Human Mind

The human mind is the totality of all conscious and unconscious mental processes that have been occurred or are occurring in the brain. Mind disorders, from mild emotional disorders to severe illness, are studied and treated in various ways. Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. Psychology involves research into feelings, intelligence, learning, memory perception, personality development, speech and thought. Psychologists may also diagnose and treat mental, behavioral or emotional problems through psychotherapy although since they lack medical qualification. Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods to treat mental behavioral or emotional problems such as neuroses and personality disorders. Treatment is based on the relationship between sufferer and psychotherapist. Following the framework of the type of therapy used, they talk about symptoms and problems in an attempt to find a solution. Psychiatry is a branch of medicine concerned with research into, and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Psychiatry sees mental disorders as medical conditions. Psychiatrists are medically qualified and may use psychotherapeutic drugs to treat patients. Psycho therapeutic drugs used in the treatment of mental disorders, these can be very effective in the alleviation of symptoms both long and short term although some carry risk of dependence.

World conservation strategy

Plants and animals are unaware of Political boundaries conservation must be based on worldwide strategies. In 1980 the World Conservation Strategy was launched by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources), WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme). It said that conservation of three factors was needed: 1. Life support cycles, water, soil and air; 2. Species of plants and animals; 3. Genetic diversity. This document became the basis of conservation policies in over 50 countries.

In 1991 IUCN, WWF and UNEP launched caring for the Earth, an updated policy document setting targets and suggesting some methods of approach. IN 1992 the Earth Summit in Rio was attended by many heads of governments, who pledged to implement much of caring for the Earth, its strategies were largely embodied in the Biodiversity Convention ( Although it was not signed by USA). Many of those good intentions have since been watered down or bogged down, but the idea survives and a number are gradually being implemented with a world system of biosphere reserves and heritage sites.

Coral reefs and Mangrove Swamps

Coral reefs are found where the average annual temperature of the sea does not drop below 21.C. they are the richest of marine environments, estimated to contain one third of the world’s fish species and up to 500,000 animal species in all. Reef corals can only thrive in shallow water, so are often close to land, and therefore at special risk from human activities. Dangers include pollution; dredging and removal for construction purposes; damage by collection of coral and other invertebrates as tourist trophies; and collection of fish for the aquarist trade, which has already wiped out some species of colourful reef fish.

 Mangrove swamps occur in tropical regions where soft sediments are covered with sea water. In cooler areas salt marshes take their place. Both types of environment are rich in species. Mangrove swamps are the nurseries for many kinds of open water tropical fish; salt marshes are feeding grounds for the worlds migrating waders and water fowl. Yet both environments are regarded with disfavor by the majority of human kind and there has been greater destruction of mangrove swamps than of any other habitat type. Currently about 165, 000Km2 of mangrove forest remain, but almost all are under threat largely from pollution, which in some cases causes harmful mutations, and from expansion of farming.

Wetlands

The wetland ecosystem- rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and swamps- is under threat. Currently covering about 6 percent of the Earth’s surface, wetlands are shrinking rapidly. Destruction of wetlands may seem to bring nothing but benefit. Draining a marsh creates fertile land for cultivations and reduces breeding areas for insects such as mosquitoes. Damming a river provides a water supply, and may mean a source of power as well.
But many changes to water system carry seeds of disaster.
 The Aswan Dam on the upper Nile, completed in 1963 and fully effective by the 1970s, was meant to regulate the river’s flow and provide hydro electric power. However, the traditional fertility of the Nile valley was dependent on over 100 million tones of silt deposited annually as the river flooded. The silt is now silting up the artificial Lake Nasser, forcing farmers downstream to rely on fertilizers, and robbing local brick makers of raw materials; around 35 percent of Egypt’s cultivated land is suffering from salination. Deprived of nutrients, the fish stocks of the eastern Mediterranean are declining while the Nile delta is being eroded steadily. Schistosomiasis is a disease common in newly irrigated areas, has spread explosively, causing debilitation and death; in 1990 between five and six million people were affected.
Surviving wetlands are often badly damaged: by engineering schemes; by eutrophication, when nutrients flow off the land causing huge growths of weeds that over whelm other plant life; by pollution from sewage or toxic industrial waste; or by thermal pollution from water used for cooling.

Habitats in Danger

Habitat destruction is the greatest threat to plant and animal species worldwide. In some cases, such as felling of tropical forests or draining of wetlands, damage is frequently done under the impression that the environment is being improved for human food production or habitation. In others, lack of understanding of the importance of particular environment in the life cycles of certain species has led to their downfall. Drainage of mangrove swamps, nurseries for many kinds of fish, falls in to this category.

Sometimes wetland areas are seen as places where disease carrying insects breed, so they are drained without thought of their importance to the environment as a whole. Forests are felled because of the value of the wood they contain, regardless of the fact that they act as a water holding system, without which rivers may run faster in rainy seasons, causing soil erosion in their upper reaches and problems of silting as the river approaches the sea.

 In some areas, even nonessential human demand is regarded as paramount –for example, the breeding beaches of marine turtles in many parts of the world have been sacrificed to holiday homes and hotels, used by a comparatively small number of wealthy visitors. Although experience should show that environmental change often has far reaching effects not foreseen in the early stages of change, mankind seems to be at many instances incapable of learning.

Human and other living creatures

From the time when human beings first began to grow crops and live in settled communities, their numbers increased fairly steadily until about 1700. Shortly after this the industrial revolution led to a doubling of the population in about 100 tears. In 1800 the world‘s population was around one billion.

By 1990, the numbers had risen to over five billion people will be looking for shelter and food somewhere on the earth. One species cannot increase explosively without affecting all the others. Since about 1700, at least 300 species of vertebrates have become extinct. Now a days we can observe in detail most creatures that are being lost, and the estimate is between 50 and 100 species a day. If the present trend continues at least a quarter of all living things will have disappeared before the human population reaches its levels out, probably in the middle of 21st century.

Extinction of Plants

Plant extinctions have followed the same pattern as animal extinctions. Destruction of environment, particularly on isolated islands, has led to the most dramatic losses. On Hawaii, for example, about 300 plant species have become extinct within the last 300 years. On St. Helena, only 20 of over 100 species of native plants survive and of these 15 are in danger of extinction. It is said that of Barbados all native trees were felled within 40 years of the island’s discovery by European.
Just as an animal species may depend on one plant for survival, the reverses may also be true. For instant, the dodo tree, once abundant in Mauritius, has been reduced to 13 very aged trees since the extinction of the dodo, which ate and dispersed its seeds.
Commercially valuable plants have often been exterminated by over exploitation. Mauritius ebony and Sanfernandez sandalwood are both extinct, examples of felling without provision for regrowth. The wine palm of Dominica, tapped to make spirit in a way that killed it, became extinct in the 1920s.
Habitat destruction is the greatest threat to plant and animal species worldwide. In some cases, such as felling of tropical forests or draining of wetlands, damage is frequently done under the impression that the environment is being improved for human food production or habitation. In others, lack of understanding of the importance of particular environment in the life cycles of certain species has led to their downfall. Drainage of mangrove swamps, nurseries for many kinds of fish.