It is burning season in Brazil, and across the Amazon region, where illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and a growing number of soy producers continue their advance into their world's largest tropical forest, similar scenes are taking place. In August government satellites registered 16,592 fires across Brazil, the overwhelming majority in the Amazon.
World Food Day (WFD) was established by FAO's Member Countries at the Organization's Twentieth General Conference in November 1979. The date chosen - 16 October - is the anniversary of FAO.
October 16 is World Food Day, an occasion to remember the plight of the world's 850 million chronically hungry people. After decades of decline, that number has actually been growing by four million each year since the mid-1990s. Today, hunger still kills more people than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. This series of photographs from the World Food Programme highlights some of the key facts and figures about hunger around the world today.
Link to WFP slideshow | Gallery | Guardian Unlimited
Forget about wind farms and nuclear power stations. The answer to Britain’s looming energy crisis could be cheap, plentiful and planet-friendly coal
Thanks to Mike Miskelly for spotting this very interesting article on energy needs.
The Belize Barrier Reef platform lies on the Atlantic-Caribbean coast of Belize, and extends 260 kilometers (km) from the border with Mexico to the north, to near the Guatemalan border to the south.
Link to Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, Belize - Encyclopedia of Earth
The Directory is the essential guide to Geography in Higher Education in the UK. It provides information on most HE departments with an undergraduate degree or module in geography, the courses offered, and the staff who work there. Given the range of Geography courses available, a standard overview is provided:
Whys study Geography?
Choosing a course?
Making a sucessful application?
Should i take agap year
Careers in Geography
Zaw Aung left Burma because he could not afford to feed his family. The 31-year-old worked as a farm labourer near the new capital, Naypyidaw. But his wages did not cover basic necessities for his wife and three young children, and he could not find a better job.
Chinadependence: the second UK Interdependence report, published in association with the Open University, released to mark the day that the world as a whole goes into ecological debt, reveals the many ways in which Britain is becoming increasingly dependent on the rest of the world to fuel our high-consuming lifestyles. In particular, Chinadependence reveals a striking rise in our dependence on a wide range of Chinese imports. And, because the greenhouse gas pollution that results from their manufacture is blamed on China, not the consumers in the UK, we are turning China into our 'environmental laundry' with devastating consequences for the planet.
China's rising coal consumption is partly to make western goodsThe UK's increasing dependence on Chinese goods is contributing to a rise in carbon emissions, a report suggests.
The New Economic Foundation (Nef) says such reliance is adding to CO2 levels because China's factories produce more CO2 per item than British ones
Ecological Footprint accounts estimate how many Earths were needed to meet the resource requirements of humanity for each year since 1961, when complete UN statistics became available. Resource demand (Ecological Footprint) for the world as a whole is the product of population times per capita consumption, and reflects both the level of consumption and the efficiency with which resources are turned into consumption products. Resource supply (biocapacity) varies each year with ecosystem management, agricultural practices (such as fertilizer use and irrigation), ecosystem degradation, and weather.
Get National Ecological footprint data
The goal of this exercise is to introduce you to some basic concepts about how rivers work.The term river describes water moving through a well-defined channel.
Animal health crises such as foot-and-mouth and bluetongue are just part of the worries facing farmers in the UK today.Pressures from export bans and late subsidy payments to fluctuating market prices can affect income, leave morale low and result in many famers considering how or whether to carry on in the industry. This snapshot of farming in the UK highlights some key areas of concern.
The number of people living beyond 100 years has reached a record high in England and Wales, according to official figures.
The Office for National Statistics says there are now 9,000 "centenarians" - a 90-fold increase since 1911.
A world population of 6.5 billion in 2005... and how many in twenty or fifty years from now? For thousands of years, human beings were a rare species and their numbers grew very slowly. By around 1800 however, the population began to increase rapidly, starting in the rich countries and then, from the twentieth century, in the rest of the world. This unique period in the history of mankind will probably come to an end within a century. What are the reasons for this growth, and what factors are affecting the population today? Will the world population level off in the years to come? How will the world be populated in the future?
These pages include animations, documents and fact sheets to help you find the answers to these questions, and learn more about the world population. Discover the science of demography, Find facts and figures about a country or group of countries. Imagine the population of tomorrow by looking into the future.
ANIMATIONS - Birth and family size; Understanding length of life;Measuring Fertility; Measuring Life expectancy; Population Pyramids
POPULATION ATLAS The world population atlas gives the latest United Nations population statistics for 230 countries and regions of the world. You can use its different windows to travel from one country to another, to see how the situation changes over time, to rank countries or to compare them with each other.
POPULATION GAMES Use our interactive windows to play with the factors influencing family size, to find out where you stand in the world population or to look into the future with the population simulator.
GRAPH OF THE MONTH Every month, a different set of recent population data is presented in the "graph of the month".
