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Marco Lambertini, Director-General, WWF International, Switzerland speaking during the Session: Restoring Ocean Resources at the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 20, 2017
Copyright by World Economic Forum / Sikarin Thanachaiary
Singapore (Listeni/ˈsɪŋɡəpɔːr/), officially the Republic of Singapore, and often referred to as the Lion City, the Garden City, and the Red Dot, is a global city and sovereign state in Southeast Asia and the world's only island city-state. It lies one degree (137 km) north of the equator, at the southernmost tip of continental Asia and peninsular Malaysia, with Indonesia's Riau Islands to the south. Singapore's territory consists of the diamond-shaped main island and 62 islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its total size by 23% (130 km2), and its greening policy has covered the densely populated island with tropical flora, parks and gardens.
The islands were settled from the second century AD by a series of local empires. In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles founded modern Singapore as a trading post of the East India Company; after the company collapsed, the islands were ceded to Britain and became part of its Straits Settlements in 1826. During World War II, Singapore was occupied by Japan. It gained independence from Britain in 1963, by uniting with other former British territories to form Malaysia, but was expelled two years later over ideological differences. After early years of turbulence, and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its human capital.
Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub. Its standings include: "easiest place to do business" (World Bank) for ten consecutive years, most "technology-ready" nation (WEF), top International-meetings city (UIA), city with "best investment potential" (BERI), 2nd-most competitive country (WEF), 3rd-largest foreign exchange centre, 3rd-largest financial centre, 3rd-largest oil refining and trading centre and one of the top two busiest container ports since the 1990s. Singapore's best known global brands include Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport, both amongst the most-awarded in their industry; SIA is also rated by Fortune surveys as Asia's "most admired company". For the past decade, it has been the only Asian country with the top AAA sovereign rating from all major credit rating agencies, including S&P, Moody's and Fitch.
Singapore ranks high on its national social policies, leading Asia and 11th globally, on the Human Development Index (UN), notably on key measures of education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, housing. Although income inequality is high, 90% of citizens own their homes, and the country has one of the highest per capita incomes, with low taxes. The cosmopolitan nation is home to 5.5 million residents, 38% of whom are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. Singaporeans are mostly bilingual in a mother-tongue language and English as their common language. Its cultural diversity is reflected in its extensive ethnic "hawker" cuisine and major festivals - Chinese, Malay, Indian, Western - which are all national holidays. In 2015, Lonely Planet and The New York Times listed Singapore as their top and 6th best world destination to visit respectively.
The nation's core principles are meritocracy, multiculturalism and secularism. It is noted for its effective, pragmatic and incorrupt governance and civil service, which together with its rapid development policies, is widely cited as the "Singapore model". Gallup polls shows 84% of its residents expressed confidence in the national government, and 85% in its judicial systems - one of the highest ratings recorded. Singapore has significant influence on global affairs relative to its size, leading some analysts to classify it as a middle power. It is ranked as Asia's most influential city and 4th in the world by Forbes.
Singapore is a unitary, multiparty, parliamentary republic, with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government. The People's Action Party has won every election since self-government in 1959. One of the five founding members of the ASEAN, Singapore is also the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat, and a member of the East Asia Summit, Non-Aligned Movement, and the Commonwealth of Nations.
ETYMOLOGY
The English name of Singapore is derived from the Malay word, Singapura, which was in turn derived from Sanskrit (Singa is "lion", Pura "city"; Sanskrit: सिंहपुर, IAST: Siṃhápura), hence the customary reference to the nation as the Lion City, and its inclusion in many of the nation's symbols (e.g., its coat of arms, Merlion emblem). However, it is unlikely that lions ever lived on the island; Sang Nila Utama, who founded and named the island Singapura, most likely saw a Malayan tiger. It is also known as Pulau Ujong, as far back as the 3rd century, literally 'island at the end' (of the Malay Peninsula) in Malay.
Since the 1970s, Singapore has also been widely known as the Garden City, owing to its extensive greening policy covering the whole island, a priority of its first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, dubbed the nation's "Chief Gardener". The nation's conservation and greening efforts contributed to Singapore Botanic Gardens being the only tropical garden to be inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The nickname, Red Dot, is a reference to its size on the map, contrasting with its achievements. In 2015, Singapore's Golden Jubilee year, the celebratory "SG50" branding is depicted inside a red dot.
HISTORY
Temasek ('Sea Town' in the Malay language), an outpost of the Sumatran Srivijaya empire, is the earliest written record relating to the area now called Singapore. In the 13th century, the Kingdom of Singapura was established on the island and it became a trading port city. However, there were two major foreign invasions before it was destroyed by the Majapahit in 1398. In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, which by then was nominally part of the Johor Sultanate and the island sank into obscurity for the next two centuries, while the wider maritime region and much trade was under Dutch control.
BRITISH COLONISATION 1819-1942
In 1819, Thomas Stamford Raffles arrived and signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, on behalf of the British East India Company, to develop the southern part of Singapore as a British trading post. In 1824, the entire island, as well as the Temenggong, became a British possession after a further treaty with the Sultan. In 1826, Singapore became part of the Straits Settlements, under the jurisdiction of British India, becoming the regional capital in 1836.
Prior to Raffles' arrival, there were only about a thousand people living on the island, mostly indigenous Malays along with a handful of Chinese. By 1860, the population had swelled to more than 80,000 and more than half were Chinese. Many immigrants came to work at rubber plantations and, after the 1870s, the island became a global centre for rubber exports.
After the First World War, the British built the large Singapore Naval Base. Lieutenant General Sir William George Shedden Dobbie was appointed General Officer Commanding of the Malaya Command on 8 November 1935, holding the post until 1939;
WORLD WAR II AND JAPANESE OCCUPATION 1942-45
in May 1938, the General Officer Commanding of the Malaya Command warned how Singapore could be conquered by the Japanese via an attack from northern Malaya, but his warnings went unheeded. The Imperial Japanese Army invaded British Malaya, culminating in the Battle of Singapore. When the British surrendered on 15 February 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the defeat "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". Between 5,000 and 25,000 ethnic Chinese people were killed in the subsequent Sook Ching massacre.
From November 1944 to May 1945, the Allies conducted an intensive bombing of Singapore.
RETURN OF BRITISH 1945-59
After the surrender of Japan was announced in the Jewel Voice Broadcast by the Japanese Emperor on 15 August 1945 there was a breakdown of order and looting and revenge-killing were widespread. The formal Japanese Occupation of Singapore was only ended by Operation Tiderace and the formal surrender on 12 September 1945 at Singapore City Hall when Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia Command, accepted the capitulation of Japanese forces in Southeast Asia from General Itagaki Seishiro.
A British Military Administration was then formed to govern the island. On 1 April 1946, the Straits Settlements were dissolved and Singapore became a separate Crown Colony with a civil administration headed by a Governor. Much of the infrastructure had been destroyed during the war, including the harbour, electricity, telephone and water supply systems. There was also a shortage of food leading to malnutrition, disease, and rampant crime and violence. High food prices, unemployment, and workers' discontent culminated into a series of strikes in 1947 causing massive stoppages in public transport and other services. In July 1947, separate Executive and Legislative Councils were established and the election of six members of the Legislative Council was scheduled for the following year. By late 1947, the economy began to recover, facilitated by a growing demand for tin and rubber around the world, but it would take several more years before the economy returned to pre-war levels.
The failure of Britain to defend Singapore had destroyed its credibility as an infallible ruler in the eyes of Singaporeans. The decades after the war saw a political awakening amongst the local populace and the rise of anti-colonial and nationalist sentiments, epitomized by the slogan Merdeka, or "independence" in the Malay language.
During the 1950s, Chinese Communists with strong ties to the trade unions and Chinese schools carried out armed uprising against the government, leading to the Malayan Emergency and later, the Communist Insurgency War. The 1954 National Service Riots, Chinese middle schools riots, and Hock Lee bus riots in Singapore were all linked to these events.
David Marshall, pro-independence leader of the Labour Front, won Singapore's first general election in 1955. He led a delegation to London, but Britain rejected his demand for complete self-rule. He resigned and was replaced by Lim Yew Hock, whose policies convinced Britain to grant Singapore full internal self-government for all matters except defence and foreign affairs.
SELF-GOVERNMENT 1959-1963
During the May 1959 elections, the People's Action Party won a landslide victory. Singapore became an internally self-governing state within the Commonwealth, with Lee Kuan Yew as its first Prime Minister. Governor Sir William Allmond Codrington Goode served as the first Yang di-Pertuan Negara (Head of State), and was succeeded by Yusof bin Ishak, who became the first President of Singapore in 1965.
MERGER WITH MALAYSIA 1963-65
As a result of the 1962 Merger Referendum, on 31 August 1963 Singapore joined with the Federation of Malaya, the Crown Colony of Sarawak and the Crown Colony of North Borneo to form the new federation of Malaysia under the terms of the Malaysia Agreement. Singaporean leaders chose to join Malaysia primarily due to concerns over its limited land size, scarcity of water, markets and natural resources. Some Singaporean and Malaysian politicians were also concerned that the communists might form the government on the island, a possibility perceived as an external threat to the Federation of Malaya.However, shortly after the merger, the Singapore state government and the Malaysian central government disagreed on many political and economic issues, and communal strife culminated in the 1964 race riots in Singapore. After many heated ideological conflicts between the two governments, on 9 August 1965, the Malaysian Parliament voted 126 to 0 to expel Singapore from Malaysia with Singaporean delegates not present.
INDEPENDENCE 1965 TO PRESENT
Singapore gained independence as the Republic of Singapore (remaining within the Commonwealth of Nations) on 9 August 1965. Race riots broke out once more in 1969. In 1967, the country co-founded ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and in 1970 it joined the Non-Aligned Movement. Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister, leading its Third World economy to First World affluence in a single generation. His emphasis on rapid economic growth, support for business entrepreneurship, limitations on internal democracy, and close relationships with China set the new nation's policies for the next half-century.
In 1990, Goh Chok Tong succeeded Lee as Prime Minister, while the latter continued serving in the Cabinet as Senior Minister until 2004, and then Minister Mentor until May 2011. During Goh's tenure, the country faced the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the 2003 SARS outbreak and terrorist threats posed by Jemaah Islamiyah.
In 2004, Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, became the country's third Prime Minister. Goh Chok Tong remained in Cabinet as the Senior Minister until May 2011, when he was named Emeritus Senior Minister despite his retirement. He steered the nation through the 2008 global financial crisis, resolved the disputed 79-year old Malayan railways land, and introduced integrated resorts. Despite the economy's exceptional growth, PAP suffered its worst election results in 2011, winning 60% of votes, amidst hot-button issues of high influx of foreign workers and cost of living. Lee initiated a major re-structuring of the economy to raise productivity, improved universal healthcare and grants, especially for the pioneer generation of citizens, amongst many new inclusive measures.
On 23 March 2015, its founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who had 'personified Singapore to the world' for nearly half a century died. In a week of national mourning, 1.7 million residents and guests paid tribute to him at his lying-in-state at Parliament House and at community sites around the island.
Singapore celebrated its Golden jubilee in 2015 – its 50th year of independence, with a year-long series of events branded SG50. The PAP maintained its dominance in Parliament at the September general elections, receiving 69.9% of the popular vote, its second-highest polling result behind the 2001 tally of 75.3%.
GEOGRAPHY
Singapore consists of 63 islands, including the main island, Pulau Ujong. There are two man-made connections to Johor, Malaysia: the Johor–Singapore Causeway in the north and the Tuas Second Link in the west. Jurong Island, Pulau Tekong, Pulau Ubin and Sentosa are the largest of Singapore's smaller islands. The highest natural point is Bukit Timah Hill at 163.63 m. April and May are the hottest months, with the wetter monsoon season from November to January.
From July to October, there is often haze caused by bush fires in neighbouring Indonesia, usually from the island of Sumatra. Although Singapore does not observe daylight saving time (DST), it follows the GMT+8 time zone, one hour ahead of the typical zone for its geographical location.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Singapore is a parliamentary republic with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government representing constituencies. The country's constitution establishes a representative democracy as the political system. Executive power rests with the Cabinet of Singapore, led by the Prime Minister and, to a much lesser extent, the President. The President is elected through a popular vote, and has veto powers over a specific set of executive decisions, such as the use of the national reserves and the appointment of judges, but otherwise occupies a largely ceremonial post.
The Parliament serves as the legislative branch of the government. Members of Parliament (MPs) consist of elected, non-constituency and nominated members. Elected MPs are voted into the Parliament on a "first-past-the-post" (plurality) basis and represent either single-member or group representation constituencies. The People's Action Party has won control of Parliament with large majorities in every election since self-governance was secured in 1959.
Although the elections are clean, there is no independent electoral authority and the government has strong influence on the media. Freedom House ranks Singapore as "partly free" in its Freedom in the World report, and The Economist ranks Singapore as a "flawed democracy", the second best rank of four, in its "Democracy Index". Despite this, in the 2011 Parliamentary elections, the opposition, led by the Workers' Party, increased its representation to seven elected MPs. In the 2015 elections, PAP scored a landslide victory, winning 83 of 89 seats contested, with 70% of popular votes. Gallup polls reported 84% of residents in Singapore expressed confidence in the government, and 85% in its judicial systems and courts – one of the highest ratings in the world.
