Examine the causes and the effects of biodiversity loss in the Tropical Rainforests

Examine the causes and the effects of biodiversity loss in the TRF Biodiversity can be defined as the variety of all forms of life on earth (plants, animals and micro-organisms). The tropics are the richest areas for biodiversity as tropical rain forests contain over 50% of the worlds species in just 7% of the worlds land. They account for 80% of the world's insects and 90% of its primates. Even though biodiversity benefits us humans in countless ways we tend to be oblivious to this fact and instead, the biodiversity on earth is gradually diminishing. There are many reasons for the loss of biodiversity and the most prominent include Globalization & Cattle Ranching, Hydroelectric Power (HEP), Migration and Logging. Similar to how there are numerous causes for the loss of biodiversity, these causes also have many drastic effects. As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, globalization and cattle ranching is one of the major causes for the loss of biodiversity. Globalization can be defined as the world coming together for trading purposes. This contributes to the loss of biodiversity as globalization is directly linked with deforestation. For instances, huge global corporations like McDonalds own countless amounts of cattle which are often located in deforested areas. In addition to this, much forest land in the Brazilian Amazon is also deforested in order to enable the

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  • Subject: Geography
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Pro-Natalist China's population policy

Introduction: China has the largest world population, and with most of its cities densely populated. It has a policy which is most recognizable globally, as it is the most rigid compared to any other countries, this policy admits only one child per couple, and due to this fact it is named as "One Child Policy." s Background information on the Population: What was the problem? Due to the high fertility rate, numerous disasters such as pressure on resources (water, food, medical care, and housing) and a virus such as SARS will not spread as fast if the population in China declines. Causes of High Fertility rate: Before 1949, before the communists came into power, china was at stage 1 of demographic transition model, and had between 5-8 children per family. By the time, birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate were all relatively high, and with a low life expectancy. This shows that the population was increasing at an extremely slow rate. Consequently, large families were encouraged, as the government followed a pro-natalistic population policy. 0 years later in 1960, there was a dramatic increase in population with approximately 100 million people more; this determined a change in demographic transition model from first to second stage. In addition, as a result, there were improvements made in some medical services. Due to the death of Mao in 1976, the government

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  • Subject: Geography
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Impact of Polish migration to the UK

IMPACTS OF POLISH MIGRATION TO UK Migration has economic, social and political effects on both countries involved, i.e. the home and the host country. Some of these effects are symmetric in the sense that the positive effects for one country are mirrored one-to-one by negative effects on the other. Other impacts of emigration may be beneficial for both countries. It is difficult to find a specific feature of migration that has a negative impact at the same time on both countries, as in this case it would probably did not happen. It is difficult to give accurate figures about the total Polish-origin community in UK. It is estimated that currently it is composed of circa one million, including both those who are settled permanently and those who migrate only a temporary basis. But only around half a million are officially residents registered. Due mainly to personal and family reasons, the majority of the migrants are on a temporary basis. There may be also a difficult distinction between temporary and permanent migration, in general: is a polish emigrant to UK who intends to work in UK until his retirement age, permanent or temporary emigrant? The Polish migration to UK has its origins in the First and Second World War and the disastrous, bloody invasions suffered by Poland from Germany and the Soviet Union, respectively during the XX Century. Reflecting the importance of

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Pro-natalist Australia

Pro-natalist, Australia Background Information Australia is considered the most sparely populated continent in terms of the population density, 2.6 persons per km2. Like most of the developed countries are having problems with the issues of population, Australia is not exceptional. In fact, there has been the substantial fall in fertility rates since 1960s. Australia's total fertility rate has declined from 3.5 in 1961 to 1.73 in 2001, and in 2007 was 1.93 babies per woman with two child families the most common type. Also, there are concerns of the ageing of the Australian population, implying that there are fewer babies being born compared with a number of elderly population increased by life expectancy. Australia's population is ageing and the evidence for this demographic change is undeniable. The result of falling fertility, increasing life expectancy and the effect of the baby boomer generation moving through older age groups, has contributed to an increase in the number and proportion of people aged over 65 years. These trends are anticipated to continue and numbers of people aged over 65 years and proportions of people over 85 years are growing while proportion of the population aged between 15 and 64 years (labor force age) are falling. The main cause of the falling fertility rates is the increased empowerment of women. In Australia, greater numbers of females

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China One Child Policy

Case Study China One Child Policy History China has the world's largest population, and it's cities are the most densely populated ones. It's policy is one of the most recognized policy, since is the most rigid of any country. The policy admites only one child per couple, and because of this it is called the "One Child Policy". Before 1949, before the communists had the power, China was at stage 1 of demographic transition model, and families had betwen 5 and 8 children. Also there was a high death rate, and a low life expectation. Infant mortality rate was also high, and so with death rate and birth rate, which means that the population was increasing at a very slowly rate. In these days, large families where encouraged, since the government followed a pro-natalistic population policy. Ten years later in 1960, the population increased dramatically to 100million people more, which determined China in the second stage of the demographic transition model. As a result improvements where made in medical services. In 1976, whith the death of Mao, the government decided to advocate voluntary population control to reduce the birth rate. China began to advice about limiting family sizes and to distribute information about the need to control the population growth. Finally in 1980, the One Child Policy was introduced, which provided benefits for couples which had only one