How is it constructed? What does it show? Click on the title to find out more.
AST Request Form - This can be used to request resources - for other languages please attach a vocab list. Email me directly from the index page.
Noughts & Crosses
Aliens & Defenders - I really enjoy this one - one of my more inspired creations!
Brick Wall - Reveal
Find the word
Flash Memory game
Trivial Pursuit - created by Natalie Nicholson
Blockbusters
The Weakest Link - created by Mark E. Damon
Millionaire instructions
Millionaire - Not sure where this came from but I adapted it slightly
Timer - Adapted from MFL Sunderland - countdown file available if it doesn't run from here
30 second Countdown sound file
Talking Flash Cards
Picture Vocabulary Quiz - Hyperlinked Pictures - works in same way as action buttons
Action Buttons
Pit Stop - website with lots of ideas for MFL games
Wordsearch software - to print or use on a Smartboard - .exe file to download
Ideas for Flashcard and OHP Games
Ideas for Say It grids
Wheel of Fortune - spinner based on an idea by Connie Campbell
Timer - round the world in 1 minute - created by Dave Harlan
Virtual Dice - web site where you can select dice with different numbers of faces
Across the world, 2.6 billion people lack access to water and sanitation. The world water crisis is one of the main obstacles in the way of human development and of reaching Millennium Development goals. This year's Human Development Report, Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis, tackles this emergency.
Footage from: Nairobi, Kenya / West Bank, Palestinian Territories / China/ New Delhi, India / Colombia / Pretoria, South Africa / Kinshasa, Congo Videos are HERE
According to the UN yesterday, 18 of the poorest and normally driest countries in Africa, from Senegal, Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso in the west, to Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia in the east, have been seriously hit by months of torrential rains which, meterologists forecast, will continue in places for many more weeks.
"We believe at least 650,000 homes have been destroyed, 1.5 million people affected and nearly 200 people so far drowned," said Elisabeth Brys, at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) in Geneva. "This is harvest time for many countries and there are already food shortages."
The rains, linked to ocean temperature changes of El Niño, have caught governments off guard. Many of the worst affected regions are remote from capitals and assessments are still being made.
Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana have declared an official disaster and appealed for emergency international aid. More nations are expected to follow
What is El Niño?
The term El Niño refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon linked to a periodic warming in sea-surface temperatures across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (between approximately the date line and 120oW). El Niño represents the warm phase of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and is sometimes referred to as a Pacific warm episode. El Niño originally referred to an annual warming of sea-surface temperatures along the west coast of tropical South America.
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, which is part of the National Weather Service, declares the onset of an El Niño episode when the 3-month average sea-surface temperature departure exceeds 0.5oC in the east-central equatorial Pacific [between 5oN-5oS and 170oW-120oW].
Show me strong El Niño sea-surface temperature and tropical rainfall patterns.
Show me the past El Niño and La Niña events by season.
La Niña refers to the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific that occurs every 3 to 5 years or so. La Niña represents the cool phase of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and is sometimes referred to as a Pacific cold episode. La Niña originally referred to an annual cooling of ocean waters off the west coast of Peru and Ecuador.
In the first of a series of pieces on China's one-child policy, the BBC's Michael Bristow looks at whether the country's controversial regulations are working.
China's family planning policy has prevented 400 million births, officials say.
Walkers Crisps is the first firm to put carbon footprint figures on its products, with nine more companies set to follow. How are these figures calculated?
The data presented in this section have been compiled by Smithsonian volcanologists over the past three decades and represent an updated electronic version of Volcanoes of the World (Simkin and Siebert, 1994). The volcano and eruption data are freely available
UNOSAT is a United Nations programme created to provide the international community and developing countries with enhanced access to satellite imagery and Geographic Information System (GIS) services. These tools are used mainly in humanitarian relief, disaster prevention and post crisis reconstruction.
Severe flooding across Africa has wrecked hundreds of thousands of homes and left many people vulnerable to water-borne diseases, officials say.
ReliefWeb is the world’s leading on-line gateway to information (documents and maps) on humanitarian emergencies and disasters. An independent vehicle of information, designed specifically to assist the international humanitarian community in effective delivery of emergency assistance, it provides timely, reliable and relevant information as events unfold, while emphasizing the coverage of "forgotten emergencies" at the same time.
ReliefWeb was launched in October 1996 and is administered by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
1961-90 mapped averages
Select the elements below to view contoured UK maps of monthly, seasonal and annual averages. The analyses are based on 1 km grid-point data sets which are derived from station data covering the latest WMO recommended reference period (1961 - 1990).
The population of Great Britain has been living longer over the past 20 years, but the extra years have not necessarily been lived in good health. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy (expected years of life in good or fairly good health) both increased between 1981 and 2001, with life expectancy increasing at a faster rate than healthy life expectancy.
