Geographical articles from March 2009

Geographical archives from March 2009

Set in stone.(biodiversity)(Editorial)
March 1, 2009... As an ex-biologist, I'm well versed in the arguments for conserving the world's biodiversity (although, to be honest, the various ecological and economic arguments hold less sway with me than the simple fact that with each extinction, the world...

Geographical competition.(WHERE IN THE world?)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Identify this country using the following clues: About 40 per cent of its total land area is protected Its government relocated to a new capital city in 1970 English is the sole official language, but is...

UNESCO moves to protect intangible heritage.(WORLD watch)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] UNESCO has recognised the value of 'intangible heritage' to cultures around the globe by granting it the same status as World Heritage sites. Ninety examples of intangible heritage have been incorporated into a...

Concrete wall to protect rainforest.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Concrete wall to protect rainforest: A 650-metre-long concrete barrier is set to be built around a Rio de Janeiro favela, or slum, in the hope of protecting nearby rainforest and improving living conditions for the...

Plan to restore London's lost rivers.(WORLD watch)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Plan to restore London's lost rivers: The UK's Environment Agency has announced plans to restore 15 kilometres of Thames tributaries, including seven waterways that have been 'lost' under buildings and development. During the 20th century,...

UK to get new flood forecasting centre.(WORLD watch)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... UK to get new flood forecasting centre: A new 7.7million [pounds sterling] flood-forecasting centre is to be set up to support Britain's emergency services and warn the public about possible high water as part of the government's response to...

Towers cut down to size.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... A Chinese city is planning to lop the tops of some of its tallest buildings in an attempt to gain World Heritage status. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Hangzhou, a 2,000-year-old lakeside city located 180 kilometres south of Shanghai in...

Eight people died and 9,000 had to be evacuated from their homes in January when torrential rains caused widespread flooding in the north, west and central areas of Fiji.(FIJI)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Eight people died and 9,000 had to be evacuated from their homes in January when torrential rains caused widespread flooding in the north, west and central areas of Fiji. A state of emergency was declared on the main island of Viti Levu and a...

Scientists from the University of South Carolina have created a natural hazard death map of the USA.(USA)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Scientists from the University of South Carolina have created a natural hazard death map of the USA. It shows a county-level representation of the likelihood of dying from events such as floods or earthquakes. People in the south were most at...

More than 1,000 new species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia during the past decade, according to a WWF report.(ASIA)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... More than 1,000 new species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia during the past decade, according to a WWF report. The species--including the world's largest huntsman spider and the cyanide-producing dragon...

Nearly 400 people were forced to evacuate their homes after a three-metre-wide sinkhole opened up in the village of Xiamao in southern China.(CHINA)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Nearly 400 people were forced to evacuate their homes after a three-metre-wide sinkhole opened up in the village of Xiamao in southern China. The hole, which affected a total area of 5,000 square metres, resulted from construction pilings being...

Outgoing president George W Bush has designated nearly 520,000 square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean as conservation areas, making him the leader who has protected more of the world's oceans than any other.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Outgoing president George W Bush has designated nearly 520,000 square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean as conservation areas, making him the leader who has protected more of the world's oceans than any other. The protected areas include pristine...

Aboriginal people will be among the hardest hit by climate change.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Australia's indigenous population will suffer disproportionately from the impact of climate change, according to a new report published in the Medical Journal of Australia. The report's authors suggest that increased temperatures are...

Warming oceans are absorbing less carbon dioxide.(CLIMATE watch)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Warming oceans are absorbing less carbon dioxide: Scientists are concerned that the world's oceans may be absorbing less carbon dioxide as a result of rising temperatures. The world's oceans currently absorb around a quarter of all C[O.sub.2]...

Dutch plan to strengthen coastal dykes.(CLIMATE watch)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Dutch plan to strengthen coastal dykes: The Dutch government has announced a multi-million-pound plan to reinforce dykes and protect freshwater supplies from potential rises in sea level. As two thirds of the Netherlands lies below sea...