Singapore's governance model eschews populist politics, focusing on the nation's long-term interest, and is known to be clean, effective and pragmatic. As a small nation highly dependent on external trade, it is vulnerable to geo-politics and global economics. It places great emphasis on security and stability of the region in its foreign policies, and applies global best practices to ensure the nation's attractiveness as an investment destination and business hub.
The legal system of Singapore is based on English common law, but with substantial local differences. Trial by jury was abolished in 1970 so that judicial decisions would rest entirely in the hands of appointed judges. Singapore has penalties that include judicial corporal punishment in the form of caning, which may be imposed for such offences as rape, rioting, vandalism, and certain immigration offences.There is a mandatory death penalty for murder, as well as for certain aggravated drug-trafficking and firearms offences.
Amnesty International has said that some legal provisions of the Singapore system conflict with the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that Singapore has "... possibly the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population". The government has disputed Amnesty's claims. In a 2008 survey of international business executives, Singapore received the top ranking with regard to judicial system quality in Asia. Singapore has been consistently rated among the least corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International.
In 2011, the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index ranked Singapore among the top countries surveyed with regard to "order and security", "absence of corruption", and "effective criminal justice". However, the country received a much lower ranking for "freedom of speech" and "freedom of assembly". All public gatherings of five or more people require police permits, and protests may legally be held only at the Speakers' Corner.
EDUCATION
Education for primary, secondary, and tertiary levels is mostly supported by the state. All institutions, private and public, must be registered with the Ministry of Education. English is the language of instruction in all public schools, and all subjects are taught and examined in English except for the "mother tongue" language paper. While the term "mother tongue" in general refers to the first language internationally, in Singapore's education system, it is used to refer to the second language, as English is the first language. Students who have been abroad for a while, or who struggle with their "Mother Tongue" language, are allowed to take a simpler syllabus or drop the subject.
Education takes place in three stages: primary, secondary, and pre-university education. Only the primary level is compulsory. Students begin with six years of primary school, which is made up of a four-year foundation course and a two-year orientation stage. The curriculum is focused on the development of English, the mother tongue, mathematics, and science. Secondary school lasts from four to five years, and is divided between Special, Express, Normal (Academic), and Normal (Technical) streams in each school, depending on a student's ability level. The basic coursework breakdown is the same as in the primary level, although classes are much more specialised. Pre-university education takes place over two to three years at senior schools, mostly called Junior Colleges.
Some schools have a degree of freedom in their curriculum and are known as autonomous schools. These exist from the secondary education level and up.
National examinations are standardised across all schools, with a test taken after each stage. After the first six years of education, students take the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), which determines their placement at secondary school. At the end of the secondary stage, GCE "O"-Level exams are taken; at the end of the following pre-university stage, the GCE "A"-Level exams are taken. Of all non-student Singaporeans aged 15 and above, 18% have no education qualifications at all while 45% have the PSLE as their highest qualification; 15% have the GCE 'O' Level as their highest qualification and 14% have a degree.
Singaporean students consistently rank at or near the top of international education assessments:
- In 2015, Singapore topped the OECD's global school performance rankings, based on 15-year-old students' average scores in mathematics and science across 76 countries.
- Singaporean students were ranked first in the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, and have been ranked in the top three every year since 1995.
- Singapore fared best in the 2015 International Baccalaureate exams, taken in 107 countries, with more than half of the world's 81 perfect scorers and 98% passing rate.
The country's two main public universities - the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University - are ranked among the top 13 in the world.
HEALTH
Singapore has a generally efficient healthcare system, even though their health expenditures are relatively low for developed countries. The World Health Organisation ranks Singapore's healthcare system as 6th overall in the world in its World Health Report. In general, Singapore has had the lowest infant mortality rate in the world for the past two decades.
Life expectancy in Singapore is 80 for males and 85 for females, placing the country 4th in the world for life expectancy. Almost the whole population has access to improved water and sanitation facilities. There are fewer than 10 annual deaths from HIV per 100,000 people. There is a high level of immunisation. Adult obesity is below 10%
The government's healthcare system is based upon the "3M" framework. This has three components: Medifund, which provides a safety net for those not able to otherwise afford healthcare, Medisave, a compulsory health savings scheme covering about 85% of the population, and Medishield, a government-funded health insurance program. Public hospitals in Singapore have autonomy in their management decisions, and compete for patients. A subsidy scheme exists for those on low income. In 2008, 32% of healthcare was funded by the government. It accounts for approximately 3.5% of Singapore's GDP.
RELIGION
Buddhism is the most widely practised religion in Singapore, with 33% of the resident population declaring themselves adherents at the most recent census. The next-most practised religion is Christianity, followed by Islam, Taoism, and Hinduism. 17% of the population did not have a religious affiliation. The proportion of Christians, Taoists, and non-religious people increased between 2000 and 2010 by about 3% each, whilst the proportion of Buddhists decreased. Other faiths remained largely stable in their share of the population. An analysis by the Pew Research Center found Singapore to be the world's most religiously diverse nation.
There are monasteries and Dharma centres from all three major traditions of Buddhism in Singapore: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Most Buddhists in Singapore are Chinese and are of the Mahayana tradition, with missionaries having come into the country from Taiwan and China for several decades. However, Thailand's Theravada Buddhism has seen growing popularity among the populace (not only the Chinese) during the past decade. Soka Gakkai International, a Japanese Buddhist organisation, is practised by many people in Singapore, but mostly by those of Chinese descent. Tibetan Buddhism has also made slow inroads into the country in recent years.
CULTURE
Singapore has one of the lowest rates of drug use in the world. Culturally, the use of illicit drugs is viewed as highly undesirable by Singaporeans, unlike many European societies. Singaporeans' disapproval towards drug use has resulted in laws that impose the mandatory death sentence for certain serious drug trafficking offences. Singapore also has a low rate of alcohol consumption per capita and low levels of violent crime, and one of the lowest intentional homicide rate globally. The average alcohol consumption rate is only 2 litres annually per adult, one of the lowest in the world.
Foreigners make up 42% of the population, and have a strong influence on Singaporean culture. The Economist Intelligence Unit, in its 2013 "Where-to-be-born Index", ranks Singapore as having the best quality of life in Asia and sixth overall in the world.
LANGUAGES; RELIGIONS AND CULTURES
Singapore is a very diverse and young country. It has many languages, religions, and cultures for a country its size.
When Singapore became independent from the United Kingdom in 1963, most of the newly minted Singaporean citizens were uneducated labourers from Malaysia, China and India. Many of them were transient labourers who were seeking to make some money in Singapore and they had no intention of staying permanently. A sizeable minority of middle-class, local-born people, known as the Peranakans, also existed. With the exception of the Peranakans (descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants) who pledged their loyalties to Singapore, most of the labourers' loyalties lay with their respective homelands of Malaysia, China and India. After independence, the process of crafting a Singaporean identity and culture began.
Former Prime Ministers of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, have stated that Singapore does not fit the traditional description of a nation, calling it a society-in-transition, pointing out the fact that Singaporeans do not all speak the same language, share the same religion, or have the same customs. Even though English is the first language of the nation, according to the government's 2010 census 20% of Singaporeans, or one in five, are illiterate in English. This is a marked improvement from 1990 where 40% of Singaporeans were illiterate in English.
Languages, religions and cultures among Singaporeans are not delineated according to skin colour or ancestry, unlike many other countries. Among Chinese Singaporeans, one in five is Christian, another one in five is atheist, and the rest are mostly Buddhists or Taoists. One-third speak English as their home language, while half speak Mandarin Chinese. The rest speak other Chinese varieties at home. Most Malays in Singapore speak Malay as their home language with some speaking English. Singaporean Indians are much more religious. Only 1% of them are atheists. Six in ten are Hindu, two in ten Muslim, and the rest mostly Christian. Four in ten speak English as their home language, three in ten Tamil, one in ten Malay, and the rest other Indian languages as their home language.
Each Singaporean's behaviours and attitudes would therefore be influenced by, among many other things, his or her home language and his religion. Singaporeans who speak English as their native language tend to lean toward Western culture, while those who speak Chinese as their native language tend to lean toward Chinese culture and Confucianism. Malay speaking Singaporeans tend to lean toward the Malay culture, which itself is closely linked to the Islamic culture.
ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS
At the national level in Singapore, meritocracy, where one is judged based on one's ability, is heavily emphasised.
Racial and religious harmony is regarded by Singaporeans as a crucial part of Singapore's success, and played a part in building a Singaporean identity. Singapore has a reputation as a nanny state. The national flower of Singapore is the hybrid orchid, Vanda 'Miss Joaquim', named in memory of a Singapore-born Armenian woman, who crossbred the flower in her garden at Tanjong Pagar in 1893. Many national symbols such as the Coat of arms of Singapore and the Lion head symbol of Singapore make use of the lion, as Singapore is known as the Lion City. Other monikers by which Singapore is widely known is the Garden City and the Red Dot. Public holidays in Singapore cover major Chinese, Western, Malay and Indian festivals.
Singaporean employees work an average of around 45 hours weekly, relatively long compared to many other nations. Three in four Singaporean employees surveyed stated that they take pride in doing their work well, and that doing so helps their self-confidence.
CUISINE
Dining, along with shopping, is said to be the country's national pastime. The focus on food has led countries like Australia to attract Singaporean tourists with food-based itineraries. The diversity of food is touted as a reason to visit the country, and the variety of food representing different ethnicities is seen by the government as a symbol of its multiculturalism. The "national fruit" of Singapore is the durian.
In popular culture, food items belong to a particular ethnicity, with Chinese, Malay, and Indian food clearly defined. However, the diversity of cuisine has been increased further by the "hybridisation" of different styles (e.g., the Peranakan cuisine, a mix of Chinese and Malay cuisine).
WIKIPEDIA
Participants capture during the Session: Restoring Ocean Resources at the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 20, 2017
Copyright by World Economic Forum / Sikarin Thanachaiary
Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director, Greenpeace International, Netherlands speaking during the Session: Restoring Ocean Resources at the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 20, 2017
Copyright by World Economic Forum / Sikarin Thanachaiary
Work as part of CIAT's Genetic resources program.
Credit: ©2010CIAT/NeilPalmer
Please credit accordingly and leave a comment when you use a CIAT photo.
For more info: ciat-comunicaciones@cgiar.org
This photo is a view from one of the routes in the National Park Service (NPS) Preferred Alternative within the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), Special Flight Rules Area in the Vicinity of Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP), illustrating the high quality scenic views and grandeur of GCNP. In this view the aircraft is heading east and the view is looking north towards Awatubi Crest, Kwagunt Butte, and Nankoweap Mesa..
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The Draft EIS was developed to address the mandate of the 1987 National Parks Overflights Act to provide for substantial restoration of the natural quiet and experience of Grand Canyon National Park and for protection of public health and safety from adverse effects associated with aircraft overflights. Through the Draft EIS, the NPS is proposing a plan for managing helicopter and airplane flights over Grand Canyon. These flights currently carry more than 400,000 visitors above the canyon each year. Like all other uses in the park, air-tours play an important role in visitor enjoyment. But without better, more thoughtful management air-tour flights can interfere with the enjoyment of visitors on the ground. Air-tour flights also affect soundscape and other park resources of Grand Canyon's 1,902 square miles..
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The Draft EIS can be reviewed online at www.parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=65&proje... Comments can be submitted online at the same Web address (the preferred method), or mailed to Superintendent, Grand Canyon National Park, Attention: Office of Planning and Compliance, P.O. Box 129, Grand Canyon, Arizona 86023, or provided at one of the public meetings. Comments will be accepted through Monday, June 20, 2011..
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NPS Photo
heresienstadt concentration camp
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses of "Theresienstadt", see Theresienstadt (disambiguation).
Coordinates: 50°30′48″N 14°10′1″E
Theresienstadt concentration camp archway with the phrase "Arbeit macht frei" (work makes (you) free), placed over the entrance in a number of Nazi concentration camps
Location of Terezín within the modern Czech Republic
Part of a series on
The Holocaust
Jews on selection ramp at Auschwitz, May 1944
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v t e
Theresienstadt concentration camp, also referred to as Theresienstadt ghetto,[1][2][3] was a concentration camp established by the SS during World War II in the garrison city of Terezín (German: Theresienstadt), located in German-occupied Czechoslovakia.
Tens of thousands of people died there, some killed outright and others dying from malnutrition and disease. More than 150,000 other persons (including tens of thousands of children) were held there for months or years, before being sent by rail transports to their deaths at Treblinka and Auschwitz extermination camps in occupied Poland, as well as to smaller camps elsewhere.[4]
Contents
1 History
2 Small Fortress
3 Main fortress
4 Command and control authority
5 Internal organisation
6 Industrial labour
7 Western European Jews arrive at camp
8 Improvements made by inmates
9 Unequal treatment of prisoners
10 Cultural activities and legacy
11 Use as propaganda tool
12 Statistics
12.1 Allied POWs
13 Notable prisoners who died at the camp
14 Notable survivors
15 Final months at the camp in 1945
16 Postwar trials
17 Works about Theresienstadt
17.1 Documentary films
17.2 Dramatic films
17.3 Plays
17.4 Music
17.5 Literature
18 See also
19 Notes
20 References
21 Further reading
22 External links
History
The fortress of Theresienstadt in the north-west region of Bohemia was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 on the orders of the Austrian emperor Joseph II. It was designed as part of a projected but never fully realised fort system of the monarchy, another piece being the fort of Josefov. Theresienstadt was named for the mother of the emperor, Maria Theresa of Austria, who reigned as archduchess of Austria in her own right from 1740 until 1780. By the end of the 19th century, the facility was obsolete as a fort; in the 20th century, the fort was used to accommodate military and political prisoners.