Life expectancy is higher for females than for males. In 2001 the life expectancy at birth of females was 80.4 years compared with 75.7 years for males. However, life expectancy for males has been increasing faster than for females. There was an increase of 4.8 years in male life expectancy between 1981 and 2001. For females the corresponding increase was 3.6 years.
The gap in healthy life expectancy between males and females is smaller than for total life expectancy. In 2001, healthy life expectancy at birth was 67.0 years for males and 68.8 years for females, a gap of 1.8 years.
The difference between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy can be regarded as an estimate of the number of years a person can expect to live in poor health. In 1981 the expected time lived in poor health for males was 6.5 years. By 2001 this had risen to 8.7 years. Females can expect to live longer in poor health than males. In 1981 the expected time lived in poor health for females was 10.1 years, rising to 11.6 years in 2001.
The past 20 years have seen a growing realisation that the current model of development is unsustainable. In other words, we are living beyond our means. From the loss of biodiversity with the felling of rainforests or over fishing to the negative effect our consumption patterns are having on the environment and the climate. Our way of life is placing an increasing burden on the planet.
The increasing stress we put on resources and environmental systems such as water, land and air cannot go on forever. Especially as the world's population continues to increase and we already see a world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day.
A widely-used and accepted international definition of sustainable development is: 'development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' - Globally we are not even meeting the needs of the present let alone considering the needs of future generations.
"The basic purpose of development is to enlarge people's choices. In principle, these choices can be infinite and can change over time. People often value achievements that do not show up at all, or not immediately, in income or growth figures: greater access to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure livelihoods, security against crime and physical violence, satisfying leisure hours, political and cultural freedoms and sense of participation in community activities. The objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives." Mahbub ul Haq
Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means —if a very important one —of enlarging people ’s choices.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of human development that is published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI provides an alternative to the common practice of evaluating a country’s progress in development based on per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:
Biomes are the major regional groupings of plants and animals discernible at a global scale. Their distribution patterns are strongly correlated with regional climate patterns and identified according to the climax vegetation type. However, a biome is composed not only of the climax vegetation, but also of associated successional communities, persistent subclimax communities, fauna, and soils.
These are You tube links to some amazing ( and shocking) videos taken in Kibera
PACE covers seven different topics: Living with Wildlife, Water, Soil, Forests, Energy, Living by the Ocean and Urban Living. Through the topic pages, you can find out more about the projects featured in the PACE films, and download the Action Sheets and Environmental Education activities associated with each one
Statetris is an interesting game mixing aspects of the popular game 'Tetris' and geography. Instead of positioning the typical Tetris blocks, you position states/countries at their proper location.
Try: Africa, Europe, France, Netherlands, UK, USA
The Earth Calendar is a daybook of holidays
and celebrations around the world.
For the purpose of this web site a "holiday"
is any day that recognizes a cultural event,
and not necessarily a day when businesses are closed
Torrential rain across the UK is likely to mean the summer of 2007 will have been the wettest since records began in 1914, Met Office figures suggest.
Provisional tallies show a total of 358.5mm (14.114in) of rain fell on the UK, narrowly beating the previous 1956 record of 358.4mm (14.110in).
New killer diseases are emerging faster than ever across the world, says the World Health Organization. In its report, "A Safer Future", experts highlighted several major threats to our health in the 21st century. But what are they?
More people left the UK last year than in any year since current records began in 1991, statistics show.Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) indicate that some 385,000 people left the UK for the long term in the year to mid-2006.
n mid-2006 the resident population of the UK was 60,587,000, of which 50,763,000 lived in England. The average age was 39.0 years, an increase on 1971 when it was 34.1 years. In mid-2006 approximately one in five people in the UK were aged under 16 and one in six people were aged 65 or over.
The UK has a growing population. It grew by 349,000 people in the year to mid-2006 (0.6 per cent). The UK population has increased by 8 per cent since 1971, from 55,928,000. Growth has been faster in more recent years. Between mid-1991 and mid-2006 the population grew by an average annual rate of 0.4 per cent and the average growth per year since mid-2001 has been 0.5 per cent.
