly productive waters of the northwestern Pacific Ocean, the Bering, and the Okhotsk Seas; low human population density; and minimal development. The peninsula also boasts the southernmost expanse of Arctic tundra in the world. However, commercial exploitation of marine resources and a history of fur trapping has taken its toll on several species.
Kamchatka is famous for the abundance and size of its brown bears. In the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, there are estimated to be three to four bears per 100 square kilometres. Other fauna of note include carnivores such as tundra wolf ("Canis lupus albus"), Arctic fox ("Vulpes lagopus") Anadyr fox ("Vulpes vulpes beringiana"), East Siberian lynx ("Lynx lynx wrangeli"), wolverine ("Gulo gulo"), sable ("Martes zibellina"), Eurasian otter ("Lutra lutra"), East Siberian stoat ("Mustela ermine kaneii") and Siberian least weasel ("Mustela nivalis pygmaea"). The peninsula hosts habitat for several large ungulates including the Kamchatka snow sheep, reindeer ("Rangifer tarandus"), and Chukotka moose ("Alces alces buturlini") one of the largest moose in the world and the largest in Eurasia; and rodents/leporids, including mountain hare ("Lepus timidus"), marmot, and several species of lemming and squirrel. The peninsula is the breeding ground for Steller's sea eagle, one of the largest eagle species, along with the golden eagle and gyr falcon.
Kamchatka most likely contains the world's greatest diversity of salmonid fish, including all six species of anadromous Pacific salmon (chinook, chum, coho, seema, pink, and sockeye). Due to its uniquely suitable environment, biologists estimate that a fifth of all Pacific salmon originates in Kamchatka. Kuril Lake is recognized as the biggest spawning-ground for sockeye in Eurasia. In response to pressure from poaching and to worldwide decreases in salmon stocks, some along nine of the more productive salmon rivers are in the process of being set aside as a nature preserve. Stickleback species, particularly "Gasterosteus aculeatus" and "Pungitius pungitius", also occur in many coastal drainages, and are likely present in freshwater as well.
Cetaceans that frequent the highly productive waters of the northwestern Pacific and the Okhotsk Sea include: orcas, Dall's and harbour porpoises, humpback whales, sperm whales and fin whales. Less frequently, grey whales (from the eastern population), the critically endangered North Pacific right whale and bowhead whale, beaked whales and minke whales are encountered. Blue whale are known to feed off of the southeastern shelf in summer. Among pinnipeds, Steller's sea lions, northern fur seals, spotted seals and harbor seals are abundant along much of the peninsula. Further north, walruses and bearded seals can be encountered on the Pacific side, and ribbon seals reproduce on the ice of Karaginsky Bay. Sea otters are concentrated primarily on the southern end of the peninsula.
Seabirds include Murrelets, northern fulmars, thick and thin-billed murres, kittiwakes, tufted and horned puffins, red-faced, pelagic and other cormorants, and many other species. Typical of the northern seas, the marine fauna is likewise rich. Of commercial importance are Kamchatka crab (king crab), scallop, squid, pollock, cod, herring, halibut and several species of flatfish.
References.
Notes
Further reading


Duomo of San Giorgio, Modica

The Duomo of San Giorgio (i.e. "Dome of St. George") is a Baroque church located in Modica, Province of Ragusa, Sicily, Italy. It is the Mother Church of the city and it is included in the World Heritage List by UNESCO.
The building is the final result of the eighteenth century reconstruction, which took place following the disastrous earthquakes that struck Modica in 1542, in 1613 and in 1693. The reconstruction started in 1702, and ended in 1738. Further works were made until the affixing of the iron cross on the spire in 1842, which marked the definitive appearance of the church.
According to the art historian Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco the Church should be included among "the seven wonders of the baroque world".