From 1914 until 1918, Gavrilo Princip was imprisoned here, after his conviction for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife on June 28, 1914, a catalyst for World War I. Princip died in Cell Number 1 from tuberculosis on April 28, 1918.
After Germany invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia, on June 10, 1940, the Gestapo took control of Terezín and set up a prison in the "Small Fortress" (kleine Festung, the town citadel on the east side of the Ohře river). The first inmates arrived June 14. By the end of the war, the small fortress had processed more than 32,000 prisoners, of whom 5,000 were female; they were imprisoned for varying sentences. The prisoners were predominantly Czech at first, and later other nationalities were imprisoned there, including citizens of the Soviet Union, Poland, Germany, and Yugoslavia. Most were political prisoners.[5]
By November 24, 1941, the Nazis adapted the "Main Fortress" (große Festung, i.e. the walled town of Theresienstadt), located on the west side of the river, as a ghetto.[5] Jewish survivors have recounted the extensive work they had to do for more than a year in the camp, to try to provide basic facilities for the tens of thousands of people who came to be housed there.
From 1942, the Nazis interned the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia, elderly Jews and persons of "special merit" in the Reich, and several thousand Jews from the Netherlands and Denmark. Theresienstadt thereafter became known as the destination for the Altentransporte ("elderly transports") of German Jews, older than 65. Although in practice the ghetto, run by the SS, served as a transit camp for Jews en route to extermination camps, it was also presented as a "model Jewish settlement" for propaganda purposes.[6][7]
On November 11, 1943, commandant Anton Burger ordered the entire camp population, approximately 40,000 people at that time, to stand in freezing weather during a camp census (sometimes referred to as the "Bohušovicer Kessel Census"). About 300 prisoners died of hypothermia as a result.[8]
During a 1944 Red Cross visit, and in a propaganda film, the Nazis presented Theresienstadt to outsiders as a model Jewish settlement, but it was a concentration camp. More than 33,000 inmates died as a result of malnutrition, disease, or the sadistic treatment by their captors.[9] Whereas some survivors claimed that the prison population reached 75,000 at one time, according to official records, the highest figure reached (on September 18, 1942) was 58,491. They were crowded into barracks designed to accommodate 7,000 combat troops.[10]
In the autumn of 1944, the Nazis began the liquidation of the ghetto, deporting more prisoners to Auschwitz and other camps; in one month, they deported 24,000 victims[11] (about 18,000 in 11 transports between September 28 and October 28).
Small Fortress
Crematorium
The "Small Fortress" (Malá pevnost in Czech, Kleine Festung in German) was part of the fortification on the left side of the river Ohře. Beginning in 1940, the Gestapo used it as a prison, the largest in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The first inmates arrived on June 14, 1940. By the end of the war, 32,000 prisoners, of whom 5,000 were female, passed through the Small Fortress. It was separate from and unrelated to the Jewish ghetto in the main fortress on the river's right side. An estimated 32,000 people were taken to the prison; most were usually deported later to a concentration camp.
Main fortress
In the spring of 1942, the Nazis expelled the 7,000 non-Jewish Czechs living in Terezín, and closed off the town. The Nazis established the ghetto and concentration camp in the main fortress on the east side of the river.
SS-Hauptsturmführer Siegfried Seidl[12] served as the first camp commandant, beginning in 1941. Seidl oversaw the labour of 342 Jewish artisans and carpenters, known as the Aufbaukommando, who converted the fortress into a concentration camp. Although the Aufbaukommando were promised that they and their families would be spared transport, during the liquidation of the camp in September 1944, all were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau[13] for Sonderbehandlung, or "special treatment", i.e. immediate gassing of all upon arrival.[14]
Command and control authority
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The camp, Theresienstadt/Terezin, was a hybrid of ghetto and concentration camp, (KZ), with features of both. It was established by order of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) in 1941 and administered by its GESTAPO Amt of the RSHA, Department IV-B-4, (Jews), headed by Eichmann who oversaw the ghetto and its SS-Commandant; he, in turn, was in charge of the daily ghetto administration, the SS officers, about 12, and the Czech gendarmes, who collaborated with the Germans; these last two were in charge of security and guard duties. An internal police force, run by Jewish inmates, answered directly to the Jewish self-administration and indirectly to the SS-commandant. Thus was the organisation responsible for the enslavement, deportation, and murder of the Jews. Theresienstadt was also the only KZ excluded from the control of SS-Wirtschafthauptamt (main economic administration office) under Pohl and was classified as "concentration camp, class 4" (mildest). Furthermore, the SS-men in this ghetto/concentration camp were not members of the Waffen-SS usually guarding concentration camps, as reported sometimes. Pohl and the SS-Wirtschafthauptamt were in control of all concentration camps except Theresienstadt.
Stone marking the burial of ashes of 15,000 victims of Terezín at the New Jewish Cemetery, Prague
Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst oversaw the day-to-day operations of the Kleine Festung, (Small Fortress), a prison of the Prague Gestapo which was controlled by the 'Higher SS and Police Führer', (HSSPF), Karl Frank, who reported directly to Himmler rather than the Office of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, a civilian department.
SS-Hauptsturmführer Ernst Möhs (1898–1945) was Eichmann's liaison-officer in Theresienstadt. During the camp's operations, three officers served as camp commandant: Siegfried Seidl, Anton Burger, and Karl Rahm.
Internal organisation
As in other European ghettos, the Nazis required the Jews to select a Jewish Council, which nominally governed the ghetto. In Theresienstadt, this was known as the "Cultural Council"; later it was called the "Jewish self-government of Theresienstadt".[15] The first of the Jewish elders of Theresienstadt was Jakob Edelstein, a Polish-born Zionist and former head of the Prague Jewish community. He served until 1943, when he was deported to Auschwitz and shot to death after being forced to watch the executions of his wife and son.[16] The second was Paul Eppstein (de), a sociologist originally from Mannheim, Germany. Earlier, Eppstein was the speaker of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, the central organisation of Jews in Nazi Germany. He served until the autumn of 1944, when he was allegedly shot in the Small Fortress on Yom Kippur.
Benjamin Murmelstein, a Lvov-born rabbi from Vienna, had been part of the Cultural Council in Vienna after the Anschluss. As in other cities, the Jews were charged by the Nazis with organising actions in the Jewish community, including selection of people for transport when the Germans decided to deport them, beginning in 1942. Murmelstein was also deported to Theresienstadt. In the autumn of 1944, he succeeded Eppstein. He and other prominent Jews of the Cultural Council were deported to Auschwitz in the liquidation of the ghetto, but he and some others survived the war. He and other Jewish elders have been extremely controversial figures, condemned for years for what was seen as their collaboration with the Nazis.
In the 21st century, there has been some reassessment, given the conditions of the times. The Last of the Unjust, released in 2013, is a documentary centring on interviews with Murmelstein that were filmed by Claude Lanzmann in 1975, during the production of his masterwork Shoah. The interviews were not used in the earlier film.[17][18]
In the last days of the ghetto, Jiří Vogel of Prague served as the elder. From 1943 to 1945, Leo Baeck was the speaker of the Council of Elders of Theresienstadt. Before being deported to the camp from Berlin, he had served as the head of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland. He survived Theresienstadt, and emigrated to London after the war.[19]
Industrial labour
Theresienstadt was used to supply the German war effort with a source of Jewish slave labour. Their major contribution was the splitting of local ore mined from Czechoslovakian mica. Blind prisoners were often spared deportation by assignment to this task. Others manufactured boxes or coffins, or sprayed military uniforms with a white dye to provide camouflage for German soldiers on the Russian front. According to ex-prisoners, Theresienstadt was also a sorting and re-distribution centre for underwear and clothing confiscated from Jews:
... from all parts of Germany, the baggage taken away from the Jews was sent to Theresienstadt, and there it was packaged, sorted-out in order to be sent out all over the country, to various cities, for the people who were bombed-out and suffered a shortage of underwear and clothing.[15]
Western European Jews arrive at camp
Among the western European Jews deported to the camp were 456 Jews from Denmark, sent to Theresienstadt in 1943. They had not been able to escape to neutral Sweden before the Nazis started the deportation. Included also in the transports were European Jewish children whom Danish organisations had tried to conceal in foster homes.
The arrival of the Danes was significant, as their government gained access to the ghetto for the International Red Cross in 1944, to view conditions there. (This took place after the D-Day Invasion of Normandy by the Allies). Most European governments, when occupied by the Nazis, had not tried to protect their fellow Jewish citizens. Historians believe the Germans were trying to keep the Danes satisfied as they had impressed many of their workers in war factories. In addition, the tide of war was changing.
Improvements made by inmates
Survivor Friedrich Schlaefrig described in 1946 how the early residents of Theresienstadt, with the assistance of the Germans, overcame the lack of water to the town:
We had no water system in Theresienstadt ... a number of wells were contaminated in a short time with typhoid fever. That was the reason that we had to close a number of wells, and had to undertake to extend the existing water pipe system. That was really a great piece of public works created under Jewish inventiveness and by Jewish labor. They expanded the water supply system, and have achieved [a condition] that we not only produced for the people good drinking water or, at least, not objectionable drinking water, but that also the toilet installations could be flushed with water, so that these unhygienic conditions were removed ... The Germans have permitted it, and we even obtained through them the material, because otherwise it would have been impossible ...[15]
After this, a fire department was established, made up of Jewish prisoners, with an acting fire chief. They relied on the newly constructed water system. Constructing the water system was only part of the major work undertaken by Jews, in what was called the technical service, in the first year of the camp. They had to make many more changes to buildings to adapt the fortress and barracks for the overcrowded conditions that the Germans imposed.[15]
Unequal treatment of prisoners
After the changes and sprucing up to prepare for the Red Cross visit, in the spring of 1944, the Gestapo screened the Jews of Theresienstadt, classifying them according to social prominence. Many of the "Prominente" were profiled, with photographs, among a collection of documents smuggled out after the liberation..[20] The Gestapo reassigned some 150 to 200 prominent individuals to single rooms that would be shared by only two people, so that a husband and wife could live by themselves. Several members of the Cultural Council were included among the Prominente, due to the influence of Benjamin Murmelstein, then the "Jewish elder" of Theresienstadt. Former prisoners suggested in statements that those who held positions of authority practised nepotism, trying to protect individuals close to them, while struggling to avoid deportation and death in the closing days of the war. Murmelstein and other members of the Cultural Council were still deported in the final liquidation, but he and some others survived the war.[15]
Cultural activities and legacy
Theresienstadt was originally designated as a model community for middle-class Jews from Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. Many educated Jews were inmates of Theresienstadt. In a propaganda effort designed to fool the western allies, the Nazis publicised the camp for its rich cultural life. In reality, according to a Holocaust survivor, "during the early period there were no [musical] instruments whatsoever, and the cultural life came to develop itself only ... when the whole management of Theresienstadt was steered into an organized course."[15] An extremely rich cultural life then ensued, with lectures, recitals, poetry readings, concerts, and so on. At least four concert orchestras were organised in the camp, as well as chamber groups and jazz ensembles. Several stage performances were produced and attended by camp inmates. Many prominent artists from Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Germany were imprisoned at Theresienstadt, along with writers, scientists, jurists, diplomats, musicians, and scholars, and many of these contributed to the camp's cultural life.
The community in Theresienstadt tried to ensure that all the children who passed through the camp continued with their education. The Nazis required all camp children over a certain age to work, but accepted working on stage as employment. The prisoners achieved the children's education under the guise of work or cultural activity. Daily classes and sports activities were held. The community published a magazine, Vedem. The history of the magazine was studied and narrated by the Italian writer Matteo Corradini in his book "La repubblica delle farfalle" (The Republic of the Butterflies"). The English actor Sir Ben Kingsley read that novel, speaking on January 27, 2015 during the ceremony held at Theresienstadt to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day.
Ilse Weber, a noted Czech Jewish poet, writer and musician for children, was held in the camp from February 1942, and worked as a night nurse in the camp's children's infirmary. She volunteered to join a transport of children to Auschwitz in November 1944, where she, her son Tommy, and all the children with her were murdered in the gas chambers immediately on arrival.
Czech composer Rafael Schächter
The conductor Rafael Schächter was among those held at the camp, and he formed an adult chorus. He directed it in a performance of the massive and complex Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi. Schächter conducted 15 more performances of the work before he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.[21]
Violinist Julius Stwertka, a former leading member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and co-leader of the Vienna Philharmonic, died in the camp on December 17, 1942.
The pianist Alice Herz-Sommer performed 100 concerts while imprisoned at Theresienstadt. She and Edith Steiner-Kraus, her friend and colleague, both survived the camp, emigrated to Israel after the war, and became professors of music, Herz-Sommer at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, and Steiner-Kraus at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music.[22] In March 2012, a biography of Herz-Sommer was published.[23] At the time of her death in London in February 2014, at 110, she was the oldest known Holocaust survivor.[24]
Martin Roman and Coco Schumann were part of the jazz band Ghetto Swingers.
