Impact of Globalisation on Land Use and Food Security

Impact of Globalisation on Land Use and Food Security Discuss the impact of globalisation on land use and food security in developed tropical areas. Globalisation over the past decades has impacted on major fields worldwide. It connects the world through trade, human migration, markets and capital flows and social and political institutions (Lambin Meyfroidt, 2011). With the projected population growth of 9 billion in 2030 (Grau Aide, 2008), the pressure on land use has become a major issue, the main reason being that land is a limited resource. There is no doubt that urbanization and technology breakthrough and population growth have a direct impact on the available land. This essay will argue that the impacts of globalisation have been rather negative, causing mass deforestation and pressure on the available fertile soils and yielding to an increase in abandoned lands which in turn have damaged the biomes of these forests. It will also include some possible solution to the problems caused by globalisation on land use. Globalisation has given rise to massive deforestation all over the planet. According to Lambin and Meyfroidt (2011), the land lost to degradation for the period 2000 to 2030 is predicted to be 30 to 87 Million per hectare, (Mha) and for the same period the total land demand predicted is 303 to 845 Mha. These authors further predict that the existing protected areas will continue to expand at a rate of 0.9 to 2.7 Mha per year while 1 to 2.9 Mha will become unsuitable for cultivation for the same period. Thus the available land for cultivation will be taken up rapidly and forests are bound to be cleared for cultivation in the near future. According to the same authors, deforestation is significantly affected by the spatial dynamics caused by displacement, rebound, cascade and remittance. The effect of these four factors are linked to migration of people, international growing trade and land conversion. Furthermore the change in diet and eating habits of the world growing population has contributed immensely to agricultural expansion (Grau Aide, 2008). A clear example of impact of globalization, deforestation and growing food demand can be seen in Brazil. For the past years, Brazil has been producing soy intensively for the South East Asia (soy boom). This phenomenon has a double effect on the world. The soy boom based partly on transgenic cultivars supplies the world with high quality food thus alleviating the increasing food demand and has a positive outcome for the Brazilian economy, but on the other hand this production has caused immense deforestation and damage of Biosystems in Brazil. The principal area of damage is the Amazon basin (Houghton et al. 1991; Laurance 1998; Lambin et al. 2003) cited by Grau Aide (2008)). Paragraph 2 One solution to cater for the diminishing fertile land would be modern agriculture. Modern agriculture can enhance food productivity and efficient use of fertile soils. Paragraph 3 The other factor contributing to depletion of the fertile soil around the world and to deforestation is the rapidly growing population, the constant increase in food demand and  new eating habits. There is evidence that land use has been highly affected by globalisation causing problems worldwide. This essay has discussed the various aspects of the problems. Both Lambin Meyfroidt (2011) and Grau Aide (2008) agree that efficient land management, technological advancement through new high yield crops and second generation biofuels as well as appropriate investments plans for the restoration of degraded lands are potential solutions to sustain food productivity and efficient land use. Furthermore, with modern agriculture, better policies and collaboration within countries, the available land can still produce enough food for the world while preserving biodiversity and our forests. The fertile lands could be used to cultivate high yield crops while the low productive lands could be used to grow crops for biofuels. Moreover technical knowhow in agriculture could contribute immensely towards research and innovation for the promotion of new plants adapted to grow in marginal and ab andoned lands. In this way, these lands could be restored and the plants cultivated would keep the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide as well as the biodiversity of the area. Reference List: Calum Brown, Dave Murray-Rust, Jasper van Vliet, Shah Jamal Alam,Peter H. Verburg, Mark D. Rounsevell, Experiments in Globalisation, Food Security and Land Use Decision Making, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9XP, United Kingdom, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Eric F. Lambin Patrick Meyfroidt, 2011, Global land use change, economic globalization, and the looming land scarcity, School of Earth Sciences and Woods Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and Earth and Life Institute, Georges Lemaà ®tre Centre for Earth and Climate Research, University of Louvain, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Grau, HR M Aide 2008,Globalization and land-use transitions in Latin America Ecology and Society 13(2):16. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss2/art16/ Patrick Meyfroidt, Eric F. Lambin (UCL/Stanford) et al., Globalization of land use: Global land use trends, potentially available cropland and paths of commodity crop Expansion, F.R.S.-FNRS Università © catholique de Louvain (UCL), Earth and Life Institute, TECLIM research center, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium Rachael D Garrett, Ximena Rueda Eric F Lambin2013, Globalizations unexpected impact on soybean production in South America: linkages between preferences for non-genetically modified crops, eco-certifications, and land use, Environmental Research Letters, Volume 8, Number 4 Schmitz, C , Biewald, A, Lotze-Campen, H, Popp, A, Dietrich, JP, Bodirsky, B, Krause, M, Weindl, I, 2012, Global Environmental Change-Human And Policy Dimensions, Vol.22(1), pp.189-209

