Unit 2 Environmental Science

Per recommended practice, please make your initial post by Sunday of the learning
week. Your posts should cover the questions below in full, and be at least 300 words long.
Then reply to and peer-review at least three other posts by next Wednesday 11:59PM
UoPeople Time, and rate the posts and replies.

Go to the following links below. Choose one hotspot that is near the place where you currently
live or have lived.

Map: Biodiversity Hotspots

Hotspots: Conservation International

The Biodiversity Hotspots

The IUCN List of Threatened Species

Study the information about that biodiversity hotspot that you have chosen.

Then answer the following questions:

1. Which biodiversity hotspot did you choose to write about? (Give the name)

2. Where is it located? (Give the world, region and country)

3. What are two important species (give common and scientific names) that live there? Why
are they important?

4. What is one endangered species (give common and scientific name) that lives there? Why
is it endangered?

5. List three other interesting facts that you have learned about this place.

6. List one thing you feel could be done to help save it.

Any materials cited should be referenced using the style guidelines established by the
American Psychological Association (APA).

Australias biodiversity is ever so fascinating to me. Its plants and animals are the
closet things to alien life on earth. Being isolated from other for 80 million years has
resulted in a different revolutionary journey in Australia. (Lonely Planet, 2014)
mentioned the swans here are black, mammals here lay eggs, larger animals hop
and trees shed their bark rather than their leaves. Here is one of the worlds most
distinct and diverse natural realms.

I had the chance to travel to Australia just a week ago. There I experienced the
amusing Aussie biodiversity world. Although I have not visited the native forests of
South-West region of Australia, it sounds amusing, according to (BBC News, 2014):

The native forests of south-west Australia retain only 10% of their

original 310,000 sq km of vegetation and yet they contain over
5,000 plant species and nearly 500 vertebrate species.

Despite early deforestation, the remaining forests are now well

protected.

Two important species in this area, one is the honey-possum (Tarsipes rostratus). Without it,
such plants as Banksia attenuata, Banksia coccinea or Adenanthos cuneatus can not be
pollinated. The other is the red-capped parrot (Purpureicephalus spurius), commonly known as
the western king parrot. They are found in tall eucalypt forests,typically Marri and also Wandoo
and Jarrah.

One endangered specie living in the area is the Western Swamp Tortoise
(Pseudemydura umbrina) - the most threatened fresh water turtle. Uniquely, it is
also the only turtle or tortoise species where females dig the nest chamber with the
fore limbs and the males are larger than females. Females usually lay three to five
eggs each year - a slow rate of reproduction. They may live for around 70 years a
long generation time. It is slow (no punch intended) to respond to the major threats of
land clearing, swamp drainage and predation. Human intervention is necessary to keep this
specie alive for the next generation to see.
The Australian Conservation Foundation allow people to donate funds and time to
conserving native species. If you wish, you can plant a tree, construct a walking-
track, and survey flora and fauna by volunteering with the NGO Conservation
Volunteers Australia.

References
BBC News. (2014, October 1). Map: Biodiversity hotspots. Retrieved from BBC News
UK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3707888.stm#swaustralia
Lonely Planet. (2014). Lonely Planet Australia.
Go to the EPA website and learn about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

1. Are any of these options and/or types of programs available in YOUR local
community/village/town? Which ones? Explain.

2. What about in your home? Explain.

3. If none are used in your local town or home, which could be? Explain.

4. Please outline in your own words, one new thing you learned this week in the course.
How does it apply to your life?

5. Tell me, the professor, how this course is going for you so far? How do you find the
material?

I feel overwhelmed with sadness and shame that in my country, Vietnam, there is
little practice in the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle movement. Not in the big cities, nor in
the little villages. No no no.
The easiest sign is people donot categorize wastes into recyclable or non-recyclable.
Plastic and food and glass and batteries all go into one waste basket in every
household, or one public garbage bin. Talking to a Vietnamese, and you will find that
we have no clue about organic versus non-organic waste categories. We are not
aware how beneficial it is to categorize throw-aways into garbage and recycling
items, and there are no strict legal system that dictate the behavior.
But there is an interesting system in Vietnam to make things better than it sound.
As a child, I was tempted to collect and categorized waste, especially empty alcohol
bottle. Was I a natural environmentalist? Hardly, but because there exist a financial
incentive for me and other people. (VietnamOnline, 2016) wrote about how this
system works:

Dumpster diving is an occupation in Vietnam, with many men and

women often browsing through the pile to look for reusable and
recyclable items such as glass bottle, paper and cardboard to sell
them back to those in need for some petty cash. Dong nat or ve
chai are local street sellers whose trading items are recyclable and
reusable products. They actively wander around the streets and
offer to buy these items and later sell them back to the dealers and
profit from the difference.
I rent a small corner - under the stairway actually, to sleep and stock furniture, in a
house for 50USD monthly. The owner throws everything in a plastic bags -
sometimes in white, most often in black color, then dump it at a specific location in
the neighborhood where the garbage collector will drive by. I reckon more than 40
million households (out of a population of 90 million people) in Vietnam do the
same. The government has not made any effort in boosting this movement.
Last year I and my co-workers at a watersport sailing centre organized a clean-up
event in Muine, Vietnam. We aimed to pick up a tremendous amount of garbage,
which were dumped by the local to the sea, then swayed to the shore. The event
attracted 400 people, picked up a few tons of rubbish, stuffed few trucks full
(MANTA Sail Training Centre, 2016). Trucks then took rubbish to Phan Thiet for
processing plastic pollution. There is still a lot of work to do, but the Clean Up event
is happening around Vietnam to raise local awareness.

Coming from a country with a thick population density (roughly 300 people per
square km), the population interested me a great deal. It is 5.2 times higher than
the worlds average. There are huge problems to be addressed and opportunities to
embrace. One problem that directly affects me is the low income, due to high
supply but low demand in the job market. But the opportunity is, if I do business (i.e
selling a product), then Vietnam is fresh and tasty market to expand and explore.
That is why I am currently building a coffee business to this market.

I have trouble reading and processing a huge amount of information weekly. Partly
because English is not my native language. The material was written in the easiest
way to understand, and I found that I had learned most of the concepts presented,
in high school. As the course progresses, I am gaining more awareness about the
environment, and are discussing with my English boss about how I can assist her
environmental-related works more.

References
MANTA Sail Training Centre. (2016). Muine Clean-up with MANTA. Retrieved from
mantasailing.org: http://mantasailing.org/muine-clean-up-with-manta/
VietnamOnline. (2016). Garbage and Recycling. Retrieved from VietnamOnline:
https://www.vietnamonline.com/living/garbage-and-recycling.html