Artist and art teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis created drawing classes for children in the ghetto, among whom were Hana Brady ("Hana's suitcase"). They produced more than 4,000 drawings, which she hid in two suitcases before she was deported to Auschwitz in the final liquidation. The collection was preserved from destruction, and was discovered a decade later. Most of these drawings can now be seen at The Jewish Museum in Prague, whose archive of the Holocaust section administers the Terezín Archive Collection. Others are on display at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
The children of the camp also wrote stories and poems. Some were preserved and later published in a collection called I Never Saw Another Butterfly, its title taken from a poem by young Jewish Czech poet Pavel Friedman. He had arrived at Terezín on April 26, 1942, and later died at Auschwitz.
Painter Malva Schalek (Malvina Schalkova) was deported to Theresienstadt in February 1942. She produced more than 100 drawings and watercolours portraying life in the camp. On May 18, 1944, because of her refusal to paint the portrait of a collaborationist doctor, she was deported to Auschwitz, where she was killed.[25]
The artist and architect Norbert Troller produced drawings and watercolours of life inside Theresienstadt, to be smuggled to the outside world. When the Gestapo found out, he was arrested and deported to Auschwitz. His memoirs and two dozen of his artworks were published in 1991.[26]
The composer Viktor Ullmann was interned in September 1942, and died at Auschwitz in October 1944. He composed some twenty works at Theresienstadt, including the one-act opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Emperor of Atlantis or The Refusal of Death). It was planned for performance at the camp, but the Nazis withdrew permission when it was in rehearsal, probably because the authorities perceived its allegorical intent. The opera was first performed in 1975, and shown in full on BBC television in Britain. It continues to be performed.
Music composed by inmates is featured in Terezín: The Music 1941–44, a two-CD set released in 1991.[27][28] The collection features music composed mostly in 1943 and 1944 by Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Hans Krása, and Viktor Ullmann while interned at Theresienstadt. Haas, Krása, and Ullmann died in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944, and Klein died in Fürstengrube in 1945.[29]
In 2007, the album Terezín – Theresienstadt of music composed at Theresienstadt was released by the Swedish singer Anne Sofie von Otter, assisted by baritone Christian Gerhaher, pianists, and chamber musicians. In 2008, Bridge Records released a recital by Austrian baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and American pianist Russell Ryan that drew on a different selection of songs.
Use as propaganda tool
Cell
Main article: Theresienstadt (film)
Late in the war, after D-Day and the invasion of Normandy, the Nazis permitted representatives from the Danish Red Cross and the International Red Cross to visit Theresienstadt in order to dispel rumours about the extermination camps. The commission that visited on June 23, 1944, included E. Juel-Henningsen, the head physician at the Danish Ministry of Health, and Franz Hvass, the top civil servant at the Danish Foreign Ministry. Dr. Paul Eppstein was instructed by the SS to appear in the role of the mayor of Theresienstadt.[30]
Weeks of preparation preceded the visit. The area was cleaned up, and the Nazis deported many Jews to Auschwitz to minimise the appearance of overcrowding in Theresienstadt. Also deported in these actions were most of the Czechoslovak workers assigned to "Operation Embellishment". The Nazis directed the building of fake shops and cafés to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort.
The Danes whom the Red Cross visited lived in freshly painted rooms, not more than three in a room. Rooms viewed may have included the homes of the "prominent" Jews of Theresienstadt, who were afforded the special privilege of having as few as two occupants to a room.[15] The guests attended a performance of a children's opera, Brundibár, which was written by inmate Hans Krása.
The Red Cross representatives were conducted on a tour following a predetermined path designated by a red line on a map. The representatives apparently did not attempt to divert from the tour route on which they were led by the Germans, who posed questions to the Jewish residents along the way. If the representatives asked residents questions directly, they were ignored, in accordance with the Germans' instructions to the residents prior to the tour. Despite this, the Red Cross apparently formed a positive impression of the town.[15]
Following the successful use of Theresienstadt as a supposed model internment camp during the Red Cross visit, the Nazis decided to make a propaganda film there. It was directed by Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron, an experienced director and actor; he had appeared with Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel. Shooting took eleven days, starting September 1, 1944.[31] After the film was completed, the director and most of the cast were deported to Auschwitz. Gerron was murdered by gas chamber on October 28, 1944.[32]
The film was intended to show how well the Jews were living under the purportedly benevolent protection of the Third Reich. If taken at face value, it documents the Jews of Theresienstadt living a relatively comfortable existence within a thriving cultural centre and functioning successfully during the hardships of World War II. They had to comply and perform according to Nazi orders. Often called The Führer Gives a Village to the Jews, the correct name of the film is Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet ("Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement").[a] As the film was not completed until near the end of the war, it was never distributed as intended, although a few screenings were held. Most of the film was destroyed, but some footage has survived.
Statistics
10 Kronen bill shown to the Red Cross committee. Ex-inmates of Theresienstadt have described how they each received 50 crowns every month with which to buy things.[33] Residents working at the camp were also paid in this currency,[15] a form of truck system.
Approximately 144,000 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt. Most inmates were Czech Jews, but 40,000 were from Germany, 15,000 from Austria, 5,000 from the Netherlands, and 300 from Luxembourg. In addition to the group of approximately 500 Jews from Denmark, Slovak and Hungarian Jews were deported to the ghetto. 1,600 Jewish children from Białystok, Poland, were deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz; none survived. About a quarter of the inmates (33,000) died in Theresienstadt, mostly because of the deadly conditions, which included hunger, stress, and disease. The typhus epidemic at the very end of war took an especially heavy toll.
About 88,000 prisoners were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps, including Treblinka. At the end of the war, 17,247 had survived. An estimated 15,000 children lived in the ghetto. Willy Groag, one of the youth care workers, mistakenly claimed after the war that only 93 survived.[34]
Allied POWs
During the war, Allied POWs who repeatedly attempted to escape from POW camps were sent to Theresienstadt as punishment. 21 British, 21 New Zealand, and 17 Australian POWs were held there.[35] Keeping POWs from signatory countries of the Geneva Convention in such camp conditions was a war crime. Many of the survivors suffered chronic physical and mental health problems for most of their lives.[35]
In 1964, Germany paid the British government £1 million as reparation for the illegal transfer of British POWs to Theresienstadt.[35] Britain made no provision for dominion troops. For many years, the governments of Australia and New Zealand denied that any of their servicemen had been held at the camp. In 1987, Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke established a committee of investigation. It confirmed that POWs were held at Theresienstadt. The government then authorised payments of A$10,000 each to the Australian survivors of the camp. The New Zealand government also arranged for compensation for the New Zealand survivors.[35]
Landowner and Farmer Darrel Kjerstad, has farmed a variety of crops over the years, and along the way, he has utilized the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, NRCS, in Quinn, SD, on July 20, 2021. He is a product of generations of farmers who were not afraid of innovation, an FFA participant throughout high school, he became interested in range management with native plantings, and involvement in Pheasants Forever habitat restoration. He has used filter strips with conservation cover to help clean the rainwater runoff and stabilize the soil in riparian areas. The USDA NRCS conservation cover practice 327 used in these strips helps to build wildlife habitats for deer, antelope, and pheasants. This resulted in hundreds of pheasants and increasing numbers of deer feeding and living on his 360 acres of land.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Conservation cover practice is the establishing and maintaining perennial vegetative cover to protect soil and water resources on lands needing permanent protective cover that will not be used for forage production.
Conservation cover reduces soil erosion and sedimentation enhances wildlife habitat and improves water quality.
Conservation cover is applied on all lands needing permanent vegetative cover. It does not apply to plantings for forage production or to critical area plantings.
For more about Conservation Cover, please go to nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1263478.
USDA Photo Media by Lance Cheung.
Community garden plots are just half of the Huerta del Valle (HdV) 4-Acre organic Community Supported Garden and Farm in the middle of a low-income urban community, where Co-Founder and Executive Director Maria Alonso and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Redlands District Conservationist Tomas Aguilar-Campos work closely as she continues to improve the farm operation in Ontario, California, on Nov. 13, 2018.
USDA NRCS has helped with hoop houses to extend the growing season, low-emission tractor replacement to efficiently move bulk materials and a needed micro-irrigation system for this San Bernardino County location that is in a severe drought condition (drought.gov). Huerta del Valle is also a recipient of a 4-year USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Community Food Projects (CFP) grant and a USDA funded California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP). She and her staff grow nearly 150 crops, including papayas and cactus. CSA customers pick up their produce on site, where they can see where their food grows. To pay, they can use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards. The price of a produce box is based on the customerâs income.
Alonsoâs inspiration came from her desire to provide affordable organic food for her child. This lead to collaborators that included students and staff from Pitzer College's âPitzer in Ontario Programâ and the Claremont Colleges, who implemented a project plan and started a community garden at a public school. Shortly after that, the City of Ontario was granted $1M from the Kaiser Permanente Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Zone initiative. Huerta del Valle was granted $68,000 from that grant for a three-year project to increase the scale of operation. The city of Ontario supported the project above and beyond the grant by providing a vacant piece of land next to a residential park and community center. Alonso says that this spot, nestled near an international airport, two major interstate highways, suburban homes, and warehouses, is a âgreen space to breathe freely.â
She far exceeded Kaiser's expectations by creating 60 10â X 20â plots that are in full use by the nearby residents. Because of the demand, there is a constant waiting list for plots that become available.
As the organization grew, it learned about the NRCS through an advertisement for the high-tunnel season extension cost-sharing program. The ad put them in touch with the former district manager Kim Lary who helped Huerta del Valle become federal grant ready with their Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) and System for Award Management (SAM) registrations and connected the young organization to NRCS as well as the Inland Empire Resource Conservation District (IERCD.) Since then, Alonso has worked closely with them sharing her knowledge with a broader community including local colleges such as the Claremont Colleges and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona).
Cal Poly Pomona is an example where education institutions help the community. Cal Poly Pomona Plant Science Nursery Manager Monica Salembier has produced plant seedlings (plant trays) for transplant at HdV for many years. Aaron Fox and Eileen Cullen in the Plant Science department have hosted HdV in their classes and brought many groups on tours of the farm to learn about sustainable urban growing practices.
The shaded picnic tables in the center of the garden have been the site of three USDA NRCS workshops for regional farmers, students, and visitors. The site also serves as a showcase for students and other producers who may need help with obtaining low-emission tractors, micro-irrigation, and high tunnel âhoop houses.â
Alonso says, âevery day is a good day, but especially at the monthly community meetings where I learn from my community.â
For more information, please see www.usda.gov and www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/community-supported-agriculture
Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) is the Departmentâs focal point for the nationâs farmers and ranchers and other stewards of private agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest lands. FPAC agencies implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance services, conservation programs, and technical assistance, and commodity, lending, and disaster programs.
The agencies and service supporting FPAC are Farm Service Agency (FSA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and Risk Management Agency (RMA).
Natural Resources Conservation Service has a proud history of supporting Americaâs farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners. For more than 80 years, we have helped people make investments in their operations and local communities to keep working lands working, boost rural economies, increase the competitiveness of American agriculture, and improve the quality of our air, water, soil, and habitat.
As the USDAâs primary private lands conservation agency, we generate, manage, and share the data, technology, and standards that enable partners and policymakers to make decisions informed by objective, reliable science.
And through one-on-one, personalized advice, we work voluntarily with producers and communities to find the best solutions to meet their unique conservation and business goals. By doing so, we help ensure the health of our natural resources and the long-term sustainability of American agriculture.
For more information, please see www.usda.gov.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
THE DALLES, Ore. – Noah Williams loves it when people tell him he can’t do something.
Like when people say there’s no way he can make cover crops work in a dryland wheat cropping system. “It’s my motivation to find a way to do it,” he says. “I like the challenge.”
Noah is working with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Wasco Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) to try some new, innovative approaches to build healthier soil on his farm. “I’ve been told that cover cropping can’t work in our area, but I believe it can—we just have to change our mindset,” Noah says.
Young small sweet bananas in the farm and in the commnuity garden, all the trees began from a single tree at Huerta del Valle (HdV) a 4-Acre organic Community Supported Garden and Farm in the middle of a low-income urban community, where Co-Founder and Executive Director Maria Alonso and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Redlands District Conservationist Tomas Aguilar-Campos work closely as she continues to improve the farm operation in Ontario, California, on Nov. 13, 2018.
USDA NRCS has helped with hoop houses to extend the growing season, low-emission tractor replacement to efficiently move bulk materials and a needed micro-irrigation system for this San Bernardino County location that is in a severe drought condition (drought.gov). Huerta del Valle is also a recipient of a 4-year USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Community Food Projects (CFP) grant and a USDA funded California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP). She and her staff grow nearly 150 crops, including papayas and cactus. CSA customers pick up their produce on site, where they can see where their food grows. To pay, they can use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards. The price of a produce box is based on the customerâs income.
Alonsoâs inspiration came from her desire to provide affordable organic food for her child. This lead to collaborators that included students and staff from Pitzer College's âPitzer in Ontario Programâ and the Claremont Colleges, who implemented a project plan and started a community garden at a public school. Shortly after that, the City of Ontario was granted $1M from the Kaiser Permanente Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Zone initiative. Huerta del Valle was granted $68,000 from that grant for a three-year project to increase the scale of operation. The city of Ontario supported the project above and beyond the grant by providing a vacant piece of land next to a residential park and community center. Alonso says that this spot, nestled near an international airport, two major interstate highways, suburban homes, and warehouses, is a âgreen space to breathe freely.â
She far exceeded Kaiser's expectations by creating 60 10â X 20â plots that are in full use by the nearby residents. Because of the demand, there is a constant waiting list for plots that become available.