Food shortages could increase as temperatures rise.(CLIMATE watch)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Global warming could leave half of the world's population suffering food shortages if they aren't helped to adapt, according to a new report in the journal Science. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A group of US scientists combined direct...

The largest solar power station in China is due to be built in the Chadam Basin of Qinghai province in the country's west later this year.(CHINA)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... The largest solar power station in China is due to be built in the Chadam Basin of Qinghai province in the country's west later this year. The photovoltaic station will cost around one billion yuan (101million [pounds sterling]) to build and...

The British government will contribute 100 million [pounds sterling] to countries with tropical rainforests, such as Papua New Guinea and Brazil, in a bid to prevent further deforestation, protecting the world climate and supporting people whose livelihoods depend on the forests.(UK)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... The British government will contribute 100million [pounds sterling] to countries with tropical rainforests, such as Papua New Guinea and Brazil, in a bid to prevent further deforestation, protecting the world climate and supporting people whose...

Two Google searches use enough energy to boil water for a cup of tea, according to new research from a Harvard University professor.(Google Inc.)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Two Google searches use enough energy to boil water for a cup of tea, according to new research from a Harvard University professor. The search engine sends the more than 200 million search requests it receives daily to several competing...

Giant plasma television screens will be banned in Britain by a new EU regulation currently being finalised.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Giant plasma television screens will be banned in Britain by a new EU regulation currently being finalised. The law will set minimum standards for TVs in the hope of reducing domestic energy consumption. Plasma screens can consume as much as...

Snake Island.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Snake Island (also known as Serpents Island) is a small A limestone outcrop located in the northwestern Black Sea. In September last year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague began hearing a case...

Nidderdale: on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales is an AONB whose reservoirs and ruins reveal its uses for both practical and pleasurable purposes.(AREAS OF OUTSTANDING NATURAL BEAUTY)
March 1, 2009... BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. 'DON'T WORRY, IT'S JUST THE CAR letting us know how cold it is outside,' says assistant AONB officer Sarah Kettlewell. We don't really need the warning: we're driving along an ice-covered road and can clearly see patches of...

Engaging with the issues.(Conference news)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES is the Society's flagship public engagement series--a programme of thought-provoking public discussions attracting high-profile speakers and thinkers from academe, business, government, media...

Royal Geographical Society (with IBG): selection of events.(IN society)(Conference news)(Calendar)
March 1, 2009... MARCH 2009 3 MARCH, 7PM EXPEDITION AMAZONAS (London City Lecture) Join Mark Kalch as he recounts the Expedition Amazonas team's successful, 153-day, 6,800-kilometre human-powered descent of the Amazon River from the Andes to...

Event of the month.(travel conference )(Conference news)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... 25 MARCH, 7PM Discovering Brunei (Discovering places travel evening, London) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Join a panel of experts for an informal evening discovering Brunei, one of Asia's smallest and newest nations, as well as the...

Nail fetish: found in the Congo in 1865 by British troops fighting river pirates.
March 1, 2009... THIS NAIL FETISH (A TERM THAT brings up some interesting results when typed into Google) was taken from the Congo in 1865 and now lurks in the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in South Kensington, on the stairs up to...

That moment: the winner of the wildlife category is Eric Baldauf of London.(Essay)
March 1, 2009... Have you ever seen two rhinos having sex? It's painfully slow and soporific. It can take hours. And hours. And hours. It's the opposite of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am procreation style of monkeys. I suppose that's what got me into such a...

The four seasons.(Jasmund National Park)(Photograph)
March 1, 2009... Germany's smallest national park, located on country's largest-island--the Isle of Rugen in the Baltic Sea--encompasses one of the last remaining. stretches of ancient natural beech forest in Europe Virtually untouched since the 13th century,...

Saving the stones: to most people, conservation means preserving the world's biodiversity: its animals and plants. But understanding that the physical Earth--rock, soil, fossils, minerals and landforms--has its own values and threats is leading to increased efforts to preserve 'geodiversity' alongside biodiversity.
March 1, 2009... A MERE 17 YEARS AGO, FEW PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE biological sciences had ever heard of 'biodiversity'. The signing of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992 changed all that: it not only brought a new...

