Ecotourism and Climates Changes: the Ecolodge Contribution in Global Warming Mitigation

Global attention to the global warming reduction has invite numerous strategy implemented with the objectives is mitigating greenhouse gasses emission which threats to the future of living in biosphere. Essentially, absorbing CO2 from atmosphere and sequestering in terrestrial ecosystem is one of the significant strategy. While in developing countries it is become essential, support for forest conservation, afforestation and effort to increase terrestrial ability to capture and storage carbon is poor. Ecotourism offer potential key to solved such problems by promoting ecolodge as a sustainable tourism accomodations. This paper aims to explore the potential of ecotourism sector to alleviate global warming and establishing framework for ecolodge planning and development in tropical developing countries. This paper highlight the significant of ecolodge attraction and development management to meet proper carbon capture and sequestration mechanism. The attraction management and developing programs ultimately able to increase plants biomass while accommodation able to practicing energy efficient and optimizing reuse and recycle approach. It will become the potential solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and create clean development strategy

Development of Sustainable Cultural Landscapes in West Kalimantan

This research focuses on investigating West Kalimantan\u27s traditional landscapes, shifting cultivation pattern, and comparing the forest dependency of several ethnic groups. After conducting remote sensing and geographical information system techniques based on the satellite images LANDSAT-TM in West Kalimantan from 1996 to 2006, the decrease of primary dry tropical forest from 36.4% to 15.9% and a little increase of agriculture land from 44.8% to 45.1% were detected. West Kalimantan\u27s traditional landscape is a combination of primary forest, shifting dry rice-field, rubber plantation, fruits garden and home garden, meanwhile new landscape managed by migrants mainly consist of permanent wet land rice-field, dry land rice, and crop fields. The decreasing forest area forces the native people to shorten the shifting cultivation cycle or to turn to permanent agriculture with the low yield. This situation is the result in the more primary forest clearing for agriculture USAge by native people and migrants. It is clear that the traditional landscape of West Kalimantan is particularly dependent upon its most vital element, the forest. Yet, traditional landscape representing the regeneration cycle of forest in West Kalimantan was constrained by changes in managed and modern landscape

Vegetation map (1994) of Setoda region, Hiroshima Prefecture

The vegetation map has a lot of information on regional environment. Vegetation type and its distribution often reflect the site condition and disturbances on the nature and social aspects. The vegetation map is important information not only to record the actual vegetation academically, but also to discuss the regional management plan for future. Setoda region, Hiroshima Prefecture is one of the most famous place for the citrus cultivation and tourism for historical facilities and inland sea resort. This region has also natural coast and secondary forests. The Honshu-Shikoku Bridge project has progressed around this region. The route of the project to pass through the Ikuchi island, Setoda region. We are afraid of the change of nature and social environment in future of this region. The vegetation map of Setoda region is described is described at a scale of 1 : 25,000 in 1994. The types of vegetation and its boundary were confirmed by field survey and interpretation of air photographs. Vegetation types were named on focusing the physiognomy of forest and land-use. Field survey was carried out in 1993-1994. Air photographs taken in 1989 and 1991 ware used. Totally, 19 kinds of vegetation types were appeared. The explanation of the map was described in this paper

Alien plant invasion in water systems in Shanghai, China 【Review】

Biological invasion is one of the most three critical environmental problems in the world. Biotas inwater system are always changing rapidly because of being weak at invasion resistant. In this paper, twotypical invasive plant species in water systems in Shanghai was discussed. (1) Eichhornia crassipes, infreshwater system, whose invasion process, invasion mechanism, harm, and control strategies were elu-cidated; (2) Spartina alterniflora, in estuarine water system, whose transplanting in Chongming EastBeach of Shanghai causes large controversy, was recognized as a critical invasive species. The currentidea for these two plant species and some suggestions on study and control of biological invasion werediscussed

Landscape Structure of Setoda, Hiroshima Prefecture

In Japan, the methodological study for environmental planning has not been established yet. The purpose of this study is to propose a methodology and to adopt a field survey on a local landscape. From the landscape ecological aspects, we define that areal landscape is composed by three components : 'anorganische Welt', 'vital Welt' and 'geistbestimme Welt' in German sense. Physiotope and biotope which might be corresponded to 'anorganische Welt' and 'vital Welt', are treated as one unit of ecotope. Questionnaire assigns to inspect 'geistbestimme Welt'. The spacial pattern of ecotope overlaid by landform, surface geology, soil and vegetation is found out among the newly data-based ecotope. This pattern which successfully expressed the actual landscape of Setoda was principally judged the formation of natural landscape. By questionnaire, social identity for community and the concerns of inhabitants in Setoda were collected successfully. The inhabitants prefered both the natural and artificial well-managed sites in Setoda. While they did not prefer the unmanaged artificial sites. Some sites designated by inhabitants were different to sites as well-known natural landscapes. From these procedures, the extracted sites from questionnaire were identified as psychocultural/imaged landscape based on culture and social aspects. We found that the dominant ecotopes usually distribute widely and establish the community identity, and they influence to inhabitants to recognize the landscape. The main understanding way of landscape in this island comes from 'anorganische Welt' and 'vital Welt' at first, and then they affect 'geistbestimme Welt' secondary. Of course these three components are interacted each other. We also argue that local landscape structure such as the study area must be to investigate before the planning stage, and this step is needed to ask in the course of planning

