Protected Areas in Selected Arab Countries of the Levant Region (Syria, Lebanon & Jordan): An Evaluation of Management and Recommendations for Improvement

The plant biomass for protected areas was maximum in summer (1221.56 g/m2) and minimum in winter (290.62 g/m2) as against grazed areas having maximum value 590.81 g/m2 in autumn and minimum 183.75 g/m2 in winter. Study revealed that at Protected site (Kanidajan) the above ground biomass ranged was from a minimum (1.11 t ha-1) in the spring season to a maximum (4.58 t ha-1) in the summer season while at Grazed site (Yousmarag), the aboveground biomass varied from a minimum (0.54 t ha-1) in the spring season to a maximum of 1.48 t ha-1 in summer seasonandat Seed sown site (Badipora), the lowest value of aboveground biomass obtained was 4.46 t ha-1 in spring while as the highest (7.98 t ha-1) was obtained in summer.

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Characterising essential breeding habitat for whales informs the development of large-scale Marine Protected Areas in the South Pacific

Marine Ecology Progress Series ◽

10.3354/meps11663 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 548 ◽

pp. 263-275 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

RE Lindsay ◽

R Constantine ◽

J Robbins ◽

DK Mattila ◽

A Tagarino ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Marine Protected Areas ◽

Large Scale ◽

South Pacific ◽

Breeding Habitat ◽

The South

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Reef-wide beneficial shifts in fish population structure following establishment of marine protected areas in Philippine coral reefs

Marine Ecology Progress Series ◽

10.3354/meps12067 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 570 ◽

pp. 187-202 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

RY Fidler ◽

RG Turingan ◽

AT White ◽

MNR Alava

Keyword(s):

Population Structure ◽

Coral Reefs ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Marine Protected Areas ◽

Fish Population ◽

Fish Population Structure

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Modeling cetacean habitat use in an urban coastal area in southeastern Brazil

Marine Ecology Progress Series ◽

10.3354/meps13313 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 642 ◽

pp. 227-240

Author(s):

L Lodi ◽

R Tardin ◽

G Maricato

Keyword(s):

Habitat Use ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Linear Models ◽

Anthropogenic Activities ◽

Buffer Zone ◽

Humpback Whales ◽

Southeastern Brazil ◽

Major Influence ◽

Cetacean Species ◽

Few Data

Most studies of cetacean habitat use do not consider the influence of anthropogenic activities. We investigated the influence of environmental and anthropogenic variables on habitat use by humpback Megaptera novaeangliae and Bryde’s whales Balaenoptera brydei off the coast of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. Although there are 2 marine protected areas (MPAs) in this area, few data are available on cetacean habitat use or on the overlap of different cetacean species within these MPAs. Our aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of the MPAs and propose a buffer zone to better protect the biodiversity of the study area. We conducted systematic surveys and developed spatial eigenvector generalized linear models to characterize habitat use by the species in the study area. Habitat use by humpback whales was influenced only by depth, whereas for Bryde’s whales there was the additional influence of anthropogenic variables. For Bryde’s whales, which use the area for feeding, sea surface temperature and the distance to anchorages had a major influence on habitat use. We also showed that neither of the MPAs in the study area adequately protects the hotspots of either whale species. Most of the humpback whale grid cells with high sighting predictions were located within 2 km of the MPAs, while areas of high sighting prediction of Bryde’s whales were located up to 5 km from the MPAs, closer to beaches. Our findings provide important insights for the delimitation of protected areas and zoning of the MPAs.

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Five Years and Count(er)ing: Memoir after Memoir

CounterText ◽

10.3366/count.2020.0180 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 26-32

Author(s):

Norbert Bugeja

Keyword(s):

Guest Editor ◽

Arab Countries ◽

National Museum ◽

Terror Attack ◽

Special Issue ◽

The Past ◽

Personal Perspectives ◽

The Moment ◽

Ongoing Project

In this retrospective piece, the Guest Editor of the first number of CounterText (a special issue titled Postcolonial Springs) looks back at the past five years from various scholarly and personal perspectives. He places particular focus on an event that took place mid-way between the 2011 uprisings across a number of Arab countries and the moment of writing: the March 2015 terror attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, which killed twenty-two people and had a profound effect on Tunisian popular consciousness and that of the post-2011 Arab nations. In this context, the author argues for a renewed perspective on memoir as at once a memorial practice and a political gesture in writing, one that exceeds concerns of genre and form to encompass an ongoing project of political re-cognition following events that continue to remap the agenda for the region. The piece makes a brief final pitch for Europe's need to re-cognise, within those modes of ‘articulacy-in-difficulty’ active on its southern borders, specific answers to its own present quandaries.

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HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMS OF ISLAM IN THE XXI CENTURY

Sociopolitical sciences ◽

10.33693/2223-0092-2020-10-5-134-140 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 134-140

Author(s):

MAKSIM SHKVARUN ◽

◽

SEJRAN ISKENDEROV

Keyword(s):

Historical Analysis ◽

Arab Countries ◽

Short History ◽

Active Stage ◽

Terrorist Organizations ◽

Special Contribution ◽

Political Processes ◽

Political Analysis ◽

Historical Processes ◽

The Subject

The subject of the research is the degree of influence of Sunni and Shi’ism on political processes in Arab countries. The object of the research is Islam as the legal basis of the state. The authors examine in detail such aspects of the topic as the historical analysis of the origin of Islam, the reasons for the division of Islam into Sunnis and Shiites, a comparative analysis of the two branches of Islam, the peculiarities of the legal schools of Islam, the interaction of Sunnis and Shiites with state power. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of interpretations (kalams) of the Qur’an and Sunnah. The study is fundamental and is aimed at the historical and political analysis of Islam in the XXI century. The relevance of this topic is confirmed by numerous studies of the described problems. The main conclusions of the study are that one of the key problems in the Arab states is the issue of the origin of power, which remains relevant even in the XXI century. The authors’ special contribution to the study of the topic is the hypothesis that the radicalism of Islam is associated with its short history in comparison with Christianity. Thus, Islam in the XXI century. is still at an active stage of formation, which leads to the emergence of Islamic terrorist organizations. The novelty of this scientific study lies in the consideration of historical processes in the political discourse of the XXI century.

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