Tropical Nature

Tropical Nature PDF Author: Adrian Forsyth
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439144745
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Seventeen marvelous essays introducing the habitats, ecology, plants, and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. A lively, lucid portrait of the tropics as seen by two uncommonly observant and thoughtful field biologists. Its seventeen marvelous essays introduce the habitats, ecology, plants, and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. Includes a lengthy appendix of practical advice for the tropical traveler.

Tropical Nature

Tropical Nature PDF Author: Adrian Forsyth
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439144745
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Seventeen marvelous essays introducing the habitats, ecology, plants, and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. A lively, lucid portrait of the tropics as seen by two uncommonly observant and thoughtful field biologists. Its seventeen marvelous essays introduce the habitats, ecology, plants, and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. Includes a lengthy appendix of practical advice for the tropical traveler.

Picturing Tropical Nature

Picturing Tropical Nature PDF Author: Nancy Stepan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801438813
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
"Picturing Tropical Nature reflects on the work of several nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientists and artists, including Alexander von Humboldt, Alfred Russel Wallace, Louis Agassiz, Sir Patrick Manson, and Margaret Mee. Their careers illuminate several aspects of tropicalization: science and art in the making of tropical pictures; the commercial and cultural boom in things tropical in the modern period; photographic attempts to represent tropical hybrid races; antitropicalism and its role in an emerging environmentalist sensibility; and visual depictions of disease in the new tropical medicine."--Jacket.

Tropical Nature, and Other Essays

Tropical Nature, and Other Essays PDF Author: Alfred Russel Wallace
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description


Tropical Nature and Other Essays

Tropical Nature and Other Essays PDF Author: Alfred Russel Wallace
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465543902
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
It is difficult for an inhabitant of our temperate land to realize either the sudden and violent contrasts of the arctic seasons or the wonderful uniformity of the equatorial climate. The lengthening or the shortening days, the ever-changing tints of spring, summer, and autumn, succeeded by the leafless boughs of winter, are constantly recurring phenomena which represent to us the established course of nature. At the equator none of these changes occur; there is a perpetual equinox and a perpetual summer, and were it not for variations in the quantity of rain, in the direction and strength of the winds, and in the amount of sunshine, accompanied by corresponding slight changes in the development of vegetable and animal life, the monotony of nature would be extreme. In the present chapter it is proposed to describe the chief peculiarities which distinguish the equatorial from the temperate climate, and to explain the causes of the difference between them,—causes which are by no means of so simple a nature as are usually imagined. The three great divisions of the earth—the tropical, the temperate, and the frigid zones, may be briefly defined as the regions of uniform, of variable, and of extreme physical conditions respectively. They are primarily determined by the circumstance of the earth’s axis not being perpendicular to the plane in which it moves round the sun; whence it follows that during one half of its revolution the north pole, and during the other half the south pole, is turned at a considerable angle towards the source of light and heat. This inclination of the axis on which the earth rotates is usually defined by the inclination of the equator to the plane of the orbit, termed the obliquity of the ecliptic. The amount of this obliquity is 23½ degrees, and this measures the extent on each side of the equator of what are called the tropics, because within these limits the sun becomes vertical at noon twice a year, and at the extreme limit once a year, while beyond this distance it is never vertical. It will be evident, however, from the nature of the case, that the two lines which mark the limits of the geographical “tropics” will not define any abrupt change of climate or physical conditions, such as characterise the tropical and temperate zones in their full development. There will be a gradual transition from one to the other, and in order to study them separately and contrast their special features we must only take into account the portion of each in which these are most fully exhibited. For the temperate zone we may take all countries situated between 35° and 60° of latitude, which in Europe will include every place between Christiania and Algiers, the districts further south forming a transitional belt in which temperate and tropical features are combined. In order to study the special features of tropical nature, on the other hand, it will be advisable to confine our attention mainly to that portion of the globe which extends for about twelve degrees on each side of the equator, in which all the chief tropical phenomena dependent on astronomical causes are most fully manifested, and which we may distinguish as the “equatorial zone.” In the debateable ground between these two well contrasted belts local causes have a preponderating influence; and it would not be difficult to point out localities within the temperate zone of our maps, which exhibit all the chief characteristics of tropical nature to a greater degree than other localities which are, as regards geographical position, tropical.