Evaluation of the 'Acorn Bank' in Kagawa Prefecture from the Viewpoint of Environmental Education

The aim of this study is to evaluate the 'Acorn Bank' project through interview and questionnaire survey. The project is aiming to recreate the connectivity between people and nature. Owing to the popularity especially among children, the number of participants has been increasing. Acorn Bank has offered chances to wider range of people to take part in nature conservation activities than other former environmental groups. We hope that at least the project has contributed to raise environmental awareness of the participants

Actual vegetation of Shimokamagari-cho, Hiroshima Prefecture

An actual vegetation map of Shimokamagari-cho was produced at a scale of 1:25 000 in original.Field surveys were carried out in 2001 and 2002. Aerial photographs taken in 2000 were used to confirm theboundary of each vegetation patch. The map shows 26 physiognomic vegetation and land-use types belongingto 19 main types. Rapid changes of vegetation structure have occurred recently in Shimokamagari-cho, duemainly to human activities. People have abandoned orchards and stopped managing rural forests owing tosocioeconomic changes. On the other hand, new types of land use for tourism appeared in 2002

Flora and Vegetation in a Protected Area for Iris rossii Baker (Iridaceae), a Threatened Plant in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture

Iris rossii Baker (Iridaceae) is one of the threatened plants growing in secondary grassland with sparse pine forest. The aim of this research is to investigate current status in a protected area for I. rossii population, and obtain knowledge for conservation of the population. The flora of vascular plants and vegetation were investigated in the protected area for I. rossii in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Investigations were mainly carried out in June and November 1990 at the three different habitats. As a result, a total of 153 species of 62 families were recorded in whole area. Only Erigeron sumatrensis was recorded as a naturalized plant species in the protected area in 1990. Species composition of the closed forest area, where no I. rossii were found, was different from those of the sparse forest area and the grassland area. Therophytes and hemicryptophytes were seen mainly in the grassland area. Nanophanerophytes, microphanerophytes, mega- and mesophanerophytes and lianas were mainly in the closed forest area. Two vulnerable species, I. rossii and Calanthe discolor listed in the Red Data Book and seven designated species including I. rossii listed in the national and quasi-national parks in Japan were found to have grown mainly in the grassland area and the sparse forest area

An analysis of pesticide use for rice pest management in Bangladesh 【Article】

The so-called Green Revolution package was introduced into Bangladesh agriculture system in mid1960s. It promised to increase production of cereal crops, particularly rice by the introduction of HYVseeds, application of chemical fertilizer and pesticide, and irrigation. HYVs rice has contributed signifi-cantly to the progress towards the food self sufficiency in Bangladesh on the contrary increased to theenvironmental degradation due to the intensive use of agrochemical and other modern technology. Theuse of pesticide has been increased 400(nil)er acre and its cost increased 600 139323592uring the last couple ofdecades. Between 1985 and 1990 the sales of pesticide became double. At present, 84 pesticides activeingredients belonging to 242 trade names have been registered in Bangladesh. Out of the total pesticideuse, over 80 0x0p+0re used in rice fields. The rapid increase of pesticide use is causing detrimental effect onenvironment and health of farm workers and consumers. Pesticides are contaminating ground and sur-face water, which is causing depletion of inland fishing resources and ecosystem. Therefore, the presentstudy evaluates the level of farmers' pesticide use practiced to rice pest control, their knowledge and per-ception of the impact of pesticides on environment. A questionnaire survey has been conducted to col-lect the data from the farmers. Data have been collected from 86 rice farmers of Bangladesh. The studyrevealed that the respondent farmers used mostly insecticides at the rate of 1 to 10 kg active ingredientsper hectare of cropland and the time of application varied from 1 to 4 sprays per crops. The richer farm-ers used pesticide more frequently as compared to small and medium farmers. But most of the pesticidesbelong to extremely and highly hazardous category as classified by WHO..

A Note on Ants Visiting Bracken at the Post-fire Stand

A preliminary study of ants and other free-living arthropods which visited bracken at a post-fire stand was conducted. Eight species of ants visited bracken at the post-fire stand, one month after forest fire. In contrast, only one species visited bracken at the fire-free stand. Ants and other arthropods which visited bracken changed with growth stages of bracken fronds. These findings suggest that ant foraging activity may be affected by environmental conditions, such as vegetation, microclimate, and alternative food resource for ants