As the organization grew, it learned about the NRCS through an advertisement for the high-tunnel season extension cost-sharing program. The ad put them in touch with the former district manager Kim Lary who helped Huerta del Valle become federal grant ready with their Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) and System for Award Management (SAM) registrations and connected the young organization to NRCS as well as the Inland Empire Resource Conservation District (IERCD.) Since then, Alonso has worked closely with them sharing her knowledge with a broader community including local colleges such as the Claremont Colleges and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona).
Cal Poly Pomona is an example where education institutions help the community. Cal Poly Pomona Plant Science Nursery Manager Monica Salembier has produced plant seedlings (plant trays) for transplant at HdV for many years. Aaron Fox and Eileen Cullen in the Plant Science department have hosted HdV in their classes and brought many groups on tours of the farm to learn about sustainable urban growing practices.
The shaded picnic tables in the center of the garden have been the site of three USDA NRCS workshops for regional farmers, students, and visitors. The site also serves as a showcase for students and other producers who may need help with obtaining low-emission tractors, micro-irrigation, and high tunnel âhoop houses.â
Alonso says, âevery day is a good day, but especially at the monthly community meetings where I learn from my community.â
For more information, please see www.usda.gov and www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/community-supported-agriculture
Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) is the Departmentâs focal point for the nationâs farmers and ranchers and other stewards of private agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest lands. FPAC agencies implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance services, conservation programs, and technical assistance, and commodity, lending, and disaster programs.
The agencies and service supporting FPAC are Farm Service Agency (FSA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and Risk Management Agency (RMA).
Natural Resources Conservation Service has a proud history of supporting Americaâs farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners. For more than 80 years, we have helped people make investments in their operations and local communities to keep working lands working, boost rural economies, increase the competitiveness of American agriculture, and improve the quality of our air, water, soil, and habitat.
As the USDAâs primary private lands conservation agency, we generate, manage, and share the data, technology, and standards that enable partners and policymakers to make decisions informed by objective, reliable science.
And through one-on-one, personalized advice, we work voluntarily with producers and communities to find the best solutions to meet their unique conservation and business goals. By doing so, we help ensure the health of our natural resources and the long-term sustainability of American agriculture.
For more information, please see www.usda.gov.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
All views (and comments) are most appreciated. Thank you. If you use this image on your web site, you need to provide a link to this photo.
[This is one of a set of 8 photos} The John Waddey Carter House in Martinsville, Virginia, was built in 1896; the architect was George Franklin Barber, mail-order architect from Knoxville, Tennessee. This was a wedding present for Carter’s second wife, Kizziah Drewery. Locally the house is known as the “Gray Lady.” Carter was a lawyer and politician, one-time mayor of Martinsville.
A somewhat subdued Barber design, this is still a remarkable Queen Anne with architectural features galore. It’s a 2-story frame weatherboard structure with a dominating central gable, under which are found porches on both first and second floors. The roofline is complex with the front gable, steep-pitched cross gables, and a tower with onion dome. The roof is hipped, standing-seam metal-clad. A large dormer window is on the side with narrow double windows. Running bond brick forms the foundation.
The first level front façade has a wrap-around porch that contains the bulge of the tower. It has a frieze of beaded spindlework, turned posts and lace brackets, and a balustrade consisting of thick balusters but with panels at the corners. The porch gable has a board-and-batten decoration and a very basic bargeboard. The second-level porch has more involved ornamentation with a base of fish-scale shingles, a wide, subdued bargeboard, and stylized floral corner medallions. The central gable is decorated with fish-scale shingles and has two small 1/1 windows, the upper portions with a design of diagonal muntins.
The octagonal tower is more a part of the mass of the house rather than a taller, more prominent element. Fish-scale shingles form the base of the tower above the roofline; above this are small sunburst windows; and above the windows is an overhang with prominent brackets. Capping the tower is a small onion-dome with patterned metal shingles. A variety of windows exists throughout—tall but narrow 1/1 paned windows, single-paned, round, half-round, arched, and stained glass (I didn’t spot this). The entrance is simple with large sidelights and a decorative sunburst pattern below them.
Modifications have been made to the original house to accommodate additions of a bathroom and kitchen.
The house was listed November 3, 1988 on the National Register of Historic Places with ID #88002180. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources nomination file includes a very detailed account of the interior arrangement and decorative elements.
www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Cities/Martinsville/120-00...
A nice b&w photo (no date given) at
www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Cities/Martinsville/Carter...
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
The harvest, seedlings and suggested donation boards are in the process of being prepared for produce boxes, planting and display on CSA pick up day at Huerta del Valle (HdV), in Ontario, California, on Nov. 13, 2018.
The 4-Acre organic Community Supported Garden and Farm in the middle of a low-income urban community, where Co-Founder and Executive Director Maria Alonso and USDA NRCS Redlands District Conservationist Tomas Aguilar-Campos work closely as she continues to improve the farm operation. The site also serves as a showcase for students and other producers who may need help with obtaining low-emission tractors, micro-irrigation, and high tunnel âhoop houses.â
USDA NRCS has helped with hoop houses to extend the growing season, low-emission tractor replacement to efficiently move bulk materials and a needed micro-irrigation system for this San Bernardino County location that is in a severe drought condition (drought.gov). Huerta del Valle is also a recipient of a 4-year USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Community Food Projects (CFP) grant and a USDA funded California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP). She and her staff grow nearly 150 crops, including papayas and cactus. CSA customers pick up their produce on site, where they can see where their food grows. To pay, they can use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards. The price of a produce box is based on the customerâs income.
Alonsoâs inspiration came from her desire to provide affordable organic food for her child. This lead to collaborators that included students and staff from Pitzer College's âPitzer in Ontario Programâ and the Claremont Colleges, who implemented a project plan and started a community garden at a public school. Shortly after that, the City of Ontario was granted $1M from the Kaiser Permanente Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Zone initiative. Huerta del Valle was granted $68,000 from that grant for a three-year project to increase the scale of operation. The city of Ontario supported the project above and beyond the grant by providing a vacant piece of land next to a residential park and community center. Alonso says that this spot, nestled near an international airport, two major interstate highways, suburban homes, and warehouses, is a âgreen space to breathe freely.â
She far exceeded Kaiser's expectations by creating 60 10â X 20â plots that are in full use by the nearby residents. Because of the demand, there is a constant waiting list for plots that become available.
As the organization grew, it learned about the NRCS through an advertisement for the high-tunnel season extension cost-sharing program. The ad put them in touch with the former district manager Kim Lary who helped Huerta del Valle become federal grant ready with their Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) and System for Award Management (SAM) registrations and connected the young organization to NRCS as well as the Inland Empire Resource Conservation District (IERCD.) Since then, Alonso has worked closely with them sharing her knowledge with a broader community including local colleges such as the Claremont Colleges and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona).
Cal Poly Pomona is an example where education institutions help the community. Cal Poly Pomona Plant Science Nursery Manager Monica Salembier has produced plant seedlings (plant trays) for transplant at HdV for many years. Aaron Fox and Eileen Cullen in the Plant Science department have hosted HdV in their classes and brought many groups on tours of the farm to learn about sustainable urban growing practices.
The shaded picnic tables in the center of the garden have been the site of three USDA NRCS workshops for regional farmers, students, and visitors. The site also serves as a showcase for students and other producers who may need help with obtaining low-emission tractors, micro-irrigation, and high tunnel âhoop houses.â
Alonso says, âevery day is a good day, but especially at the monthly community meetings where I learn from my community.â
For more information, please see www.usda.gov and www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/community-supported-agriculture
Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) is the Departmentâs focal point for the nationâs farmers and ranchers and other stewards of private agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest lands. FPAC agencies implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance services, conservation programs, and technical assistance, and commodity, lending, and disaster programs.
The agencies and service supporting FPAC are Farm Service Agency (FSA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and Risk Management Agency (RMA).
Natural Resources Conservation Service has a proud history of supporting Americaâs farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners. For more than 80 years, we have helped people make investments in their operations and local communities to keep working lands working, boost rural economies, increase the competitiveness of American agriculture, and improve the quality of our air, water, soil, and habitat.
As the USDAâs primary private lands conservation agency, we generate, manage, and share the data, technology, and standards that enable partners and policymakers to make decisions informed by objective, reliable science.
And through one-on-one, personalized advice, we work voluntarily with producers and communities to find the best solutions to meet their unique conservation and business goals. By doing so, we help ensure the health of our natural resources and the long-term sustainability of American agriculture.
For more information, please see www.usda.gov.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
Career Pathways Showcase:
Natural Resources Agriculture-Food
Gold medalists from Upper Cape Regional (Mass.). Team members from L to R: Ann Marie Luppino, Jack Rogers and Bailey Nance.
Nev Hewitt, Queensland Minister for Water Resources, and Lin Gordon, New South Wales Minister for Conservation and Water Resources.
Queensland State Archives Item ID436356, Photographic material
Prinz Eugen, Eugenio di Savoia, Eugenio de Saboya, Eugène de Savoie-Carignan, Prince Eugene of Savoy, Eugeniusz Sabaudzki
History of the Vienna Hofburg
First residence
(further information you can get by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
With the elevation of Austria to Archduchy in 1156 Vienna became city of residence. From the residence of the Babenberg which was located on the present site "Am Hof", unfortunately there are no more remains left. After the extinction of the Babenberg, King Ottokar II Přemysl of Bohemia (1230-1278) took over by marriage the rule in Vienna and began in 1275 with the construction of a castle within the city walls of Vienna. This castle was equipped with four towers around a rectangular court that is known today as the Schweizerhof (Swiss court). In the fight for the German crown Ottokar was defeated at the Battle of Dürnkrut (Lower Austria) by Rudolf I of Habsburg (1218-1291) and killed during the retreat.
As the old residence of the Babenberg burnt about 1276, Rudolf probably in 1296 moved to the former castle of Ottokar 1279. The descendants of Rudolf extended the castle only slightly: chapel (documentary mention in 1296), St. Augustine's Church (consecrated in 1349), reconstruction of the chapel (1423-1426) . Due to the division of the lands of the Habsburgs, Vienna lost its importance and it also lacked the financial resources to expand the castle.
Imperial residence
Under Frederick III. (1415-1493) acquired the Habsburgs the imperial title and Vienna became an imperial residence. But Friedrich and his successors used the Vienna Residence rarely and so it happened that the imperial residence temporarily orphaned. Only under Ferdinand I (1503-1564) Vienna again became the capital of the Archduchy. Under Ferdinand began a large construction: the three wings of the existing Swiss court were expanded and increased. The defensive wall in the northwest was as fourth wing with the Swiss Gate (built in 1552 probably by Pietro Ferrabosco ) rebuilt. In the southwest was a tract for Ferdinand's children (the so-called "children Stöckl (Kinderstöckl)") added. The newly constituted authorities Exchequer and Chancery were domiciled in adjacent buildings at Castle Square. There were also an art chamber in the castle, a hospital, a passage from the castle to St. Augustine's Church and a new ballroom.
First major extensions of the residence
In the area of the "desolate church" built Ferdinand from 1559 a solitary residence for his son. However, the construction was delayed, and Maximilian II (1527-1576) moved after his father's death in 1564 in the old castle. He had his residence for his Spanish horses in a Hofstallgebäude (Court stables building - Stallburg) converted and from 1565 increased.
Ferdinand I decided to divide his lands to his three sons, which led to a reduction of Vienna as a residence. Moreover, resided Maximilian II, who was awarded apart from Austria above and below the Enns also Bohemia and Hungary, readily in Prague and moved also the residence there. In 1575 he decided to build a new building opposite the Swiss court for the royal household of his eldest son, Rudolf II (1552-1612). The 1577 in the style of the late Renaissance completed and in 1610 expanded building, which was significantly fitted with a turret with "welscher hood" and an astronomical clock, but was inhabited by the governor of the Emperor (Archduke Ernst of Austria). However, the name "Amalienborg Castle" comes from Amalie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (wife of Joseph I) that in 1711 there established her widow's home.
In the late 16th and early 17th Century only a few extensions were carried out: extension of a separate tract in the northeast of the castle for the treasure and art chamber (1583-1585) as well as setting up of a dance hall in the area of today's Redoutensäle (1629-1631).
Under Leopold I the dance hall war rebuilt of Ludovico Burnacini 1659/1660 into a at that time modern theater ("Comedy House"). 1666 Leopold I had in the area of today's castle garden a new opera house with three tiers and a capacity of 5,000 persons built.
In the 1660-ies was under Leopold I (1640-1705) between the Amalienbourg and the Schweizerhof, the so-called Leopoldine Wing (Leopoldinischer Trakt), according to the plans of architect Filiberto Lucchese an elongated Flügelbau (wing building) built. Since, however, the tract shortly after the completion burned down, it has been newly built and increased by Giovanni Pietro Tencala. Due to its architectur, this tract connects yet more to the late Renaissance. The connection with the Amalienborg Castle followed then under Leopold's son, Joseph I (1678-1711).
After completion of the Leopoldine Wing the in the southeast of the castle located Riding School was restored, the south tower of the old castle razed, the old sacristy of the castle chapel replaced by an extension. Under Charles VI. (1685-1740) the gatehouse between the Castle Yard and carbon market (Kohlmarkt) by Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt was transformed into a monumental triumphal portal as a representative signum of the imperial power. However, this construction does not exist anymore, it had to give way to the Michael tract.