The Geography, Nature and History of the Tropical Pacific and its Islands

The Geography, Nature and History of the Tropical Pacific and its Islands PDF Author: Walter M. Goldberg
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319695320
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
This volume provides an accessible scientific introduction to the historical geography of Tropical Pacific Islands, assessing the environmental and cultural changes they have undergone and how they are affected currently by these shifts and alterations. The book emphasizes the roles of plants, animals, people, and the environment in shaping the tropical Pacific through a cross-disciplinary approach involving history, geography, biology, environmental science, and anthropology. With these diverse scientific perspectives, the eight chapters of the book provide a comprehensive overview of Tropical Pacific Islands from their initial colonization by native peoples to their occupation by colonial powers, and the contemporary changes that have affected the natural history and social fabric of these islands. The Tropical Pacific Islands are introduced by a description of their geological formation, development, and geography. From there, the book details the origins of the island's original peoples and the dawn of the political economy of these islands, including the domestication and trade of plants, animals, and other natural resources. Next, readers will learn about the impact of missionaries on Pacific Islands, and the affects of Wold War II and nuclear testing on natural resources and the health of its people. The final chapter discusses the islands in the context of natural resource extraction, population increases, and global climate change. Working together these factors are shown to affect rainfall and limited water resources, as well as the ability to sustain traditional crops, and the capacity of the islands to accomodate its residents.

Tropical Whites

Tropical Whites PDF Author: Catherine Cocks
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812207955
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
As late as 1900, most whites regarded the tropics as "the white man's grave," a realm of steamy fertility, moral dissolution, and disease. So how did the tropical beach resort—white sand, blue waters, and towering palms—become the iconic vacation landscape? Tropical Whites explores the dramatic shift in attitudes toward and popularization of the tropical tourist "Southland" in the Americas: Florida, Southern California, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Catherine Cocks examines the history and development of tropical tourism from the late nineteenth century through the early 1940s, when the tropics constituted ideal winter resorts for vacationers from the temperate zones. Combining history, geography, and anthropology, this provocative book explains not only the transformation of widely held ideas about the relationship between the environment and human bodies but also how this shift in thinking underscored emerging concepts of modern identity and popular attitudes toward race, sexuality, nature, and their interconnections. Cocks argues that tourism, far from simply perverting pristine local cultures and selling superficial misunderstandings of them, served as one of the central means of popularizing the anthropological understanding of culture, new at the time. Together with the rise of germ theory, the emergence of the tropical horticulture industry, changes in passport laws, travel writing, and the circulation of promotional materials, national governments and the tourist industry changed public perception of the tropics from a region of decay and degradation, filled with dangerous health risks, to one where the modern traveler could encounter exotic cultures and a rejuvenating environment.

Portraits of the Rainforest

Portraits of the Rainforest PDF Author: Adrian Forsyth
Publisher: Camden House (NY)
ISBN: 9780921820994
Category : Forest ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Portrays the flora and fauna of the tropical rain forest, celebrating the beauty and complexity of the oldest ecosystem.

A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture

A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture PDF Author: Jiat-Hwee Chang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317495683
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture traces the origins of tropical architecture to nineteenth century British colonial architectural knowledge and practices. It uncovers how systematic knowledge and practices on building and environmental technologies in the tropics were linked to military technologies, medical theories and sanitary practices, and were manifested in colonial building types such as military barracks, hospitals and housing. It also explores the various ways these colonial knowledge and practices shaped post-war techno scientific research and education in climatic design and modern tropical architecture. Drawing on the interdisciplinary scholarships on postcolonial studies, science studies, and environmental history, Jiat-Hwee Chang argues that tropical architecture was inextricably entangled with the socio-cultural constructions of tropical nature, and the politics of colonial governance and postcolonial development in the British colonial and post-colonial networks. By bringing to light new historical materials through formidable research and tracing the history of tropical architecture beyond what is widely considered today as its "founding moment" in the mid-twentieth century, this important and original book revises our understanding of colonial built environment. It also provides a new historical framework that significantly bears upon contemporary concerns with climatic design and sustainable architecture. This book is an essential resource for understanding tropical architecture and its various contemporary manifestations. Its in-depth discussion and path breaking insights will be invaluable to specialists, academics, students and practitioners.

Making Parks Work

Making Parks Work PDF Author: John Terborgh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
Most scientists and researchers working in tropical areas are convinced that parks and protected areas are the only real hope for saving land and biodiversity in those regions. Rather than giving up on parks that are foundering, ways must be found to strengthen them, and Making Parks Work offers a vital contribution to that effort. Focusing on the "good news" -- success stories from the front lines and what lessons can be taken from those stories -- the book gathers experiences and information from thirty leading conservationists into a guidebook of principles for effective management of protected areas. The book: offers a general overview of the status of protected areas worldwide presents case studies from Africa, Latin America, and Asia written by field researchers with long experience working in those areas analyzes a variety of problems that parks face and suggests policies and practices for coping with those problems explores the broad philosophical questions of conservation and how protected areas can -- and must -- resist the mounting pressures of an overcrowded world Contributors include Mario Boza, Katrina Brandon, K. Ullas Karanth, Randall Kramer, Jeff Langholz, John F. Oates, Carlos A. Peres, Herman Rijksen, Nick Salafsky, Thomas T. Struhsaker, Patricia C. Wright, and others.

Tropical Mushrooms

Tropical Mushrooms PDF Author: Shu-ting Chang
Publisher: Chinese University Press
ISBN: 9789622012646
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description