Modern Day Slavery Essay

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery. Yet it is still very much alive and well despite the fact that it is banned in most of the countries where it is practiced. Millions of women, men and children are coerced or forced into slavery and are sold like objects, forced to work in dehumanizing conditions for little or on pay and are oftentime abused by their employers. Modern-day slavery can be defined as unlawful imprisonment, demoralization of human being and the violation of human rights of others. Modern-day Slavery Practices The International Labor Organization and respected abolitionists put the global number of slaves at between 10-30 million worldwide (Maddox, 2012). According to the United Nations the total market value of human trafficking at 32 billion U.S. dollars. In Europe, criminals are pocketing around $2.5 billion per year through sexual exploitation and forced labor (Maddox, 2012). In essence, modern day slavery is alive and very prominent all over the world. Modern day slavery manifest in many forms namely forced labor, bonded labor, sex trafficking, forced migrant labor, involuntary domestic servitude, and forced child labor. According to the US State Department 2005 and 2007 reports, between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. each year. Worldwide, there are roughly 800,000 people that are trafficked across international borders and of that number 70 percent are females (Anka Rising, 2012). Based on a 2009 research study conducted by the United Nations nearly 20 percent of human trafficking victims are chidren. Furthermore, in an extract from the US State Department â€Å"Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP)† (June, 2009) the following facts were revealed: 1 – The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation; 2 – While the majority of trafficking in the PRC occurs within the country’s borders, there is also considerable trafficking of PRC citizens to Africa, other parts of Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America; 3 – Women are lured through false promises of legitimate employment and forced into commercial sexual exploitation largely in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan; 4 – Chinese women and men are smuggled throughout the world at great personal financial cost and then forced into commercial sexual exploitation or exploitative labor to repay debts to traffickers, and; 5 – Women and children are trafficked to China from such countries as Mongolia, Burma, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, Romania, and Ghana for purposes of forced labor , marriage, and sexual slavery (p. 104). Addressing Modern-day Slavery The US State Department suggest that punishment, protection and prevention are ways of addressing and cracking down on modern-day slavery, namely human trafficking. The 2009 TIP Report analyzes foreign goverment anti-trafficking laws and policies in respect to the type of punishment imposed on trafficking offenders. As such, the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA of 2008) was put into place to strengthened the U.S. Government’s criminal statute on forced labor (Trafficking in Persons, 2009, p. 26). The act clears up any misconception about nonphysical forms of coercion, that are mostly recognized as potent tools used by traffickers and provides a detailed explanation of â€Å"abuse or threatened abuse of law or legal process,† a prohibited means of coercion under both the forced labor and sex trafficking statutes.