Gunung Ambang Nature Reserve

Gunung Ambang Nature Reserve is a preserved area in the north of the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. It is in a mountainous, little-explored region and contains a large number of indigenous plants and animals.
Geography.
The Gunung Ambang Nature Reserve has an area of about 8,000 hectares and is situated close to the equator in the mountainous area to the east of Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park in the northern peninsula of Sulawesi. It ranges in altitude from to the summit of Mount Moyayat at andconsists mostly of valleys and steep-sided mountains. The lower parts are covered by evergreen rainforest with few palms and a canopy of up to with some emergent trees. In the higher parts the trees are not so tall and there is a dense understorey of palms and other vegetation. There are a number of marshes and small lakes and, particularly near the edge of the park, trees have been felled and there are clearings and the growth of secondary forest.
The reserve is best accessed from the village of Singsingon, which is an hour's drive from Kotamobagu. Visitors need a permit to visit the park and these can be obtained from the National Park Office in Kotamobagu.
Flora and fauna.
Trees in the lowland rainforest area of the reserve include "Calophyllum", "Eugenia", "Knema", "Litsea", "Sterculia insularis", "Acalypha caturus" and "Cryptocarya celebicum" with the largest trees being "Pometia pinnata", "Endospermum peltatum" and "Canarium asperum". On higher slopes "Eugenia" sp., "Lithocarpus celebicus", "Lithocarpus bancanus", "Calophyllum treubii", "Calophyllum soulattri", "Derris dalbergoides" and "Vaccinium" sp. predominated with an understorey which included many palms.
The Gunung Ambang Nature Reserve is of particular interest to bird watchers and many species of bird endemic to Sulawesi can be seen here. One of the rarest is the cinnabar hawk owl, first described in 1999. Other nocturnal birds include the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi scops owl and the great eared nightjar.
A number of species of flycatcher can be seen in the canopy, often in mixed-species flocks, a rarity being the Matinan blue flycatcher. More common species include the citrine canary-flycatcher, the snowy-browed flycatcher, the little pied flycatcher and the turquoise flycatcher. Also present in these flocks among the trees are the sulphur-vented whistler, the Sulawesi babbler, the streak-headed white-eye, the crimson-crowned flowerpecker, the cerulean cuckooshrike and the Sulawesi leaf warbler. Also often present nearby are the scarlet myzomela and the dark-eared myza. The call of "Malia grata" can often be heard, and the Sulawesi drongo, the yellow-billed malkoha and the Sulawesi fantail are also present. The purple-bearded bee-eater is an elusive denizen of woodland verges and open areas and the olive-flanked whistler is a rare upland species. Other birds that occur in the forest under-storey and on the ground include the mountain tailorbird, the chestnut-backed bush warbler and the scaly-breasted kingfisher.
Raptors are chiefly found at the edge of the forest and in areas under cultivation. In the upland areas of the nature reserve are pigeons, lorikeets, parrots, including the golden-mantled racket-tail, and hornbills, although these large-billed birds are uncommon.
There are a number of mammals in the reserve although these face hunting pressure, with traps being set, mostly for small mammals. The Celebes crested macaque is found in the reserve and the spectral tarsier is also present but both of these are very wary of humans. Rare mammals include the anoa, the Celebes warty pig, the Sulawesi bear cuscus and the Sulawesi dwarf cuscus, and there are plenty of forest rats which emerge into the open at night.


Vlatades Monastery

Vlatades Monastery or Vlatadon Monastery () is a monastery in Ano Poli, Thessaloniki, Greece. Built in the 14th century during the late era of the Byzantine Empire, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the 15 in the city.


Port Moller Airport

Port Moller Airport is a publicly owned, private-use airport located northeast of the central business district of Cold Bay, in the Aleutians East Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is owned by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management. It was previously known as Port Moller Air Force Station.
Overview.
Scheduled airline service to Cold Bay Airport is provided by Peninsula Airways (PenAir). As per Federal Aviation Administration records, this airport had 487 commercial passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, an increase of 14% from the 427 enplanements in 2007.
Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, this airport is assigned 1AK3 by the FAA and PML by the IATA.
Facilities.
The airport covers an area of at an elevation of 20 feet (6 m) above mean sea level. It has one runway designated 1/19 with a gravel surface measuring 3,500 by 100 feet (1,067 x 30 m).
History.
The airport was built in 1958 to support Port Moller Air Force Station, a Cold War United States Air Force Distant Early Warning Line radar station. The station was operated by Detachment 4, 714th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron based at Cold Bay Air Force Station, near Cold Bay, Alaska. The radar station was deactivated in September 1969, ending military use of the airport. The Air Force remediated the site around 2000, removing all abandoned military structures and returning the site to a natural condition.