Polar Portraits.(polar exploration)(Cover story)(Photograph)
March 1, 2009... Polar exploration, surely among the most extreme of human endeavours, attracts a certain kind of person. Single-minded, driven, slightly unhinged--cliches all, but they go some way to describing the remarkable men and women featured in this...

Bridge over monsoon waters: Khasi villagers in the northeast Indian state of Meghalaya have long used an ingenious means of crossing the turbulent streams that separate their villages and plantations during the monsoon season. By exploiting the natural growth characteristics of an indigenous rubber tree, they produce sophisticated examples of bioengineering.
March 1, 2009... THE ROAD DOWN TO NONGRIAT IS A steep one; not, in fact, a road at all, but a vertiginous procession of small stone steps that plunge 700 metres into the valley from the neat village of Tyrna just off the main Cherrapunjee to Mawshamok road. ...

Cold war warriors and hot tea: in Thailand's misty northern mountains, Mae Salong is a slice of the old China: it's populated by the soldiers of the Kuomintang, the 'Lost Army' of exiled anti-Communists who have kept Chinese traditions intact--and no w cultivate high-grade tea where they once grew opium.
March 1, 2009... UNTIL HE BEGINS TO TELL HIS STORY, NETHER THE old general's tranquil face nor the surroundings--mist-wreathed peaks, terraces of tea, even a rose garden--give airy indication of tire staccato violence of his life or the gangland past of this...

Power & glory: with power comes responsibility--but in societies around the globe, it also often comes with lots of fancy clothes and some outrageous headwear. In this selection of images drawn from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society, chiefs and kings from around the world model the outfits that mark them out as leaders of men.(GEOGRAPHICAL archive)(Photograph)
March 1, 2009... PHOTOGRAPHS from the archives of THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] RIGHT: the Maharaj Diraj (king of Nepal) attended by Colonel Thil Bikram Thappa (right) and Colonel Delhi Singh (left), 1862-65, Nepal. Surendra...

Missing, presumed crazy.(The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... THE LOST CITY OF Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann SIMON & SCHUSTER, HB, 16.99 [pounds sterling] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 'You're not one of those Fawcett lunatics, are you?' demanded John Hemming,...

Golden Legends: Images of Abyssinia, Samuel Johnson to Bob Marley.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... GOLDEN LEGENDS: Images of Abyssinia, Samuel Johnson to Bob Marley by WB Carnochan STANFORD GENERAL BOOKS, HB, 26.50 [pounds sterling] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Bob Marley bookends Carnochan's tour of views of Abyssinia (as was)...

Face To Face: Polar Portraits.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... FACE TO FACE: Polar Portraits by Huw Lewis-Jones SCOTT POLAR RESEARCH INSTITUTE/POLARWORLD, PB 25[pounds sterling] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sir John Franklin started something in 1845 when, despite a heavy cold, he sat down to...

Khubilai Khan's Lost Fleet: History's Greatest Naval Disaster.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... KHUBILAI KHAN'S LOST FLEET: History's Greatest Naval Disaster by James Delgado BODLEY HEAD, HB, 15.99 [pounds sterling] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The defeat of Kublai Khan's massive Mongol armada in 1281 has long been one of the...

China Cuckoo: The Englishman Who Went to China in Search of a Fortune and Found a New Life.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... CHINA CUCKOO: The Englishman Who Went to China in Search of a Fortune and Found a New Life by Mark Kitto CONSTABLE, PB 8.99 [pounds sterling] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 'I used to dream about ending my China career .on a hillside...

Top ten writers reads.(GEOGRAPHICAL reviews)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... 1. THE DANCING Wu LI MASTERS BY GARY ZUKAV (RIDER & CO, 12.99 [pounds sterling]) Modern physics meets Eastern mysticism in this 1979 classic 2. TEACHING AS A SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY BY NEIL POSTMAN AND CHARLES WEINGARTNER (OUT OF...