Millions hit by South Asia Floods (03/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6922484.stm
• South Asia considers flood lessons (03/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6929734.stm
• Devastating Floods hit South Asia (03/08/07)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6927389.stm
• Monsoon Floods displace 19 million (Guardian) (03/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,2141060,00.html
Desperate bid to save Asian Flood Victims (05/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,2141938,00.html
• Fears of epidemics follow lethal floods in Southern Asia (06/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,2142266,00.html
• Agencies struggling to get Aid to flood victims (7/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters/story/0,,2143280,00.html
• South Asia Flood Toll Rises (7/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6932636.stm
• Aid struggles to reach marooned millions after South Asia Floods (8/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters/story/0,,2143744,00.html
• UK plea for South Asia Flood Cash (08/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6936154.stm
• South Asia Victims face health crisis (08/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6935847.stm
• South Asia Floods – Worst hit Areas (09.08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6929004.stm
• Surviving on snails and rats in Bihar (09/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6937267.stm
• Flood Rains hit New India Regions (09/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6938350.stm
• Infections spread as toll from Asian monsoon reaches 2000 (11/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters/story/0,,2146672,00.html
Floods in South Asia Pictures
• In Pictures: Floods in South Asia (03/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6927778.stm
• In Pictures: Bangladesh Floods (06/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6933033.stm
• In Pictures: South Asia Flood Relief (07/08/07)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6935745.stm
• Flooding in Asia (Guardian Gallery) http://travel.guardian.co.uk/Guardian/environment/gallery/2007/aug/03/flooding.internationalnews
General Info about Monsoon
• The Asian Monsoon (BBC Weather) http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/monsoon.shtml
• What is the South Asian Monsoon http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6929988.stm
Powerful Earthquake Rocks Peru (16/08/07) (Newsround) http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6940000/newsid_6948900/6948983.stm
• Scores Killed in Peru Earthquake (16/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6948888.stm
• Hundreds Dead in Powerful Peru Earthquake (16/08/07) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/16/wquake316.xml
• Peru Earthquake Kills 500 (16/08/07) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/16/wquake416.xml
• 450 killed in Peru Quake (16/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters/story/0,,2149760,00.html
• Background: Peru Earthquakes (16/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters/story/0,,2150290,00.html
• “The Earth was like Jelly” – hundreds die in Peru quake, but Lima escapes (The Guardian) (17/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters/story/0,,2150628,00.html
• Peru coast hit by powerful aftershock (17/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters/story/0,,2150891,00.html
• Fresh earthquake strikes Peru (17/08/07) – Newsround
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6950000/newsid_6950700/6950770.stm
• Peru rattled by fresh earthquake (17/08/07)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6951836.stm
• Dawn shines light on Pisco’s sorrow (17/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6951443.stm
• Peru Quake – Eyewitness Accounts (17/08/07)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6949537.stm
• Peru sends soldiers to quell quake looting (The Guardian) (19/08/07) http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters/story/0,,2151928,00.html
• Hopes fade for Peru quake victims (20/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6955295.stm
Map of Earthquake Area - Where the earthquake happened (Good graphic from the Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/graphic/0,,2149958,00.html
Pictures - Peru Earthquake:
• In Pictures: Lima Earthquake (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/gallery/2007/aug/16/internationalnews?picture=330581318
• In Pictures – Peru Earthquake (16/08/07)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6949478.stm
The first big hurricane of the season has battered its way through the Caribbean en route for Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
Hurricane Season finally gets underway (15/08/07) http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/15082007news.shtml
Video links:
• Hurricane Dean strikes Mexico http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_6950000/newsid_6956100?redirect=6956151.stm&news=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&asb=1
• Prediction for Dean’s Path http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_6950000/newsid_6956400?redirect=6956461.stm&news=1&nbram=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1&asb=1
Hurricane Information
• Hurricane Dean – including tracking information http://www.moreweather.com/tropics/moreweather.php3#DEAN
• Map of Hurricane Dean’s Path http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/024526.shtml?hwind120#contents
• Interactive Guide – Hurricanes Explained (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,,773980,00.html
• Hurricane Dean – are you affected? Have your say http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=7144&&edition=1&ttl=20070821145150
• Hurricane Dean hits the Caribbean http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/17082007news.shtml
Hurricane Dean - Pictures:
• In Pictures – In Dean’s Path (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2007/aug/20/1?picture=330600770
• In Pictures: Hurricane Dean (20/8/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6952788.stm
• In Pictures: Dean rushes for Mexico 21/08/07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6956117.stm
• In Pictures: Hurricane Dean 20/08/07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6955296.stm
• In pictures - Hurricane blasts Caribbean (20/08/07) http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6950000/newsid_6953900/6953956.stm
Tracking, 5 Day forecast, Winds, Alerts, Storm History,
The Migration Information Source provides fresh thought, authoritative data from numerous global organizations and governments, and global analysis of international migration and refugee trends. A unique, online resource, the Source offers useful tools, vital data, and essential facts on the movement of people worldwide.
Working with a team of international correspondents, we chronicle global migration movements, provide perspectives on current migration debates, and offer the tools and data from numerous global organizations and governments needed to understand migration. We do this in a way that is accessible to researchers, policy makers, journalists, and other opinion shapers.
Our advisory board and other prominent migration scholars who contribute to The Source include some of the most respected voices in the migration and refugee fields. The Source also relies on the good will of several global organizations and governments who make their data and research publicly available on our site.