National Association of Service and Conservation Corps

The National Association of Service and Conservation Corps (NASCC), now known as The Corps Network, is an association of Service and Conservation Corps in the United States.
It took shape in 1985, when the nation's first 24 Corps directors banded together to secure an advocate at the Federal level and a central clearinghouse of information on how to start and run "best practice"-based corps. Early support from the Ford, Hewlett and Mott Foundations was critical to launching the Association. The Corps Network has grown to encompass 143 Corps programs, both urban and rural, and has assisted in the birth of virtually all of these Corps. The Corps Network is governed by a board of directors composed of Corps program directors and nationally known individuals who bring expertise in national service, evaluation, youth development, education, conservation and employment and training.
Currently operating in 44 states and Washington, D.C., Corps annually enroll more than 29,000 young men and women who annually mobilize approximately 227,000 community volunteers who in conjunction with Corpsmembers generate 21.3 million hours of service every year.
Service and Conservation Corps are a direct descendant of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that built parks and other public facilities still in use today. Like the legendary CCC of the 1930s, today's Corps are a proven strategy for giving young men and women the chance to change their communities, their own lives and those of their families. Service and Conservation Corps provide a wealth of valuable conservation, infrastructure improvement and human service projects. Some Corps tutor and some fight forest fires. Others complete a wide range of projects on public lands. Still others improve the quality of life in low-income communities by renovating deteriorated housing, engaging in environmental restoration, creating parks and gardens and staffing after-school programs.


Diamantina, Minas Gerais

Diamantina () is a Brazilian municipality in the state of Minas Gerais. Its estimated population in 2020 was 47,825 in a total area of 3,870 km2.
"Arraial do Tijuco" (as Diamantina was first called) was built during the colonial era in the early 18th century. As its name suggests, Diamantina was a center of diamond mining in the 18th and 19th centuries. A well-preserved example of Brazilian Baroque architecture, Diamantina is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Other historical cities in Minas Gerais are Ouro Preto, São João del-Rei, Mariana, Tiradentes, Congonhas and Sabará.
Statistical micro-region.
Diamantina is a statistical micro-region that includes the following municipalities: Diamantina, Datas, Felício dos Santos, Gouveia, Presidente Kubitschek, São Gonçalo do Rio Preto, Senador Modestino Gonçalves, and Couto de Magalhães de Minas. The area of this region is 7,348 km2 and in 2006 the population was 80,063 inhabitants. The population density (2000) was 11.2 inhabitants/km2.
Location.
Diamantina is located 292 kilometers almost directly north of the state capital, Belo Horizonte, in a mountainous area. The elevation of the municipal seat is 1,114 meters. The Jequitinhonha River, one of Brazil's most important rivers, flows to the east of the municipal seat. Diamantina is linked to the state capital by federal highway BR-259, by way of Curvelo. Diamantina Airport has regular flights to Belo Horizonte.
The municipality contains the Biribiri State Park, created in 1998, which contains the historic village of Biribiri.
Neighboring municipalities are: Olhos d'Água and Bocaiúva (N); Carbonita, Senador Modestino Gonçalves, São Gonçalo do Rio Preto, and Couto de Magalhaes de Minas (E); Santo Antônio do Itambé, Datas, Serro and Monjolos (S); Augusto de Lima, Buenópolis, and Engenheiro Navarro (W).
Economic activities.
The main economic activities are tourism, services, small industry and agriculture. The GDP in 2005 was R$184 million, with 140 million coming from services, 23 million from industry, and 8 million from agriculture. In 2006 there were 1,248 rural producers on 73,000 hectares of land. Only 24 of the establishments had tractors. There were 14,000 head of cattle.
Health and education.
The social indicators rank Diamantina in the top tier of municipalities in the state.
The highest ranking municipality in Minas Gerais in 2000 was Poços de Caldas with 0.841, while the lowest was Setubinha with 0.568. Nationally the highest was São Caetano do Sul in São Paulo with 0.919, while the lowest was Setubinha. In more recent statistics (considering 5,507 municipalities) Manari in the state of Pernambuco has the lowest rating in the country—0,467—putting it in last place.
There were 2 hospitals and 31 health clinics in 2005. Educational needs were met by 30 primary schools and 9 middle schools.
There were 3 institutions of higher learning: Faculdade de Ciências Jurídicas de Diamantina - FCJ (a law school), Faculdade de Filosofia e Letras de Diamantina - FAFIDIA (humanities), and Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri - UFVJM (federal public).
Twin towns – sister cities.
Diamantina is twinned with:
Friendly cities.
Diamantina also cooperates with Třeboň in the Czech Republic.