The Voyages of the Beagle: Darwin's Extraordinary Adventure Aboard FitzRoy's Survey Ship.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... THE VOYAGES OF THE BEAGLE: Darwin's Extraordinary Adventure Aboard FitzRoy's Survey Ship by James Taylor CONWAY, HB, 20 [pounds sterling] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This year, we're going to have to...

The Natures of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... THE NATURES OF MAPS: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World by Denis Wood and John Fels THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, HB, US$49 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This beautiful book examines how the natural world is mapped...

A dog's life: Greenland dogs have been bred in isolation on the Arctic island for centuries to be hard workers and faithful companions in a punishing climate. Polar traveller and Greenland resident Gary Rolfe explains how he and his animals survive in the vast icy wastes.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I LIVE AND WORK IN GREENLAND WITH MY HUSKIES: 17 males and one female. Her name is Girly and she's very popular. Home is--permanent base camp where everything revolves around the well-being of my dogs. From here,...

Ten of the best.(ESSENTIAL gear)(Buyers guide)
March 1, 2009... Greenland's Arctic wilderness is as unforgiving as it is beautiful, and a sticky end is never far away for the unprepared polar traveller. Here are some items that will keep you and your dogs going in the frozen tundra [ILLUSTRATION...

Wooden woes: wooden occasional furniture populates many a suburban garden or patio, but how much do we know about the origins of the raw materials? The teak trade is a murky business, and there are several ethical factors to consider.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHEN IT COMES TO STOCKING YOUR GARDEN WITH furniture and accessories, avoiding those huge gas-fired patio heaters, which merrily contribute directly to global warming, may seem like the most obvious ethical decision...

Arctic light show: this is one of the best times to see--and photograph--the spectacular multi-coloured aerial displays of the aurora borealis. And you don't need any specialised techniques or equipment to capture it--just make sure you wrap up.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE AURORA BOREALIS, OR northern lights, is one of the most spectacular phenomena to grace our night skies, producing spectacular coloured curtains of electric light that appear to shimmer and shake in the freezing...

Closer than you think.(Letter of the month)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... 'Not just keeping it in the family' (In Society, February 2009 issue) struck a chord with me, as, like numerous others, I was once forced to choose between studying geography and history at O- and A-levels. As a result, I was forced to drop...

A call for champions.(MAIL bag)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... Having taught environmental studies at primary level and geography at secondary level, I was delighted to read the short piece in February's Worldwatch about the government funding for 54 'geography champions' to promote geography in primary...

Happy to see the hunters' side.(MAIL bag)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... Congratulations on the excel lent Dossier on hunting as a tool for management and conservation that appeared in your February edition (Cruel to be kind?). It was very refreshing to see the case for the sustainable use of natural resources in...

Shoot first, do the sums later.(MAIL bag)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Thanks for the Dossier on hunting. I'm sure the hunting lobby loves to think it's doing a valuable job by shooting a few wolves at the weekend, but killing animals doesn't always help to control their numbers. Take...

Look after what's left.(MAIL bag)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... I'm writing with reference to Mick Herron's review of Witness to Extinction: How we Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin by Samuel Turvey (Reviews, February 2009). As it's 'a grim tale' of indifference in the face of looming extinction, I...

No thanks, Pat.(MAIL bag)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... I understand Pat Thomas's issues with travel and tourism (The trouble with travel, February 2009), but her life doesn't sound like much fun. I preferred Jay Walljasper's geotourism philosophy (Want to see a better world?, December 2008), and...

Beyond the call of duty.(MAIL bag)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... The piece on the Aga Khan Trust for Culture's work in Kabul and Herat (Rebuilding Afghanistan, February 2009) was both interesting and heartwarming. However, the thing that really caught my attention was the fact that the architect managing the...

Rob Woodall.(I'M A geographer)
March 1, 2009... 48, is attempting to become the first person to visit all 6,100 surviving Ordnance Survey triangulation pillars in Britain. This exploratory challenge has seen him travel the length and breadth of the British Isles, and he now has fewer than...