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Population Essay

"The new threat to the planet is not too many people but too few." Was once written by Michael Mayer. He claimed that the global population will rise to a peak and then sharply decrease. As we know at the moment it seems like there are already too many people on the world, leading to starvation, scarce natural resources, poverty, war and global competition for jobs. And it seems like the amount of people are continually increasing, but will it really last and will it be a problem? In Japan in fact the population is already starting to decrease, where the total fertility rate is only 1.2. That means that a woman in Japan will have an average of 1.2 kids in her life. One of the problems in Japan is that it is difficult to live there as an immigrant. This is due to the hard language and very few Japanese people speak English well. So it's not really attractive to migrate to Japan. And the women see kids the result for Japan is what's called an 'ageing population', where there will be older people, than younger people in the future. The picture beneath shows the current populations pyramid of Japan. As you can see, the life expectancy in Japan is high, as there are quite some people in their 85's-89's. What we can conclude from this pyramid is by the trend in it. [Source: http://www.nurse.or.jp/jna/english/nursing/images/pyramid.jpg] The number of kids in the groups of 0-15

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Changes in Tourism

Geography Essay- Factors Affecting Tourism Describe the changes in the growth in tourism in recent decades. Explain the factors responsible for this. In the 1950s, there were 25.5 million of international tourist arrivals and mostly were Europeans, which were 16.8 million arrivals. However, in the 1990s, international tourist arrivals increased to 455.9 millions. The significant changes were 280.6 million arrivals were from middle-east and 57.7 million arrivals were from Asia-pacific. First of all, transportation is one of the major factors seriously affecting each country's tourism because countries without high efficiency of transportation, it would lower tourists preferences to visit a specific country. For instance, development of the High-speed rail industry in Europe attracts more tourists from Europe continent of even internationally because High-speed trains were also quite fast, which can travel more than 250km/h in average. And travelling by trains was relatively cheaper compared to travel by planes because roundtrip tickets from London to Paris in Euro star cost $1575.6 HKD. However, air roundtrip tickets from London to Paris cost $2484 HKD in British Airways. Secondly, development of infrastructure- both roads and airports in More Economic Developed Countries (MEDCs) and Less Economic Developed Countries (LEDCs) were improving, which allowed more large sizes of

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Outline the causes and effects of one movement of labour from one region to another.

Charis Ow Mr Ben Hough Global Interactions - HL extension Economic interactions and flows Outline the causes and effects of one movement of labour from one region to another. Unemployment has been a serious issue occurring in many regions such as South Asia, where population is growing rapidly and its undeveloped economies -further elevating unemployment rates. Over the years, individuals struggle to look for suitable occupations up to the extent of migrating overseas due to many reasons. There are many causes of the movement of labour from one region to another -one of them is the low wages from their origin which pushes them to look for a better one as it does not pay well enough for them to support their families. For example, LEDCs such as India and Bangladesh would opt for a better lifestyle as they commonly perceive that working overseas would help them to live a more improved lifestyle. In addition to that, labour workers might find that there are better paid wages in other regions such as South East Asia and the Americas so that they could support their family -providing better food and necessities. Besides that, rapid economic development in these MEDCs attracts labour workers to migrate overseas as they believe the economy is more stable and there will be fewer fluctuations of inflation rates so that they would have less risky and long-term jobs. This

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To what extent could Keralas approach in controlling population group be applied to other parts of the world such as China, Nigeria or others?

To what extent could Kerala's approach in controlling population group be applied to other parts of the world such as China, Nigeria or others? Family planning refers to attempts to limit family size. Family planning methods include contraceptives such as the pill as well as drastic methods such as forced sterilization, abortion and infanticide. Kerala had spectacular success in limiting fertility without any strong regulation like China or even any financial support, incentives like other parts of India. Improving of the quality of people living in rural areas was considered to be a que of economic development. India was one of the first countries to attempt an aggressive family program as far back as the 1950's, but the results of such a policy have been mixed over the last six decades. While the population growth in India has slowed in certain provinces, it remains largely outpaced by continuing exponential population growth. The success of government-backed promotion of birth control has had limited by a number of factors, but the most important of these has been, according to the World Health Organization, which is largely supportive of family-planning programs: high level of illiteracy, poor access to information, poverty, and gender-based disparities serve as significant barriers to family planning. These include social stereotypes, lack of male involvement in family

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Earthquakes: the Same Effects, but Differing Responses

Earthquakes: the Same Effects, but Differing Responses Earthquakes are the result of energy release within the earth's crust, as well as an immense natural hazard greatly affecting people - despite whether it is a more or less economically developed country. However, the way in which responses occur may differ between these regions. Underlying friction is the initial cause of earthquakes. As tectonic plates begin to shift, they are resistant and still held together by friction - whether with another plate, or the mantle. However, the force to shift the plate continues despite the friction against this force, until the force overpowers the friction and the plate moves; causing many impacts. Some include shaking and ground rupture; resulting in more or less damage to infrastructure, landslides and avalanches; which can occur if slopes are produced from the earthquake; and fires, if the earthquake causes damage to electrical power or gas lines. Other impacts include those caused by water - such as a tsunami; if the earthquake has caused sudden or abrupt movement of large masses of water, and floods; which occur from an overflow of water onto land. Lastly, humans can be impacted as earthquakes can cause injury and loss of life. Responses to earthquakes are affected by economic factors and types of technology available. Some immediate responses include rescue and medical teams

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