Baroque redesign of the Hofburg
In the early 18th Century began an intense construction activity. The Emperor commissioned Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach with the construction of new stables outside the city walls as well as a new court library.
After the death of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach whose son Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach took over the supervision of the stables and the Imperial Library. 1725 the palatial front of the stables was completed. Since yet during the construction period has been noted that the stables were too smal dimensioned, the other wings were not realized anymore. The with frescoes by Daniel Gran and emperor statues of Paul Strudel equipped Court Library was completed in 1737.
Opposite of the Leopoldine Wing was supposed to be built a new Reich Chancellery. 1723 Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt was commissioned with the design. 1726, however, the Reich Chancellery was withdrawn the supervision and is was transferred to the Chancery and thus to Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, who also designed the adjacent court chamber and the front to St. Michael's Church. 1728 were finished the court chamber and the facade of the two buildings. By Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach was also planned the Michaelertrakt, the connection between the Winter Riding School and Reichskanzleitrakt (Imperial Chancellery Tract). However, since the old Burgtheater building was in the way, this was half done for a period of 150 years and was only completed in 1889-1893 by Ferdinand Kirschner.
Under Maria Theresa (1717-1780) was the at St. Michael's Square located and only as remnants existing Ballhaus (ballhouse) adapted as a court theater. Beside the Kaiser hospital therefore a new ballhouse was built, which was name giving for the Ballhausplatz. Subsequently, there were over and over again modifications and adaptations: reconstruction of the comedy hall according to the plans of Jean Nicolas Jadot into two ballrooms, the small Redoutensaal and the large Redoutensaal (ball room) (1744-1748). The transformation of the two halls (since 1760), repair of the Court Library and since 1769 the design of the Josefsplatz followed under Joseph Nicolas of Pacassi. These buildings were completed by the successor of Pacassi Franz Anton Hillebrandt. As an extension building for the Royal Library was built in the southeast the Augustinian tract.
Other structural measures under Maria Theresa: establishment of the court pharmacy into the Stallburg, relocation of the in the Stallburg accommodated art collection to the Upper Belvedere, demolition of the remaining two towers of the old castle, the construction of two stairways (the ambassadors (Botschafterstiege) and the Säulenstiege (pillar stairway).
Extensions in the 19th Century and early 20th century
Francis II (1768-1835) gave Albert Duke of Saxe-Teschen and his wife Marie Christine (daughter of Maria Theresa), the Palais Tarouca south of the Augustinian monastery. From 1800 this was remodeled by Louis Montoyer and by a wing building expanded to the today's Albertina.
1804 proclaimed Francis II the hereditary Empire of Austria and was thus as Francis I the first Austrian emperor. With the by Napoleon Bonaparte provoked abdication of the emperor in 1806 ended the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
1809 part of the old bastions by the castle was blown up as a consequence of the war with Napoleon and afterwards razed. Towards to the today's ring road then new outworks were layed out (the so-called Hornwerkskurtine and the Escarpen). In the early 20's of the 19th Century were created three gardens: the private Imperial Castle Garden with two by Louis von Remy planned steel/glass-constructed greenhouses, Heroes Square with boulevards and the People garden with the Theseus Temple (Pietro Nobile). At the same time arised also the new, by Luigi Cagnola in 1821 begun and 1824 by Pietro Nobile completed outer castle gate.
1846 was built a monumental memorial to Francis I in the Interior Castle Square. In the turmoil of the 1848 Revolution the Stallburg was stormed and at the outer castle square as well as the castle gate fiercely fought. In the process burned the roof of the court library. The political consequences of the revolution were the abdication of Emperor Ferdinand I (1793-1875), the dismissal of the dreaded Chancellor Clemens Lothar Prince Metternich and the coronation of Ferdinand's nephew Franz Joseph.
In the first years of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I (1830-1916) were converted the court stables by Leopold Mayer and expanded. As part of the expansion of the city, the city walls were razed and it emerged in place of the fort complex space for a magnificent boulevard, the Ringstrasse (Ring road). 1862, was born the idea of an Imperial Forum of architect Ludwig Förster. On the surface between the Hofburg and the Imperial Stables should arise Court Museums (Art and Natural History Museum).
At the outer Castle Square (today's Heldenplatz) were in the 60-ies of the 19th Century the by Anton Dominik Fernkorn created equestrian statues of Archduke Charles (defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Aspern-Essling) and Prince Eugene of Savoy (victor over the Turks in several battles) set.
After an unsuccessful architectural competition on the design of the Heroes square area in 1869 Gottfried Semper could be won. This led to the involuntary and not frictionless collaboration with Carl Freiherr von Hasenauer. Planned was a two-wing building over the ring road away with the two flanking twin museums (Art and Natural History Museum) and the old stables as a conclusion. 1871 was started with the Erdaushebungen (soil excavations) for the museums. 1889, the Natural History Museum was opened,1891 the Museum of Fine Arts (Kunsthistorisches Museum).
On a watercolor from 1873 by Rudolf Ritter von Alt (1812 - 1905), an overall view of the Imperial Forum is shown
1888 the Old Court Theatre at St. Michael's Square was demolished as the new KK Court Theatre (today's Burgtheater) by Gottfried Semper and Carl Freiherr von Hasenauer built, was finished. The since150 years existing construction site at St. Michael's Square could be completed. The roundel got a dome, the concave curved Michaelertrakt was finalized by Ferdinand Kirschner. The once by Lorenzo Mattielli created cycle of statues on the facade of the Reich Chancellery was continued with four other "deeds of Hercules" sidewards of the drive-through arches. 1893, the Hofburg had finally its last magnificent decorative facade .
1901, the old greenhouses were demolished and replaced by an orangery with Art Nouveau elements according to plans of Friedrich Ohmann (finalization in 1910). In 1907, the Corps de Logis, which forms a closure of the new castle, completed. Since Emperor Franz Joseph I in the budding 20th Century no longer was interested in lengthy construction projects and the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este (1863-1914) spoke out against the establishment of a throne hall building, but spoke for the construction of a smaller ballroom tract, the implementation of the second wing was dropped. After the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este in Sarajevo, the First World War broke out. Franz Joseph I died in 1916. A great-nephew of Franz Joseph I, Charles I (1887-1922) succeeded to the throne, however, that he only occupied two years. The end of the First World War also meant the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. On 11th November 1918 the First Republic was proclaimed. As Karl in fact renounced of the businesses of government, but not the throne, he had to go into exile with his family.
The Imperial Palace in the 20th century
The interior design of the ballroom tract and the New Castle were continued despite the end of the monarchy to 1926. By the end of the monarchy, many of the buildings lost their purpose. Further on used or operated was the Riding School. The stables were used from 1921 as the Wiener Messe (Fair) exhibition grounds ("Messe palace"). In 1928, the Corps de Logis, the Museum of Ethnology, by then part of the Natural History Museum, opened. 1935 came the weapons collection (court, hunting and armour chamber) of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in the New Castle.
1933/1934 the outer castle gate by Rudolf Wondracek was transformed into a hero monument to the victims of the First World War. 1935 emerged left and right of the castle gate pylon portals with eagle sculptures of Wilhelm Frass. In March 1938, the Heroes' Square and the balcony of the Neue Burg gained notoriety after Adolf Hitler announced to the cheering crowd at the Heldenplatz the annexation of Austria to the German Reich. The Nazis were planning a redesign of the Heroes' Square to a paved parade and ceremony space. The plans were not realized since 1943 a fire pond at Heldenplatz was dredged and the place was later used for agriculture. In the Trade Fair Palace were held during the period of the Nazism propaganda events.
During the war, the Imperial Palace (Stallburg, St. Augustine's Church, Albertina, the head office of the Federal President, the current building of the Federal Chancellery) was severely damaged by bomb hits: The first President of the Second Republic, Dr. Karl Renner, moved in 1946 the Office of the President to the Leopoldine Wing (in the former living quarters of Maria Theresa and Joseph II).
During the time of occupation the seat of the Inter-Allied Commission was housed in the Neue Burg.
1946 again were held first events in the Exhibition Palace and have been set up two large exhibition halls in the main courtyard of the fair palace. In the course of the reconstruction the damages of war were eliminated and the Imperial Palace repaired, the castle stable were built again. In 1958 in the ballroom wing was set up the convention center, 1962-1966 the modern Library of the Austrian National Library housed in the Neue Burg.
For the first time appeared in 1989 the concept of a "Museum Quarter". The Museum district should include contemporary art and culture. The oversized design of Laurids and Manfred Ortner but was redimensioned several times after the resistance of a citizens' initiative. The implementation followed a decade later.
1992 the two Redoutensäle completely burned out. Yet shortly after the fire was began with the reconstruction. The roof was extended and the small ball room could be restored. The big ball room, however, was renovated and designed with paintings by Josef Mikl. In 1997 the two halls were reopened.
From 1997-2002 the Museum Quarter (including Kunsthalle Wien, Leopold Collection) was rebuilt and the old building fabric renovated.
1999 was began with the renovation of the Albertina. The for a study building, two exhibition halls and an underground storage enlarged museum was reopened in 2003. The Albertina ramp was built with an oversized shed roof by Hans Hollein.
In 2006, in the area of the boiler house yard were created additional rooms for the convention center.
(Source: Trenkler, Thomas: "The Vienna Hofburg", Vienna 2004)
Naoko Ishii, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson, Global Environment Facility, USA speaking during the Session: Restoring Ocean Resources at the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 20, 2017
Copyright by World Economic Forum / Sikarin Thanachaiary
Mayor Eric Adams delivers remarks at the World Resources Institute’s “The Big Apple Takes a Bite Out of Climate Change” event. Ideal Glass Studios, Manhattan. Wednesday, September 21, 2022. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
Nottingham students in the Natural Resources pathway visited Chittenango Falls to put their new skills to work. Photos by Marilu Lopez Fretts.
Salvador Prieto uses his tractor to get mulch, while daughter Nadya Prieto enjoys driving a six-wheeled utility vehicle along the family farm roads between rows of Hass avocados and Meyer lemons, with mother Martha Romero, in Somis, CA, on Nov 15, 2018.
Salvador Prieto grew up watching and helping his father grow corn and beans on a small farm in Mexico. The journey from bean fields to 20-acre orchard owner with his wife Martha Romero was not a straight and narrow path to Somis, Calif. In fact, it was music that brought him to the United States. Today the passion is agriculture.
Similarly, Romero didn’t follow a career in agriculture to her beautiful and healthy avocado and lemon orchard. Romero grew up a city girl in the heart of Los Angeles. Now sharing this farm with her husband and two children, she quickly credits her success to the support and assistance from her family to navigate the learning curve.
Constantly seeking improvement on the family’s orchard, Romero discovered the local Farm Bureau and the Ventura County Agricultural Irrigated Land Group (VCAILG) coalition. VCAILG put Romero in touch with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Ventura Resource Conservation District, for technical and financial assistance to implement conservation and management practices.
NRCS California District Conservationist Dawn Afman, Soil Conservationist Elizabeth Keith, and Resource Conservationist Brooks Engelhardt, have all provided technical assistance and invested their time and expertise in helping Prieto and Romero incorporate conservation practices in their orchard. Prieto and Romero were immediately intrigued by NRCS’s efforts to improve soil health.
“At first it was overwhelming, but many other farmers I know are members, so it is comforting to know that I am not alone,” said Romero. “We need to make a profit, obviously, but, for me, I want to do it while protecting mother nature and precious resources like water. I am able to do this with NRCS’s help.”
Prieto and Romero learned a lot from trial and error. Romero admits that she even bought her trees before the land was ready. But learning opportunities, like an early community garden project, gave them critical knowledge and experience.
A big first conservation practice they learned was mulching to save water and reduce weeds. NRCS helped Prieto and Romero with this, through an Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) contract, to apply mulch to their orchard floor to conserve soil moisture and improve soil health in the Fall of 2018.
“Every time we have a question or need assistance, NRCS has been nothing but helpful,” added Romero. “They let us know about other programs out in the community and invited us to their annual Latino Farmer Conference, where my husband and I learned about other helpful resources.”
Recently, Prieto and Romero entered into a new NRCS contract to implement Irrigation Water Management (IWM) to their orchard. The IWM plan includes installing moisture sensors into the ground, which transmit continuous data to cloud-based storage, and accessed through a smart device app on their phones. The information lets them know when, where and how long to irrigate. This knowledge will help them toward their goal of producing 6,000 pounds of produce per acre.
Looking toward the future, Romero expressed that knowledge is key. “Before we plant further, we need to get educated on how to do it best,” concluded Romero. “From the planting of a seed or planting of a tree, we need the entire process to be profitable. It's not just about planting it. It's about preparing the land and using the resources wisely.”
In the meantime, Romero enjoys the weekends because she does not need to be worried about picking up the kids from school or rushing around. She just wants to be out in the orchard, making it better From mulching to pruning or irrigating and weeding. The family’s goal is to make the farm “better tomorrow than it was today.”
Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) is the Department’s focal point for the nation’s farmers and ranchers and other stewards of private agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest lands. FPAC agencies implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance services, conservation programs, and technical assistance, and commodity, lending, and disaster programs.
The agencies and services supporting FPAC are Farm Service Agency (FSA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and Risk Management Agency (RMA).
