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Deforestation, clearance, clearcutting or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land which is then converted to a non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests.
Natural resources are resources that exist without any actions of humankind. This includes all valued characteristics such as magnetic, gravitational, electrical properties and forces, etc. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land along with all vegetation, crops, and animal life that naturally subsists upon or within the previously identified characteristics and substances.
Samoa, officially the Independent State ofSamoa and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is an island country consisting of two main islands, Savai'i and Upolu, two smaller inhabited islands, Manono and Apolima, and several small uninhabited islands including the Aleipata Islands. The capital city is Apia. The Lapita people discovered and settled the Samoan Islands around 3,500 years ago. They developed a Samoan language and Samoan cultural identity.
Bioprospecting is the process of discovery and commercialization of new products based on biological resources. These resources or compounds can be important for and useful in many fields, including pharmaceuticals, agriculture, bioremediation, and nanotechnology. Between 1981-2010, one third of all small molecule new chemical entities approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were either natural products or compounds derived from natural products. Despite indigenous knowledge being intuitively helpful, bioprospecting has only recently begun to incorporate such knowledge in focusing screening efforts for bioactive compounds.
Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, organizations and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where possible, to repair damage and reverse trends.
Savaiʻi is the largest and highest island in Samoa and the Samoan Islands chain. The island is the sixth largest in Polynesia, behind the three main islands of New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands of Hawaii and Maui.
Falealupo is a village in Samoa situated at the west end of Savai'i island 20 miles (32 km) from the International Date Line used until December 29, 2011. The village has two main settlements, Falealupo-Uta, situated inland by the main island highway and Falealupo-Tai, situated by the sea. The road to the coastal settlement is about 9 km, most of it unsealed, from the main highway.
Calophyllum inophyllum is a large evergreen plant, commonly called tamanu, mastwood, beach calophyllum, beautyleaf or Sinhala: දොඹ. It is native to tropical Asia and Wallacea. Due to its importance as a source of timber for the traditional shipbuilding of large outrigger ships, it has been spread in prehistoric times by the migrations of the Austronesian peoples to the islands of Oceania and Madagascar, along with other members of the genus Calophyllum. It has since been naturalized in regions in the East African coast. It is also a source of the culturally important tamanu oil.
Traditional knowledge, indigenous knowledge and local knowledge generally refer to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities. Traditional knowledge includes types of knowledge about traditional technologies of subsistence, midwifery, ethnobotany and ecological knowledge, traditional medicine, celestial navigation, craft skills, ethnoastronomy, climate, and others. These kinds of knowledge, crucial for subsistence and survival, are generally based on accumulations of empirical observation and on interaction with the environment.
Intsia bijuga is a species of flowering tree in the pea family, Fabaceae, native to the Indo-Pacific. It ranges from Tanzania and Madagascar east through India and Queensland, Australia to the Pacific islands of Fiji and Samoa. It grows to around 50 metres tall with a highly buttressed trunk. It inhabits mangrove forests. Intsia bijuga differ from Intsia palembanica in the number of leaflets that make up their compound leaves.
Seacology is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization headquartered in Berkeley, California, that works to preserve island ecosystems and cultures around the world. Founded in 1991, it began with the work of ethnobotanist Paul Alan Cox, who researched tropical plants and their medicinal value in the village of Falealupo in Samoa during the mid-1980s. When the villagers were pressured into selling logging rights to their rainforest in 1988 to build a new school, Cox and his wife offered to help secure funds for the new school in return for an agreement with the villagers to protect their forest. With the help of his friends and family, Cox secured the funds within six months, later earning him and the village chief, Fuiono Senio, the Goldman Environmental Prize for their efforts. Word spread throughout the islands, and with increasing demand for similar projects, Cox, along with Bill Marré and Ken Murdock, decided to form Seacology and expand their work internationally. For the first few years, the organization operated on a volunteer basis. Duane Silverstein became the first employee in 1999, and headquarters were relocated to Berkeley, not far from his residence.
Papua New Guinea together with the West Papua region of Indonesia make up a major tropical wilderness area that still contains 5% of the original and untouched tropical high-biodiversity terrestrial ecosystems. PNG in itself contains over 5% of the world's biodiversity in less than 1% of the world's total land area. The flora of New Guinea is unique because it has two sources of origin. The Gondwana flora from the south and flora with Asian origin from the west, as a result New Guinea shares major family and genera with Australia and the East Asia, but is rich in local endemic species. The endemicity is a result of mountainous isolation, topographic and soil habitat heterogeneity, high forest disturbance rates and abundant aseasonal rainfall year-round. PNG boasts some 15-21,000 higher plants, 3,000 species of orchids, 800 species of coral, 600 species of fish, 250 species of mammals and 760 species of birds and 8 species of tree-kangaroos out of which 84 genera of animals are endemic. Ecosystems range from lowland forests to montane forests, alpine flora down to coastal areas which contains some of the most extensive pristine mangrove areas in the world. Much of this biodiversity has remained intact for thousands of years because the ruggedness of the terrain made the interior lands inaccessible; furthermore low population density and restrictions on the effectiveness of traditional tools, ensured that these biodiversity was never overexploited.
Tafua is a seaside village on the island of Savai'i in Samoa. It is situated on a peninsula on the southeast coast of the island in Palauli district. The population is 408.
Uafato is a village on the north east coast of Upolu island in Samoa with national and global significance as a unique cultural and conservation area.
Lantana camara is a species of flowering plant within the verbena family (Verbenaceae), native to the American tropics. Other common names of L. camara include big-sage (Malaysia), wild-sage, red-sage, white-sage (Caribbean), korsu wiri or korsoe wiwiri (Suriname), tickberry, West Indian lantana,, umbelanterna and Gu Phool in Assam, India.
Today, forest and woodland cover in Uganda stands at 49,000 km² or 24% of the total land area. Of these 9,242.08 km² is tropical rainforest, 350.60 km² are forest plantations and 39,741.02 km² is woodland. 30% of these areas are protected as national parks, wildlife reserves or central forest reserves.
The environment of Malaysia refers to the biotas and geologies that constitute the natural environment of this Southeast Asian nation. Malaysia's ecology is megadiverse, with a biodiverse range of flora and fauna found in various ecoregions throughout the country. Tropical rainforests encompass between 59% to 70% of Malaysia's total land area, of which 11.6% is pristine. Malaysia has the world's fifth largest mangrove area, which totals over a half a million hectares.
The Samoan tropical moist forests are a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion in the Samoan Islands of the Pacific Ocean.
Terminalia richii, with the common name malili, is an upright forest tree species native to the central South Pacific in Oceania.
References
- ↑ Isle Botanica, Art Whistler (May 1999). "Guide to the most commonly used medicinal plants in Samoa". American Samoa Community College Land Grant Program. Honolulu, Hawai'i. Retrieved 11 July 2010.
- ↑ Roger R. B. Leakey, Craig R. Elevitch, Isabella Aiona Abbott (2006). Traditional trees of Pacific Islands: their culture, environment, and use. Permanent Agriculture Resources. ISBN 978-0-9702544-5-0 . Retrieved 11 July 2010.
- ↑ "Traditional medicines still strong in Samoa". Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Samoa. Retrieved July 8, 2010.