Chobe National Park

Chobe National Park is Botswana's first national park, and also the most biologically diverse. Located in the north of the country, it is Botswana's third largest park, after Central Kalahari Game Reserve and Gemsbok National Park, and has one of the greatest concentrations of game in all of Africa.
This park is noted for having a population of lions which prey on elephants, mostly calves or juveniles, but also subadults.
History.
The original inhabitants of this area were the San bushmen (also known as the Basarwa people in Botswana). They were nomadic hunter-gatherers who were constantly moving from place to place to find food sources, namely fruits, water and wild animals. Nowadays one can find San paintings inside rocky hills of the park.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the region that would become Botswana was divided into different land tenure systems. At that time, a major part of the park's area was classified as crown land. The idea of a national park to protect the varied wildlife found here as well as promote tourism first appeared in 1931. The following year, around Chobe district were officially declared non-hunting area; this area was expanded to two years later.
In 1943, heavy tsetse infestations occurred throughout the region, delaying the creation of the national park. By 1953, the project received governmental attention again: were suggested to become a game reserve. Chobe Game Reserve was officially created in 1960, though smaller than initially desired. In 1967, the reserve was declared a national park.
At that time there were several industrial settlements in the region, especially at Serondela, where the timber industry proliferated. These settlements were gradually moved out of the park, and it was not until 1975 that the whole protected area was exempt from human activity. Nowadays traces of the prior timber industry are still visible at Serondela. Minor expansions of the park took place in 1980 and 1987.
Geography and ecosystems.
The park can be divided up to 4 areas, each corresponding to one distinct ecosystem:
Elephant concentration.
The park is widely known for its large elephant population, estimated to be around 50,000. Elephants living here are Kalahari elephants, the largest in herd size of all known elephant populations. They are characterized by rather brittle ivory and short tusks, perhaps due to calcium deficiency in the soils. Damage caused by the high numbers of elephants is rife in some areas. In fact, the concentration is so high throughout Chobe that culls have been considered, but are too controversial and have thus far been rejected by park management. In the dry season, these elephants sojourn in the Chobe River and Linyanti River areas. In the rainy season, they make a 200-kilometre migration to the south-eastern stretch of the park. Their distribution zone however outreaches the park and spreads to north-western Zimbabwe.
Roads.
Road conditions in Chobe National Park depend greatly on the season and rainfall; one needs a 4x4 vehicle to travel in the Park. Thick sand becomes a problem in the Chobe River Front during the dry months, particularly as the temperature rises and during the wet season the roads near the river become muddy.
Savuti.
Savuti roads, mainly the western Sandridge Road from Mababe Gate and the roads both north and south of the Savuti channel are typically thick sand and tricky to drive. When rain has fallen, driving along the marsh roads, as the wet black cotton soil becomes unnavigable, carries the risk of getting stuck.
Nogatsaa.
Nogatsaa roads are waterlogged during the wet months and very little of the road network can be driven at this time. During the dry months, game drives from one pan to the next are on roads with small, thick sandy patches. Once leaving the tar road from Kasane, people would have to drive through thick sand for the first , before reaching a sand road.


Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Landscape

The Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Landscape (MLW) is an ecologically sensitive landscape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo within the Maringa / Lopori basin.
Since 1973 a Japanese team has been researching the bonobo population near the village of Wamba, and the Luo Scientific Reserve was established in 1990.
However, research was discontinued after political disorder started in 1991 followed by civil war in 1997, resuming only in the mid-2000s.
Location.
The Maringa-Lopori-Wamba (MLW) forest Landscape covers in north-central Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The human population as of 2007 was estimated to be 586,732 inhabitants with a density of 8 inhabitants/km2.
There were 2-4 inhabitants/km2 in the proposed or existing protected areas and 31.8 inhabitants/km2 in the proposed Sylvo-Agro-Pastoral zone.
History.
The local populace in the MLW were yam and cassava farmers who engaged in trade with river fishermen and pygmy hunters.
In 1885 a force of the Manyema people, followers of Tippu Tip, the Swahili-Zanzibari slave trader, arrived at the head of the Lopori River from Stanley Falls.
They took hostages from nearby villages to ransom in return for ivory. By 1892 they had enrolled local people into their army and controlled the entire eastern half of the basin.
The Belgian administrators of the Congo Free State were concerned by this development, and, in 1889, enacted the Monopoly Act, which declared that all products in the area were to be under their jurisdiction alone.
The Free State also began a campaign to drive the slavers, traders and the Manyema from the region, the first stage of which was the establishment of a supply post at Basankusu, in May 1890.
The entire basin was under Free State control by 1898.
The Free State started to levy taxes, payable in ivory, but which soon switched to wild rubber.
By September 1892, the Free State was using its military forces to attack and occupy villages in the Lulonga and Maringa river valleys in order to expand its tax base.
The concession to farm rubber was granted to the Abir Congo Company, which established its headquarters at Basankusu, in 1893.
Its position at the confluence of the Maringa and Lopori, allowed ABIR to expand along these rivers and their tributaries, establishing new posts along the way.
The company established posts throughout the region, staffed by agents who were mainly paid on commission and used brutal methods to force the villagers to pay their rubber taxes.
The effort of rubber collection did not leave enough time for farming, and the villagers began to suffer from malnutrition and starvation. Fatal diseases, such as Smallpox and Sleeping Sickness, also spread in the region. To save time, harvesters resorted to cutting down the rubber plants to obtain their sap.
Reports of abuses led the Free State to conduct investigations into Abir's conduct, and, in 1905, to take back the concession.
Soon after, with no remaining plants, the rubber tax was abolished.
Threats.
The MLW Landscape is in one of the least developed and most remote parts of the Congo Basin.
The inhabitants are among the poorest in Africa, depending on natural resources to meet their basic needs.
Most of the people live by slash-and-burn agriculture, and rely on bushmeat such as porcupine, sitatunga, and forest hog for protein.
Cash crops include maize, cassava and peanuts.
The growing population is placing more stress on the environment, and there is risk of a revival of logging that could harm the ability of the land to sustain the people and could jeopardize biodiversity.
Local and international institutions headed by the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) have recently started developing a sustainable land use plan for the MLW. The plan aims to ensure that the economic and cultural needs of the inhabitants are met while conserving the environment.
The approach combines AWF's Heartland Conservation Process and the Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) Program Monitoring Plan.
A variety of tools are used including surveys, interviews with local people and satellite image interpretation.


Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute

The Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute ("TAWIRI") is a state-run body which organizes wildlife research in Tanzania. The Institute is under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.


Almondell and Calderwood Country Park

Almondell and Calderwood Country Park is a Country Park in Mid Calder and East Calder in West Lothian, Scotland and is a 4 star Visitor Attraction (Visitscotland). The Park is split into two main areas, Almondell Park which comprises the Almondell estate which originally belonged to the Erskine family of Broxburn and the Calderwood estate which once belonged to the Barons of Torphichen.
The Almondell Estate follows the line of the River Almond, with paths and trails crisscrossing the river over a variety of bridges. It is a popular location with walkers and families.
The Calderwood Estate is less developed with many paths and trails to explore. The two estates are separated by Mid Calder town centre but are linked together by a path following the line of the Murieston Water.
The Park is served with ample space for visitors’ cars, served by four main car parks. These are situated near Broxburn, Livingston, Mid Calder and East Calder. The North car park is closest to the Visitor Centre (EH52 5PE). Visitor Centre is housed in the former stable block of the Almondell Estate, vending drinks/snacks/gifts, aquarium. exhibition room and function room facilities, Countryside Ranger Service. There are many woodland and riverside walks, BBQ hire, toilet facilities and children's play area.
The Park also contains the Nasmyth Bridge, spanning over the Almond from the East Calder entrance. The bridge was originally constructed in 1810, and later completely rebuilt in 1997 following its collapse during the 1970's.


Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve

The Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve, also called Tai Po Kau Special Area, is a nature reserve in the Tai Po area of the New Territories in northern Hong Kong. The area comprises a dense, hilly woodland with countless species of trees and numerous streams and rivers. It is noted by the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society and others as one of the best locations for seeing forest birds in Hong Kong.


Border Environment Cooperation Commission

The Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) headquartered in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, is a binational organization created in 1994 by the Federal Governments of the United States of America and Mexico under a side-agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). BECC along with its sister-institution the North American Development Bank (NADB), established by the same agreement and headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, USA, are charged with helping to improve the environmental conditions of the Mexico–United States border region in order to advance the well-being of residents in both nations. The scope of their mandate and the specific functions of each institution are defined in the agreement between the two governments (the "Charter"), as amended in August 2004.
History.
The BECC (and the NADB) were established by the Border Environment Cooperation Agreement of November 1993 ("Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Mexican States Concerning the Establishment of a Border Environment Cooperation Commission and a North American Development Bank.")