NRCS has a proud history of supporting America’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners for more than 80 years. USDA helps people make investments in their operations and local communities to keep working lands working, boost rural economies, increase the competitiveness of American agriculture, and improve the quality of our air, water, soil, and habitat.
From weather to pests, and from a lack of time to markets, each American farmer faces a unique set of challenges. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) helps agricultural producers confront those challenges – all while conserving natural resources like soil, water, and air.
This voluntary conservation program helps producers make conservation work for them. Together, NRCS and producers invest in solutions that conserve natural resources for the future while also improving agricultural operations.
Through EQIP, NRCS provides agricultural producers with financial resources and one-on-one help to plan and implement improvements, or what NRCS calls conservation practices. Using these practices can lead to cleaner water and air, healthier soil and better wildlife habitat, all while improving agricultural operations. Through EQIP, you can voluntarily implement conservation practices and NRCS co-invests in these practices with you.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
For more information, please see:
USDA
FPAC
ww.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas
NRCS
www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/
EQIP
www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/program...
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department resources including patrol trucks, a search-and-rescue trailer and search-and rescue boats staged in Beaumont alongside the Texas Task Force 1 in preparation for Hurricane Laura response efforts. Photo c 2020 Texas Parks and Wildlife
Rugged, windswept mountains rise abruptly out of gentle prairie grassland in spectacular Waterton Lakes National Park. Here, several different ecological regions meet and interact in a landscape shaped by wind, fire, flooding, and abundant plants and wildlife. The park helps protect the unique and unusually diverse physical, biological and cultural resources found in the Crown of the Continent: one of the narrowest places in the Rocky Mountains. The highlight of Waterton's sparkling chain of lakes is the international Upper Waterton Lake, the deepest lake in the Canadian Rockies. In 1932, the park was joined with Montana's Glacier National Park to form the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park - a world first.
www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/Waterton/index_e.asp
In 1895, a 140 sq. km (54 sq. miles) area was protected through an Order in Council of the federal government. After a variety of status and name changes, it became what it is now known as Waterton Lakes National Park.
Waterton was Canada's 4th national park, the smallest in the Canadian Rockies. Its size has varied considerably over the years but its area is now 505 sq. km (195 sq. miles).
The first major step toward preservation of Waterton was taken by a Pincher Creek rancher, F.W. Godsal, who sent a proposal to Ottawa in 1893 recommending that the Waterton Lakes area be set aside as a national park.
The park's name derives from the Waterton Lakes. This chain of lakes, named by Lieutenant Blakiston (a member of the Palliser Expedition), honours a British naturalist, Squire Charles Waterton (1782-1865).
As part of a Canada-wide system of national parks, Waterton Lakes National Park represents the southern Rocky Mountains Natural Region - where some of the most ancient mountains in the Rockies abruptly meet the prairie. It is a landscape shaped by wind, fire, and flooding; with a rich variety of plants and wildlife.
The park is part of the Crown of the Continent ecosystem; a place with unusually diverse physical, biological and cultural resources. This ecosystem is one of the narrowest places in the Rocky Mountain chain. This means Waterton and its surrounding region sits on a key pinch point of a crucial north-south Rocky Mountain wildlife corridor.
Several different ecological regions meet in Waterton - with prairie plants of the Great Plains, Rocky Mountain plants from northern areas, and coastal plants from the Pacific Northwest all overlapping. The park contains 45 different habitat types, including grasslands, shrublands, wetlands, lakes, spruce-fir, pine and aspen forests, and alpine areas. This means Waterton has an unusually rich and varied number of plants for its size, with more than 1000 vascular plant species, 182 bryophytes and 218 lichen species. Many of these are rare or threatened. More than half of Alberta's plant species can be found in Waterton.
The park's variety of vegetation communities provides homes for many animals, including more than 60 species of mammals, over 250 species of birds, 24 species of fish, and 10 reptiles and amphibians. Large predators include wolf, coyote, cougar, grizzly bear, and American black bear. The grasslands are important winter range for ungulates such as elk, mule deer, and white-tailed deer. In the fall, the marsh and lake areas of the park are used extensively by migrating ducks, swans, and geese. Some animals found here are considered rare or unusual eg. trumpeter swans, Vaux's swifts, and vagrant shrews.
Waterton Lakes National Park also has global importance because of several key international designations:
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park (1932) - The Peace Park was originally created as a symbol of peace and goodwill between the United States and Canada, but has now evolved to also represent cooperation in a world of shared resources. Both parks strive to protect the ecosystem through shared management, not only between themselves, but also with their other neighbours.
On December 6, 1995 UNESCO designated the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park as a World Heritage Site because it has a distinctive climate, physiographic setting, mountain-prairie interface, and tri-ocean hydrographical divide. It is an area of significant scenic values with abundant and diverse flora and fauna.
Criteria (revised in 2006)
(vii) Both national parks were originally designated by their respective nations because of their superlative mountain scenery, their high topographic relief, glacial landforms, and abundant diversity of wildlife and wildflowers.
(ix) The property occupies a pivotal position in the Western Cordillera of North America resulting in the evolution of plant communities and ecological complexes that occur nowhere else in the world. Maritime weather systems unimpeded by mountain ranges to the north and south allow plants and animals characteristic of the Pacific Northwest to extend to and across the continental divide in the park. To the east, prairie communities nestle against the mountains with no intervening foothills, producing an interface of prairie, montane and alpine communities. The international peace park includes the headwaters of three major watersheds draining through significantly different biomes to different oceans. The biogeographical significance of this tri-ocean divide is increased by the many vegetated connections between the headwaters. The net effect is to create a unique assemblage and high diversity of flora and fauna concentrated in a small area.
Waterton Biosphere Reserve (1979) - As Canada's second biosphere reserve, Waterton was the first Canadian national park to take part in this UNESCO program. Biosphere Reserves are created to achieve a better understanding of the relationship between humans and the natural environment by integrating knowledge and experience from both natural and social sciences. Major goals are to support information exchange, research, education, training and improved land management; largely through cooperation and shared projects with local private landowners and government agencies.
The park has two national historic sites located within its boundaries. These are the Prince of Wales Hotel National Historic Site (1995) and the Lineham Discovery Well National Historic Site (the site of western Canada's first producing oil well) (1968).
Waterton is located in the southwest corner of Alberta. It is bordered...
on the west by the province of British Columbia (Akamina-Kishinena Provincial Park and Flathead Provincial Forest);
on the south by Glacier National Park, Montana;
on the north and east by the Bow-Crow Forest, and private lands in the Municipal Districts of Cardston and Pincher Creek;
and includes a large timber reserve belonging to the Kainaiwa (Blood Tribe.)
The townsite sits at 1280 m (4200 ft) above sea level and the park's highest peak, Mt. Blakiston, is 2940 m (9645 ft) above sea level or approximately 1,490 m (4900 ft) tall.
The park is open year round although most facilities are closed in winter. Annual visitation is approximately 425,000. The year round residential population of about 100 people increases in the summer to about 2,000.
UNIQUE NATURAL FEATURES OF WATERTON
Some of the oldest, exposed sedimentary rock in the Canadian Rockies the Lewis thrust fault has exposed 1,500 million-year-old sedimentary rock.
Argillite the vivid colours of green and red layers of sedimentary rock are a result of oxidized and unoxidized iron in the rock. Both rock types, called argillite, derived from iron rich muds laid down on the bottom of an ancient sea.
Climate Waterton receives Alberta's highest average annual precipitation levels (1,072 mm) It is also one of Alberta's windiest places. Winter winds over 100 km/hr are common. Waterton has many chinooks, which contribute to it being one of Alberta's warmest areas in winter (about 28 winter days with temperatures of 2.5 C and above). These winds can cause temperatures to rise dramatically over short periods of time.
Foothills fescue prairie this grassland region stretches along the plains and foothills from southern Alberta into Montana. Waterton Lakes is the only Canadian national park that preserves foothills fescue grasslands.
Rare Vegetation Of 45 vegetation types identified in Waterton's recent Ecological Land Classification, 16 are considered significant because they are rare (small area in the park) or fragile and threatened. Notable are two grassland types and two types of aspen forest. These are threatened by non-native plant invasion, disturbance and heavy grazing pressure.
Rare Plants Amongst Waterton's more than 1000 species of vascular plants, 179 species are rare in Alberta. Twenty-two of these plants are not found anywhere else in Alberta.
Moonwort Hot Spot Waterton has globally significant genetic diversity, best symbolized by its amazing variety of small ferns called moonworts. Waterton has 8 different moonworts. The Waterton moonwort (Botrychium x watertonense) is only found here and is considered the rarest plant in the park.
Beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) Tall beargrass flowers and their tufts of grassy leaves are Waterton's showiest plant. Waterton Lakes is the only Canadian national park that protects this lily. It is the unofficial emblem of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.
Plains-dwelling Grizzly Bears Waterton is one of the last places in North America where grizzlies commonly range into the edges of its former grassland range.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) helped Terry and Gail Small with their Animal Mortality Facility, In-Vessel Composter that disposes of daily poultry mortality; a process that produces a pathogen free compost product that can then be applied to the land according to the nutrient management plan, Hector AR, on June 26, 2019. The purpose of this composters is to reduce the impact of pollution on surface and groundwater and reduce odor. Even in the event of a power outage, the process continues in the safety of its large long horizontal plastic container. The ingredients are simple, for every bucket of chicken, in goes a bucket of wood shavings.
Inside, an internal drum with spiral blades rotates very slowly mixing, moving and aerating the mixture. The natural process brings the interior temperature to120-125 degrees Fahrenheit. At the end, the compost is slowly expelled -- ready to use. The producer is then able to use it in fields or sell it.
The Smalls work with NRCS District Conservationist Joe Tapp and Agricultural Engineer Britt Hill on their conservation plan that includes this mortality facility.
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NRCS has a proud history of supporting America’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners. For more than 80 years, we have helped people make investments in their operations and local communities to keep working lands working, boost rural economies, increase the competitiveness of American agriculture, and improve the quality of our air, water, soil, and habitat.
As the USDA’s primary private lands conservation agency, we generate, manage, and share the data, technology, and standards that enable partners and policymakers to make decisions informed by objective, reliable science.
And through one-on-one, personalized advice, we work voluntarily with producers and communities to find the best solutions to meet their unique conservation and business goals. By doing so, we help ensure the health of our natural resources and the long-term sustainability of American agriculture.
Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) is the Department’s focal point for the nation’s farmers and ranchers and other stewards of private agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest lands. FPAC agencies implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance services, conservation programs and technical assistance, and commodity, lending, and disaster programs.
The agencies and service supporting FPAC are Farm Service Agency (FSA), NRCS, and Risk Management Agency (RMA).
For more information please see www.usda.gov.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
Steve Nash Foundation presents the SHOWDOWN in DOWNTOWN photos by RonSombilonGallery.com
Sponsored by Coast Capital Savings and BC Hydro PowerSmart
Showdown in Downtown is a collaboration of sponsors, local non-profits, sports superstars who educate and empower new energy for community action, the Street Festival brings together private and public resources to show off all we can do together.
About the Steve Nash Foundation
About the Foundation
Formed in 2001, given U.S. charitable status in 2004, and Canadian charitable status in 2007, the Steve Nash Foundation is a private foundation dedicated to assisting underserved children in their health, personal development, education and enjoyment of life. Like its NBA MVP founder, the Foundation is fast becoming a leader in assists . . . to a slightly shorter population.
Through our own initiatives, and through grants to public service and nonprofit entities in British Columbia, the Foundation aims to grow health in kids by funding projects that provide direct services to children affected by poverty, illness, abuse, or neglect, and create opportunity for education, health, and empowerment. We love the opportunity to get involved in the good work being done by child-focused ngo’s in our home province.
The Foundation also seeks to afford thoughtful solutions to community needs through our own projects to address critical health and education needs. The Foundation focuses its resources on underserved populations of children in British Columbia, Arizona, and the country of Paraguay. Equipping a neonatal intensive care ward in Asuncion to provide basic necessities for infants and their families, developing an early childhood education center of excellence to bring best practices to young kids that don’t always enjoy that access in Arizona, and uniting civic outreach, corporate and social service organizations to show kids how to get involved in their communities are examples of the daily work of the Foundation’s small but dedicated staff. Stemming from our first ever Steve Nash Foundation Charity Classic, held in Toronto, Ontario, in 2005, the Foundation is also working closely with the City to establish an all-access, all-kids after-school center there to build hope through hoops for kids.
While our work focuses exclusively on child welfare, we believe that corporations must share responsibility for the well-being of our communities. The Foundation employs and encourages environmentally-friendly office practices, and offers grantees assistance in developing their own recycling and energy conservation programs (check out our Green Leaf here). We also like to highlight the important work of other individuals and organizations, using our website links to increase their exposure, and contribute to their efforts. Further, we are proud to be working with young people that excel in their chosen fields, from whom we welcome energetic leadership and fresh voices.
The Steve Nash Foundation. Growing health in kids.
For more info, visit
SteveNash.org/about-the-foundation/
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by Stephen Badger | Office of Communications, Maryland Department of Natural Resources
2019 Maryland Natural Resources Police awards ceremony.
If nude models are hard to find, then check out these alternative life drawing resources to help you develop your drawing skills! Go to bit.ly/alternativelifedrawingresources for the complete article!
Through the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, Congress designated the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (NCA) in Washington County, Utah “to conserve, protect, and enhance …the ecological, scenic, wildlife, recreational, cultural, historical, natural, educational, and scientific resources” of public lands in the NCA.
