"Local people make the decisions concerning land use and resource exploitation. It is costly to enforce prohibitions against their chosen activities and so prohibitions often increase monitoring cost without conservation benefits" (Bulte, Van Kooten & Swanson 9)
). (Diaz 1300) While all of these are important, the regulation of water may be the most important as water is the basis of all life
The rugged nature of this range which peaks in the state of Durango with several peaks more than 3,000 meters high is attested to by the fact that currently there are only two means of surface transportation, being a highway from Durango to Mazatlan and a railroad from Chihuahua to Los Mochis, traversing it. This incredibly beautiful region of Mexico "is gouged by a labyrinth of torturous canyons, from the 6,136-foot-deep Barranca de Urique in the north to the 7,500-foot-deep Barranca de Piaxtla in the south" (Annerino 60)
In the southeast, Mexico shares an 871-kilometer border with Guatemala and a 251-kilometer border with Belize. And like the northern border, these "are defined mostly by natural boundaries, such as rivers (the Rio Usumacinta and the Rio Hondo) and partly by artificial boundaries" (Arbingast 32)
The Verde Valley, to the north of Jalisco in the state of Aguascalientes, is also part of this geological formation. The basins to the west of Toluca are interconnected and relatively level and together they form an important sub-region known as El Bajio (flatlands) where "the rich volcanic ash and lacustrine soils from old lakebeds makes this area one of the most productive agricultural zones in the whole of Mexico" (Butland 71)
According to John Annerino, this region forms "a chain of fifty-five islands, islets and pinnacles that teem with myriad species of flora and fauna, often regarded by many naturalists as Mexico's Galapagos" (75). It has been suggested that Hernando Cortez, the famous Spanish conqueror of Mexico, described the topography of Mexico by crumbling up a piece of paper, throwing it down and stating "This is a map of Mexico" (Calvert 67)
Tropical forest covers much of the lowest western slopes of the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Cordillera Neo-Volcanica; such luxuriant flora can also be found in the Oaxaca. These forests "loose their leaves during the dry winter but are lush and verdant in the summer rainy season" (Lewis 82)
North of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec the term mestizo was used for many years, while south of the isthmus, especially in the state of Chiapas, those of mixed Indian-Hispanic heritage were called Ladinos. However, in the Yucatan peninsula, the concept of metizo had a completely different meaning, for it referred to the indigenous Maya; thus, as anthropologist Julian Pitt-Rivers states "it was virtually impossible to make any statement about Indians or Mestizos that was applicable nationwide, for these concepts referred to highly qualitative and heterogeneous ethnic categories" (Ehrlich 214)
To the northeast, the Chiapas Highlands give way to the lowland tropical rain forest common to the southern Yucatan peninsula and the adjacent region of northern Guatemala known as El Peten. Moving northward up the Yucatan peninsula, "the dense jungle opens up to a tropical savanna and the extreme northern end is quite dry" (Lockwood 145)
The Sierra Madre Oriental runs from the border with Texas south to the northern part of the state of Puebla and although narrower than the Sierra Madre Occidental, it reaches higher altitudes, peaking at over 3,700 meters in the state of Nuevo Leon. In this environment, "animal life is rich and is reminiscent of those biomes elsewhere in the world with similar vegetation characteristics" (Moore 85)
This was, and still is, based on the achievements of the Olmecs, Zapotecs, Toltecs and the Maya that culminated in the rise and fall of the Aztecs. Also, during the 1980's, it was thought that it was still possible to find ethnic groups that were the direct descendants of the pre-Hispanic Indian societies; however, Mexican anthropologist Gonzalo Beltran strongly opposed this over-simplified view, for he suggested that "Indian societies lived mainly in the regions of refuge, made up of a number of villages as a rational defensive reaction to hundreds of years of abuse and exploitation" (Pielou 145)
The careless loss of any part of the natural environment means that we may never know what use it was or could have been in terms of future technologies, say, or for medical science, or indeed for the health of the planet itself.(Meadows, DH, Meadows, D
Indeed, despite a massive government subsidy that kept the 2002 Games from bankruptcy, the taxpayers still ended up subsidizing each ticket sold for the event by more than $500. Other interdependencies that will be affected by the remediation initiatives outlined above include economic and political trends at the national level (Averley and Clayton 2011)
Rather thanbeing allowed to simply attenuate in the rain over time, this "relocated" problem of contaminated soil and water can also be addressed using off-site bioremediation techniques that involve unearthing the soil and introducing bacteria to feed on the contaminants that hasten their complete breakdown by 20-50% (Lam 2004), thereby providing a highly cost-effective solution to an ongoing problem. Another in situ remediation process, known as phytoremediation, uses plants that "have an appetite for lead, uranium and other pollutants" and a "genetic makeups that allow them to absorb and store, degrade or transform substances that kill or harm other plants and animals" (Bower 2000, p
The Glasgow 2014 Sustainability Plan stipulates that environmental sustainability at the Games will be accomplished using a multifaceted approach that includes: Remediation of contaminated land at all new venues; Using a web portal for the procurement of goods, services and works of all types and values for Glasgow 2014; Upgrading existing stadia and venues; Constructing a Sustainable Energy Centre for the Athletes' Village NISA and Velodrome; and, Providing free public transport within Glasgow for spectators with their sports tickets (Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Holds Environment and Sustainability Conference 2013). The regeneration site for the 2014 British Commonwealth Games in Glasgow had extensive contamination issues combined with being in close proximity to high density neighborhoods, as well as a lengthy history of industrial use that spanned several hundred years (Campbell 2013)
" Likewise, Kreitzer also notes that depending on the types of plants that are used, toxins can be stored, transformed into less harmful forms, or converted into gasses that are released into the atmosphere during plant respiration. The phytoremediation approach will also contribute to the biodiversity of the Game site (Chivian and Bernstein 2008)
2. Specific actions and cost-benefit analysis: It is important to note that the concept of remediation and therefore the associated cost-benefit analyses involves the entire process of the initial assessment of land that is identified as contaminated, the conduct of preventive, remedial or restorative measures, as well as subsequent inspection and review (Dybowska and Farago 2006)
Builders [were] forced to stop work [for 2 weeks] on the new National Indoor Sports Arena and National Velodrome after asbestos was discovered." Local residents loudly complained to the news media that they had not been kept informed about this discovery, nor the remediation processes that were being used to abate the pollutants (Ferguson, 2009)
The remediation process involves removing the source to prevent further contamination. According to Campbell (2013), the cost-effective method of remediation used at the Game site is commonly termed "dig-and-dump"; in this method, soil that is contaminated is simply dug up and relocated to a landfilling site
" The certifications provided by BREEAM take into account a number of important features of a location design, including energy consumption, water usage, pollution, waste, land use and ecology, as well as how the facility is managed (Green Business Awards 2008). Following the BREEAM evaluation, a classification of Good, Very Good, Excellent, or Outstanding is awarded (Hoare 2008)