Practicum Reflection Paper

Every fourth-year teacher trainees will have to conduct practicum and will work under the guideline of their associate teachers and supervisors. The purpose of doing the practicum are to put training into practice, to become accustomed to teaching in the tertiary school settings, and to develop and expand each trainee’s teaching expertise and confidence. In the following paragraph, I will express what I have learnt from doing practicum to reflect on my past teaching strengths and weaknesses from the teaching practicum.Firstly, I would like to talk about the lesson planning and delivering. As we have already learnt from Teaching Methodology 402, lesson plan works as guideline and help us a lot as teacher trainees. It reminds us what to do, which data and techniques to use to facilitate both teaching and learning. As for the process of planning and delivering the lesson plan, I would dear to say that it is not an easy thing to do. For my case, the first time I planned my lesson plan I spent about ten hours to complete it.I had to think of the objectives of the lesson I would teach, collect materials to use, and select techniques which is suitable with the materials I chose and would help students to have reason to study. It is not enough yet; I had also discussed with both my associate and supervisor lecturers and my peers for ideas and advice. Next, it is about the classroom management. Monitoring students and the class is needed during our teaching. We have to make sure that students are listening to our instruction, when we are giving it to them. We can ask one or two students to repeat or tell other students what they are supposed to do.It is recommended that we have to frequently spend our time walking around the class. In doing so, we can monitor the students effectively. Also, it is easy for students to ask question if there are any. Voice projection also plays very important in language teaching. It is fact that louder speech can make our teaching more interesting. But if we speak too soft, the students will get bored because sometimes they cannot hear us properly. One of teacher trainees I have observed got only mark just around the border line score. The reason is that her voice is too soft.Last but not least, pronunciation, it is very important for us as the language teacher especially when teaching vocabulary and we have to pronounce words correctly. I could see that almost all associate teachers and supervisors always focus on and tell every teacher trainee before and after he or she teaches. I myself have been given comments related to this problem from both my associate teacher and supervisor during my teaching. Actually, I am also aware of this issue and it is clear I could not get full mark for this from my lectures. However, I will to improve my pronunciation so I will be better my teaching in the future.In conclusion, I have gained more knowledge and experiences from doing practicum not just from associate and supe rvisor lecturers and my peers, but also from the students I have taught. Most people think that teaching the language is not very difficult. They just come to class and explain the students based on the course book. However, it is not the right thought to my understanding and observation so far. To achieve good result of teaching, we have to consider number of thing carefully such as lesson planning and delivering, classroom management, methodology, and other important aspects in teaching.

Coal Mining in the UK During the Industrial Revolution

The state of the mines which boomed throughout the United Kingdom during the industrial revolution is a passionately argued area. It is very hard to generalize about the living and working conditions experienced in mines, as there was great regional variation and some owners acted paternalistically while others were cruel. However, the business of working down the pit was dangerous, and safety conditions were often far below par. Payment Coal miners were paid by the amount and quality of the coal they produced, and they could be fined if there was too much slack (the smaller pieces). Quality coal was what owners required, but managers determined the standards for quality coal. Owners could keep costs low by claiming the coal was of a poor quality or rigging their scales. A version of the Mines Act (there were several such acts) appointed inspectors to check the weighing systems.   Workers received a relatively high basic wage, but the amount was deceptive. A system of fines could quickly reduce their pay, as could having to buy their own candles and stoppages for dust or gas. Many were paid in tokens which had to be spent in shops created by the mine owner, allowing them to recoup the wages in profits for overpriced food and other goods.   Working Conditions Miners had to cope with hazards regularly, including roof collapses and explosions. Starting in 1851, inspectors recorded fatalities, and they found that respiratory illnesses were common and that various illnesses plagued the mining population. Many miners died prematurely. As the coal industry expanded, so did the number of deaths, Mining collapses were a common cause of death and injury.   Mining Legislation Government reform was slow to take place.  Mine owners protested these changes and claimed many of the guidelines meant to protect the workers would reduce their profits too greatly, but the laws passed during the nineteenth century, with the first Mines Act passing in 1842. Although it contained no provisions for housing or inspection. It represented a small step in the government taking responsibility for safety, age limits, and wage scales. In 1850, another version of the act required regular inspection in mines throughout the U.K. and gave the inspectors some authority in determining how the mines were run. They could fine owners, who violated the guidelines and report deaths. However, at the start, there were only two inspectors for the entire country.   In 1855, a new act introduced seven basic rules about ventilation, air shafts, and the mandatory fencing off of unused pits. It also established higher standards for signaling from the mine to  the surface, adequate breaks for the steam-powered elevators, and safety rules for steam engines. Legislation enacted in 1860 banned children under twelve from working underground and required regular inspections of the weighing systems. Unions were allowed to grow. Further legislation in 1872 increased the number of inspectors and made sure they actually had some experience in mining before they began. By the end of the nineteenth century, the industry had gone from being largely unregulated to having miners represented in Parliament through the surging Labour Party.