Northwest Region Development Essay

The film North by Northwest was released in 1959 and is a suspenseful film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The films protagonist is actor Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill. He plays New York City ad executive pursued by ruthless spy Phillip Vandamm after Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent. Hunted relentlessly by Vandamm's associates, the harried Thornhill ends up on a cross-country journey.

The Kayapo tribe is not the only tribe dealing with land issues and problems with the Brazilian government, as well as surrounding countries’ governments. There are over 150 tribes that are native to Brazil, and around 90% of those tribes live in or around the Amazon Basin. Many of these tribes, including the Kayapo, have been having land ownership issues with outsiders trying to use native land. Since Europeans arrived in Brazil over 100 years ago, native tribes have experienced mass genocide, and seizure of most of their land. The main problem, and a problem resembling all other issues that have faced the Kayapo tribe, is that a large company called “Eletrobras” is pushing alongside the Brazilian government to try to build a massive dam in the outskirts of Kayapo territory. The government has done nothing but encourage

Throughout the course of history, geography has always played an important role in the shaping of civilizations. In the British colonies of North America, geography determined almost all aspects of how they would develop. Questions like whether a colony would be agricultural or based on trade, what kind of immigrants would come to each region, which colonies would develop an economic backbone based off of slavery, how stable a colony would be, and what a colony’s basic unit of local government can be answered by geography because it was the primary factor in shaping the development of these aspects of British North America in the seventeenth century.

Brazil's Polonoroeste development program was taken into the hands of the World Bank. Although smaller repairs and preservative methods to maintain the healthiness of the Rainforest would had sufficed, they decided to create a long-stripped highway through the middle of the Rainforest. But why stop there? They continued to distribute the land as they saw fit, causing mass immigration of the animals and native villagers, and caused the mass destruction of the Rainforest. The World Bank takes to the grave that their intentions were for the greater good of Brazil and it's people, yet they did more harm to their market and environment and it only got worse from there.

Deforestation, pollution, poaching, and soil abuse are just four of the innumerable factors that lead to deleterious effects on the environment. With more and more trees falling under the determined chainsaws and axe blows of illegal loggers and soil loss from tenuous irrigation methods, South American governments have a rising concern to protect its ecosystem. But an unusual, and equally controversial, solution came not within the restraining bounds of the country borders, but from the efforts of the American multi-millionaire and philanthropic conservationist, Douglas Tompkins. Concerned about the ecology of South America, Tompkins purchased sumptuous strips of forest land to shield it from the venomous ways of poachers and illegal loggers.

In a country known for its elegant and flashy display of beautiful and wealth, there are groups of people, particular in the Amazon Rainforest, who still live detached from modernity and lifestyle of the contemporary world. Even though some of those groups live in voluntary isolation, they are united in their fight for land and environmental rights. One of these groups is the Kayapo, a group of around nine thousand indigenous people, who lives in the village of Gorotire along the Xingu River. Although the Kayapo have famously evolved from an isolated tribute to active voice against numerous developmental projects proposed by the Brazilian government, other groups such as rubber tappers in the Xapuri area have also made significant progress in securing political and cultural rights. While these communities and indigenous groups often share different cultures and customs, they are connected through a common struggle: defending their cultural and political identity amidst oppression and neglect from the Brazilian government.

The movement of people that has resulted in the settlement of America is one of the most fascinating and significant topics in the history of the United States. Nowhere else has an area of equal size been settled as a result of the initiative of small groups and individuals. Westward expansion helped stimulate the American economy.

The first three major eras of the Pacific Northwest show some remarkable changes. What begins with the first people rapidly becomes a barrage of settlers, development and the harvesting of resources. Each period of time in the PNW brings changes in the people, the geography, and the culture.

Throughout the history of human existence mankind has demonstrated an innate duality defined by a curiosity towards potential unknown and the desire to transform potential into reality. The Westward Expansion of American territory in the 19th century stands a shining example of this character. Amidst the throws of foreign conflict, political unrest, and the maturation of the New World a hope was rising that would drive an entire nation across the rugged wilderness of the West. However, this migration was not solely fueled by a desire to explore uncharted territory. Much like the locomotive that would eventually traverse the transcontinental path, westward movement was the consequence of inertia gathered from the weight of mechanical symphony

Known as one of the biggest agricultural advancements that the Natives achieved, the residents of the Amazon found a way around the land’s limitations of its poor soil by changing the way they grew and harvested their crops. While European nations continued to focus on annual crops, the Amazonian Native’s turned their heads towards planting trees; which carried a variety of fruits, nuts and palms. Due to the increased “productivity out of your [the] work”, Indian crops essentially single-handedly reduced world hunger in the years to come (1491). It makes one wonder where we would be today without their advancements. How are the people in these advanced communities seen as savages if they deliberately fixed problems we still struggle with several millenniums later? The Ancient’s many gifts gave us a platform on which to thrive and may continue to give us solutions to environmental problems that continue to plague the modern

The Pacific NorthWest are bound to have natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis and floods. For example japan, Japan sits at the intersection of three continental plates. The Eurasian,Pacific, and Philippines. Which, these plates are rubbing together causing hard friction, resulting in an earthquake. Tsunamis are a reaction from an earthquake, when earthquakes occur they shake the sea floor causing tsunamis. And floods are caused when the pacific overflows its natural banks. In 2011, Japan was experiencing several earthquakes a week. It became so common citizens began to stop paying them any attention, and started laughing them off just like Chris Goldfinger. However, these laughed at earthquakes were just foreshocks from “The Big One”.

Because so much land is being taken from these people it is sometimes hard for them to have the resources that they once had in order to survive. The land grabs completely change the social and ecominc stance of whatever country that they are in “these land grabs erode local control, often re-orienting production from meeting local needs to meeting global market demands for food, feed and fuel. The impact on a land-based livelihoods--- those of peasants and indigenous peoples whose survival hinges directly on access to land and nature—has been deeply devastating” (2). The people of these countries and Honduras are the ones that get hurt more than anyone by these land

Another factor precipitating deforestation appears to be poverty. Commonly held views argue that “high discount rates” received by poor countries are a cause of deforestation (The World Bank Forestry Policy 1991, Pearce and Watford 1993.). Because forests imply long gestation; private agents, particularly from the poorest countries, value what they can get immediately from forests more than what they can get in the future. But in 1999, Ekbom and Bojo challenged those views in a World Bank examination by showing that poverty does not necessarily lead to shorter time horizons and an increased rate of environmental degradation. They show how in fact the rural poor have used resources in a conservationist manner over a long period spanning centuries. Ostrom (1990), one of the various analysts they quoted, established a number of conditions that would lead to long term use of common resources despite their short-time

The Chad Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project is one of the largest investments in the private sector in Africa that costs approximately US$3.7 billion. The project is being funded by the World Bank and the International Financial Corporation. The involvement of these two major financial institutions is a demonstration of the rationale that the project will generate revenue that will enable the Chad and Cameroonian governments to invest more in programs that focus on reducing poverty like rural employment, education, and health. The involvement of the International Financial Corporation will be geared towards accomplishing three major roles. These are long-term financing, stabilizing role, and uplifting the quality and standard of mitigation plans and environmental assessments.

International development agencies and corporations, such as the World Bank, must also be looked as actors to this problem. They have contributed millions of dollars “into dams, highways, power development, and transmigration schemes” (Speth & Haas, 2006, 31). These organizations encourage foreign investments to be taken place so as to expand extraction operations (Speth & Haas, 2006, 31). The weakening of domestic