The Colorado Plateau, Great Basin Desert, and Mojave Desert overlap in Washington County. In this transition zone, unusual plant and animal species have evolved, including the dwarf bearclaw-poppy and Shivwits milk-vetch, small native plants that grow nowhere else on earth. The hot, arid Mojave Desert provides habitat for diverse wildlife, such as kit fox, Gambel’s quail, and the Mojave Desert tortoise. This native tortoise is listed under the Endangered Species Act and is at risk of extinction due to habitat loss and other factors. The newly-designated Red Mountain and Cottonwood Canyon Wilderness areas are also within this NCA. Here, hikers, backpackers, and equestrians can enjoy scenic vistas, solitude, and natural quiet, just a few miles drive from local communities.
More than 130 miles of non-motorized recreation trails (hiking, mountain biking, and equestrian trail riding) are available for public use in the NCA. The Red Cliffs Recreation Area offers camping and day use areas, in a developed site where fees are collected. All motorized vehicle travel, including Off-Highway Vehicles, is limited to designated roads in the NCA. No motorized or mechanized vehicle travel is allowed in the Red Mountain and Cottonwood Canyon Wilderness areas, without special authorization from BLM.
Learn more about the NCA and plan your visit: www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/st__george/blm_special_areas/nati...
Photo: Bob Wick, BLM
Parish Church to the Holy Trinity and Franciscan Monastery
Object ID: 20593 Town Square 12
The late Baroque building, taking up the whole north side of the town square, is dominated by the Rococo façade. 1707 the Carmelite order at the request of the benefactor, Maria Antonia Montecuculi, settled down in St. Pölten, at the north side of the square the men convent should find its place. Although architect's plan and financial resources were available, was the start of construction not until 1757, there was missing the planning permission of Empress Maria Theresa. The church then was built to 1768 according to plans by Johann Pauli, the monastery was completed in 1773. Yet 10 years later, the monastery by Emperor Joseph II was repealed. Because of its strategic location, the church in 1785 became parish church, the pastoral care took over the by the dissolutions not affected Franciscan Order.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_denkmalgesch%C3%BCtzten_O...(Stadtteil)
(further information is available by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
History of the City St. Pölten
In order to present concise history of the Lower Austrian capital is in the shop of the city museum a richly illustrated full version on CD-ROM.
Tip
On the occasion of the commemoration of the pogroms of November 1938, the Institute for Jewish History of Austria its virtual Memorbuch (Memory book) for the destroyed St. Pölten Jewish community since 10th November 2012 is putting online.
Prehistory
The time from which there is no written record is named after the main materials used for tools and weapons: Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age. Using the latest technologies, archaeologists from archaeological finds and aerial photographs can trace a fairly detailed picture of life at that time. Especially for the time from the settling down of the People (New Stone Age), now practicing agriculture and animal husbandry, in the territory of St. Pölten lively settlement activity can be proved. In particular, cemeteries are important for the research, because the dead were laid in the grave everyday objects and jewelry, the forms of burial changing over time - which in turn gives the archeology valuable clues for the temporal determination. At the same time, prehistory of Sankt Pölten would not be half as good documented without the construction of the expressway S33 and other large buildings, where millions of cubic meters of earth were moved - under the watchful eyes of the Federal Monuments Office!
A final primeval chapter characterized the Celts, who settled about 450 BC our area and in addition to a new culture and religion also brought with them the potter's wheel. The kingdom of Noricum influenced till the penetration of the Romans the development in our area.
Roman period, migrations
The Romans conquered in 15 BC the Celtic Empire and established hereinafter the Roman province of Noricum. Borders were protected by military camp (forts), in the hinterland emerged civilian cities, almost all systematically laid out according to the same plan. The civil and commercial city Aelium Cetium, as St. Pölten was called (city law 121/122), consisted in the 4th Century already of heated stone houses, trade and craft originated thriving urban life, before the Romans in the first third of the 5th Century retreated to Italy.
The subsequent period went down as the Migration Period in official historiography, for which the settlement of the Sankt Pöltner downtown can not be proved. Cemeteries witness the residence of the Lombards in our area, later it was the Avars, extending their empire to the Enns.
The recent archaeological excavations on the Cathedral Square 2010/2011, in fact, the previous knowledge of St.Pölten colonization not have turned upside down but enriched by many details, whose full analysis and publication are expected in the near future.
Middle Ages
With the submission of the Avars by Charlemagne around 800 AD Christianity was gaining a foothold, the Bavarian Benedictine monastery of Tegernsee establishing a daughter house here - as founder are mentioned the brothers Adalbert and Ottokar - equipped with the relics of St. Hippolytus. The name St. Ypolit over the centuries should turn into Sankt Pölten. After the Hungarian wars and the resettlement of the monastery as Canons Regular of St. Augustine under the influence of Passau St. Pölten received mid-11th Century market rights.
In the second half of the 20th century historians stated that records in which the rights of citizens were held were to be qualified as Town Charters. Vienna is indeed already in 1137 as a city ("civitas") mentioned in a document, but the oldest Viennese city charter dates only from the year 1221, while the Bishop of Passau, Konrad, already in 1159 the St. Pöltnern secured:
A St. Pöltner citizen who has to answer to the court, has the right to make use of an "advocate".
He must not be forced to rid himself of the accusation by a judgment of God.
A St. Pöltner citizen may be convicted only by statements of fellow citizens, not by strangers.
From the 13th Century exercised a city judge appointed by the lord of the city the high and low jurisdiction as chairman of the council meetings and the Municipal Court, Inner and Outer Council supported him during the finding of justice. Venue for the public verdict was the in the 13th Century created new marketplace, the "Broad Market", now the town hall square. Originally square-shaped, it was only later to a rectangle reduced. Around it arose the market district, which together with the monastery district, the wood district and the Ledererviertel (quarter of the leather goods manufacturer) was protected by a double city wall.
The dependence of St. Pölten of the bishop of Passau is shown in the municipal coat of arms and the city seal. Based on the emblem of the heraldic animal of the Lord of the city, so the Bishop of Passau, it shows an upright standing wolf holding a crosier in its paw.
Modern Times
In the course of the armed conflict between the Emperor Frederick III . and King Matthias of Hungary pledged the Bishop of Passau the town on the Hungarian king. From 1485 stood Lower Austria as a whole under Hungarian rule. The most important document of this period is the awarding of the city coat of arms by King Matthias Corvinus in the year 1487. After the death of the opponents 1490 and 1493 could Frederick's son Maximilian reconquer Lower Austria. He considered St. Pölten as spoils of war and had no intention of returning it to the diocese of Passau. The city government has often been leased subsequently, for instance, to the family Wellenstein, and later to the families Trautson and Auersperg.
That St. Pölten now was a princely city, found its expression in the coat of arms letter of the King Ferdinand I. from 1538: From now on, the wolf had no crosier anymore, and the from the viewer's point of view left half showed the reverse Austrian shield, so silver-red-silver.
To the 16th Century also goes back the construction of St. Pöltner City Hall. The 1503 by judge and council acquired house was subsequently expanded, rebuilt, extended and provided with a tower.
A for the urban history research important picture, painted in 1623, has captured scenes of the peasant uprising of 1597, but also allows a view to the city and lets the viewer read some of the details of the then state of construction. The economic inconveniences of that time were only exacerbated by the Thirty Years War, at the end of which a fifth of the houses were uninhabited and the citizenry was impoverished.
Baroque
After the successful defense against the Turks in 1683, the economy started to recover and a significant building boom began. Lower Austria turned into the land of the baroque abbeys and monasteries, as it is familiar to us today.
In St. Pölten, the change of the cityscape is closely connected to the Baroque architect Jakob Prandtauer. In addition to the Baroquisation of the interior of the cathedral, a number of buildings in St. Pölten go to his account, so the reconstruction of the castle Ochsenburg, the erection of the Schwaighof and of the core building of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Englische Fräuleins - English Maidens) - from 1706 the seat of the first school order of St.Pölten - as well as of several bourgeois houses.
Joseph Munggenast, nephew and co-worker of Prandtauer, completed the Baroquisation of the cathedral, he baroquised the facade of the town hall (1727) and numerous bourgeois houses and designed a bridge over the Traisen which existed until 1907. In the decoration of the church buildings were throughout Tyroleans collaborating, which Jakob Prandtauer had brought along from his homeland (Tyrol) to St. Pölten, for example, Paul Troger and Peter Widerin.
Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II: Their reforms in the city of the 18th Century also left a significant mark. School foundings as a result of compulsory education, the dissolution of the monasteries and hereinafter - from 1785 - the new role of St. Pölten as a bishop's seat are consequences of their policies.
1785 was also the year of a fundamental alteration of the old Council Constitution: The city judge was replaced by one magistrate consisting of five persons, at the head was a mayor. For the first mayor the painter Josef Hackl was chosen.
The 19th century
Despite the Napoleonic Wars - St. Pölten in 1805 and 1809 was occupied by the French - and despite the state bankruptcy of 1811, increased the number of businesses constantly, although the economic importance of the city for the time being did not go beyond the near vicinity.
Against the background of monitoring by the state secret police, which prevented any political commitment between the Congress of Vienna and the 1848 revolution, the citizens withdrew into private life. Sense of family, fostering of domestic music, prominent salon societies in which even a Franz Schubert socialized, or the construction of the city theater were visible signs of this attitude.
The economic upswing of the city did not begin until after the revolution of the year 1848. A prerequisite for this was the construction of the Empress Elisabeth Western Railway, moving Vienna, Linz, soon Salzburg, too, in a reachable distance. The city walls were pulled down, St. Pölten could unfold. The convenient traffic situation favored factory start-ups, and so arose a lace factory, a revolver factory, a soap factory or, for example, as a precursor of a future large-scale enterprise, the braid, ribbon and Strickgarnerzeugung (knitting yarn production) of Matthias Salcher in Harland.
In other areas, too, the Gründerzeit (years of rapid industrial expansion in Germany - and Austria) in Sankt Pölten was honouring its name: The city got schools, a hospital, gas lanterns, canalization, hot springs and summer bath.
The 20th century
At the beginning of the 20th Century the city experienced another burst of development, initiated by the construction of the power station in 1903, because electricity was the prerequisite for the settlement of large companies. In particular, the companies Voith and Glanzstoff and the main workshop of the Federal Railways attracted many workers. New Traisen bridge, tram, Mariazell Railway and other infrastructure buildings were erected; St. Pölten obtained a synagogue. The Art Nouveau made it repeatedly into the urban architecture - just think of the Olbrich House - and inspired also the painting, as exponents worth to be mentioned are Ernst Stöhr or Ferdinand Andri.
What the outbreak of the First World War in broad outlines meant for the monarchy, on a smaller scale also St. Pölten has felt. The city was heavily impacted by the deployment of army units, a POW camp, a military hospital and a sick bay. Industrial enterprises were partly converted into war production, partly closed. Unemployment, housing emergency and food shortages long after the war still were felt painfully.
The 1919 to mayor elected Social Democrat Hubert Schnofl after the war tried to raise the standard of living of the people by improving the social welfare and health care. The founding of a housing cooperative (Wohnungsgenossenschaft), the construction of the water line and the establishment of new factories were further attempts to stimulate the stiffening economy whose descent could not be stopped until 1932.
After the National Socialist regime had stirred false hopes and plunged the world into war, St. Pölten was no longer the city as it has been before. Not only the ten devastating bombings of the last year of the war had left its marks, also the restrictive persecution of Jews and political dissidents had torn holes in the structure of the population. Ten years of Russian occupation subsequently did the rest to traumatize the population, but at this time arose from the ruins a more modern St. Pölten, with the new Traisen bridge, district heating, schools.
This trend continued, an era of recovery and modernization made the economic miracle palpable. Already in 1972 was - even if largely as a result of incorporations - exceeded the 50.000-inhabitant-limit.
Elevation to capital status (capital of Lower Austria), 10 July 1986: No other event in this dimension could have become the booster detonation of an up to now ongoing development thrust. Since then in a big way new residential and commercial areas were opened up, built infrastructure constructions, schools and universities brought into being to enrich the educational landscape. East of the Old Town arose the governmental and cultural district, and the list of architects wears sonorous names such as Ernst Hoffmann (NÖ (Lower Austria) Landhaus; Klangturm), Klaus Kada (Festspielhaus), Hans Hollein (Shedhalle and Lower Austrian Provincial Museum), Karin Bily, Paul Katzberger and Michael Loudon ( NÖ State Library and NÖ State Archive).
European Diploma, European flag, badge of honor, Europe Price: Between 1996 and 2001, received St. Pölten numerous appreciations of its EU commitment - as a sort of recognition of the Council of Europe for the dissemination of the EU-idea through international town twinnings, a major Europe exhibition or, for example, the establishment and chair of the "Network of European medium-sized cities".
On the way into the 21st century
Just now happened and already history: What the St. Pöltnern as just experienced sticks in their minds, travelers and newcomers within a short time should be told. The theater and the hospital handing over to the province of Lower Austria, a new mayor always on the go, who was able to earn since 2004 already numerous laurels (Tags: polytechnic, downtown enhancement, building lease scheme, bus concept) - all the recent changes are just now condensed into spoken and written language in order to make, from now on, the history of the young provincial capital in the 3rd millennium nachlesbar (checkable).
www.st-poelten.gv.at/Content.Node/freizeit-kultur/kultur/...
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