The Environment Public Authority (EPA) in accordance with Kuwait Municipality is responsible for governing and safe-guarding the protected areas and requests the public for conserving plants and wildlife especially during the months from November until March when the public is camping in the desert areas. The best months to visit and study Kuwait’s flora are January, February and March when the desert comes alive with colourful plants.

In order to protect the Kuwait fauna and flora public must adhere to: Certain designated areas which are allocated for camping and leisure purposes as a mode of preserving the desert environment; Avoid plucking and/or driving over and destroying the desert plants; Avoid driving in close proximity to the desert plant as it inevitably destroys life in its early stage as a lot of toxins is released from the car; Avoid driving over the burrows which belong to desert wildlife species; campers must clean the camping place before leaving; EPA also requests the public towards preservation of the Kuwait coral reefs and the marine environment during their visit Read more

Kelly Thomason proved her talent for wedding design when she got married. She just didn’t realize it would launch her career.

As the owner of Bella Flora, she now provides event design for weddings, corporate events, anniversaries, bar and bat mitzvas and other occasions.

Thomason, who studied art and business in college, made her June 2004 wedding nearly fairy-tale perfect by creating silk floral arrangements for her Salisbury House setting. For the reception at a West Des Moines ballroom, she festooned the ceiling with swags, decorated the tables and added more floral arrangement around room.

Within a year of her wedding and at the urging of friends and family who recognized her talent, she set up Bella Flora as a home-based business to create custom silk floral arrangements. Before long she realized there was a greater need for someone Read more

ONE OF the first exhibits you encounter as you enter Melbourne Zoo is an empty, iron-barred cage. Built for orang-utans in 1927, the concrete-floored coop is a reminder of what used to be: animals behind bars, freezing or sweltering in their own faeces and urine, children outside gawking and chucking peanuts.

The enclosure, says a plaque, belongs to an era when animals were “objects of curiosity and displayed in cages which paid little heed to their true needs”. It is meant to sit in contrast to the contemporary zoo, with its re-created rainforests, faux jungle and Thai village, elaborate butterfly show and improved orang-utan sanctuary.

Management insists the zoo is now an enlightened hub of animal-centred education, conservation and research. But allegations of physical abuse and animal neglect, and a deep rift among staff, management and outside experts about policy and direction, have raised troubling questions for Australia’s oldest zoological gardens. The debate about animals in captivity is a live one. Read more

FORT BRAGG, Calif. – By the time you’ve driven this far north of San Francisco (more than three hours), the ocean’s rhythmic thunder against the cliffs lining Highway 1 has hammered your senses into a state of numb awe.
If You Go
Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens
707-964-4352
gardenbythesea.org
Daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Saturday after Labor Day. March-October 9 a.m.-5 p.m., November-February 9-4. Adults $10, ages 60 and older $7.50, children ages 13-17 $4, 6-12 $2, 5 and under free.

Directions : Fort Bragg is about 160 miles or about three hours north of San Francisco. Take Highway 101 north for 132 miles. Turn left onto State Highway 20 and follow for 33 miles. Turn left onto State Highway 1. In 0.4 miles, see sign on the ocean side for the gardens.
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Upstaged by showy flowers and leafy tropicals, ferns too often are overlooked when it comes to the garden.

Maybe that’s beginning to change.

“I think ferns are coming back into popularity,” says Emily Mason, a sales associate at Casa Flora, a fern nursery in Dallas. “They’re eco-friendly, they’re perennial, and they’re a good value.”

There are two preferred ways to use ferns in the garden — as massed understory plants or as striking accents. They do equally well in pots or the ground, depending on the variety, and a well-grown fern is a thing of beauty.

One factor that has limited ferns is the perception they are difficult to grow, that they thrive only in wet, shady areas with rich soil. Although it’s true that many species of fern love these conditions, ferns can be found all over the world, from deserts to mountaintops, from tropical rain forests to temperate woodlands. Read more

Last month, President Hugo Chavez proclaimed that Venezuela would have a new time zone. Having already redesignated the country a “Bolivarian Republic”, redesigned the flag and created a new currency, he announced that the South American nation’s clocks would be turned back by half an hour. There is, however, a part of the country where time already seems to stand still: the vast area of land known as the Gran Sabana. These 15,000 square miles of rainforest – nearly twice the size of Wales – were virtually inaccessible until three decades ago. And among those with an adventurous turn of mind, the area is commonly known as the Lost World.

It’s dominated by about 100 vast, flat-topped mountains called tepuis. These table-top, cliff-edged giants soar up to a mile above the jungle, and the sandstone that forms them is more than two billion years old. This means that the tops of the mountains themselves have been isolated for millions of years.

Mount Roraima is arguably the most famous of the tepuis, because it was the first to be explored. Fifty per cent of the flora and fauna on the summit is found nowhere else on Earth, and much of what is to be found here has yet to be documented by scientists. Read more

Even if you haven’t been to the western part of this park, you can imagine what it looks like. Massive stands of the namesake cactus are everywhere.

But fewer people are familiar with the park’s Rincon Mountain District, 30 miles east of the more visited Tucson Mountain District.

There are fewer saguaros in the eastern section, but it’s thick with other cactuses: cholla, prickly pear, barrel, hedgehog. The hiking is good, with many easy trails, and the paved loop road is popular with cyclists. Bikes are welcome on part of the Cactus Forest Trail, and the Wild Horse Trailhead allows horseback riders.

The paved, 8-mile Cactus Forest Drive dives, twists and climbs at the base of the Rincon Mountains. On a nice weekend day, cyclists jockey for position with cars. The road is so serpentine that, in some parts, the bike riders go faster than the cars. Read more