Entries Tagged 'Women' ↓

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Jessica Trisko - Miss Earth 2007

Treasure Nature was launched more than 6 months ago in time for Miss Earth 2007. The Miss Earth pageant for 2008 is scheduled this coming November 9. Beautiful women in sexy bikinis parading for nature, could we ask for more?

National competitions and selections are already underway since July, with the following countries already scheduling theirs for the rest of August until October:

1. Colombia - August 18, 2008
2. Sweden - August 21, 2008
3. New Zealand - August 23, 2008
4. Nepal - August 23, 2008
5. Ukraine - August 28, 2008
6. Scotland - August 30, 2008
7. Wales - August 30, 2008
8. Canada - August 30, 2008
9. England - August 30, 2008
10. Vietnam - August 31, 2008
11. Mexico - September 5, 2008
12. Bhutan - September 26, 2008
13. Australia - September 27, 2008
14. Tibet - October 12, 2008
15. Poland - October 18, 2008

The following countries have already confirmed their representatives:

1. Argentina - Camila Solórzano
2. Aruba - Boyoura Martijn
3. Bahamas - Garnell
4. Belgium - Barbara Vanden Bussche
5. Belize - Lorriean Bridget Samuels
6. Bolivia - Paula Peñarrieta
7. Botswana - Nametso Ngwako
8. Cayman Islands - Patricia Plummer
9. Congo - Kelly Falco
10. Costa Rica - Wendy Cordero
11. Czech Republic - Hana Svobodova
12. Dominican Republic - Diana Flores
13. Ecuador - Andrea Carolina León
14. El Salvador - Claudia Linares
15. France - Charlotte Lagauzere
16. Georgia - Sopo Svimonishvili
17. Greece - Ria Antoniou
18. Guadeloupe - Annette Malika
19. Guam - Jennifer Neves
20. Guatemala - Heidi Elizabeth García
21. Honduras - Alejandra Mendoza
22. Hungary - Krisztina Polgár
23. Iceland - Ingibjörg Ragnheiður Egilsdóttir
24. India - Tanvi Vyas
25. Indonesia - Hedhy Kurniati
26. Israel - Lin Mor
27. Jamaica - Simone Burke
28. Japan - Mayu Kato
29. South Korea - Seo Seol-hee
30. Kosovo - Yllka Berisha
31. Latvia - Anita Baltruna
32. Lithuania - Ingrida Kazlauskaite
33. Luxembourg - Nadia Neves Pereira
34. Malaysia - Audrey Ng
35. Malta - Maria Galea
36. Mauritius - Melina Mootoo
37. Netherlands - Melanie de Laat
38. Nicaragua - Karina Gordon Hodgson
39. Northern Ireland - Amy Robinson
40. Pakistan - Natasha Paracha
41. Panama - Ginelle Saldaña
42. Paraguay - Yeruti Garcia
43. Peru - Giuliana Zevallos
44. Philippines - Karla Paula Henry
45. Romania - Ioana Popa
46. Russia - Olesya Bondarenko
47. Slovakia - Martina Tóhtová
48. Slovenia - Sara Franceskin
49. South Africa - Matapa Maila
50. Spain - Adriana Reverón
51. Suriname - Priscilla Yhap
52. Swaziland - Tiffany Simelane
53. Switzerland - Nasanin Nuri
54. Tahiti - Manavarii Ravetupu
55. Tanzania - Eve Babuely
56. Thailand - Piyaporn Deejing
57. Turks & Caicos - Sessily Pratt
58. Uganda - Daisy Nabagereka
59. USA - Jana Murrell
60. Venezuela - Daniela Torrealba
61. Zambia - Esther Sitali Banda

Watch the official Miss Earth website for updates on the candidates. They usually post pictures and a biography of each of the contestants every October.

Source of this post is WIkipedia.

Technorati Tags: Miss Earth

As stated in Part 1, there are 34 regions through out the world with rich biodiversity as covered by BiodiversityHotspots.org. We have already tackled nine (9) for the Americas. Let’s get on with Africa, Europe, adn Centrtal Asia…

Guinean Forest (West Africa). It is home to more than a quarter of West Africa’s mammals, including 20 species of primates. Population growth and human activities like logging, mining, and hunting are taking their toll on various species, particularly Jentink’s duiker, pygmy hippopotamus, and western chimpanzees.

Succulent Karoo (South Africa and Namibia). Home to the most number of succulent plant species in the planet. Around 69% of plants are endemic. Grazing, agriculture and mining, especially for diamonds and heavy metals, threaten this fragile region.

Cape Floristic Region (South Africa). One of only two hotspots that encompass an entire floral kingdom. The vegetation on the Cape is dominated by fynbo, a shrubland comprising of hard-leafed, evergreen, and fire-prone shrubs that thrives on the region’s rocky or sandy nutrient-poor soils. It is also home to the geometric tortoise, the Cape sugar-bird, and a number of antelope species.

Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany (Southern Mozambique, parts of South Africa, Eastern Swaziland). Home to nearly 600 tree species, the highest tree biodiversity of any temperate forest on the planet. Thw comeback of the white rhino is a success story of the region but there area increased threats from industrial expansion, farming, and grazing.

Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands. The region have an astounding total of eight plant families, four bird families, and five primate families that cannot be found anywhere else. Madagascar alone has 50 lemur species (featured in the animated movie Madagascar). The Seychelles, Comoros and Mascarene islands in the Indian Ocean between them support a number of Critically Endangered bird species.

Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa (coasts of Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique). The region is home to economically important plant species and a variety of primate species including three endemic and highly threatened monkey species and two endemic species of bushbabies. Agricultural expansion continues as its biggest threat. Horn of Africa (Somalia and parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Oman, yemen, and Saudi Arabia) . The Horn of Africa is also one of the most degraded hotspots in the world, with only about 5 percent of its original habitat remaining.

Eastern Afromontane (found on widely scattered, but biogeographically similar mountain ranges in eastern Africa, from Saudi Arabia and Yemen in the north to Zimbabwe in the south). Contain’s some of the world’s most extraordinary lakes and a vast amount of freshwater fish diversity.

Horn of Africa (Somalia and parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Entrea, Oman, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia). Home to a number of endemic and threatened antelope, notably threatened species like the beira, the dibatag, and Speke’s gazelle. This hotspot also holds more endemic reptiles than any other region in Africa. Other distinctive endemics include the Somali wild ass and the sacred baboon.

Mediterranean Basin (parts of Spain, France, the Balkan states, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria). Its 22,500 endemic vascular plant species are more than four times the number found in all the rest of Europe. The Mediterranean monk-seal, the barbary macaque and the Iberian lynx, which is Critically Endangered, are among the region’s imperiled species.

Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the North Caucasian portion of the Russian Federation, the northeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran). The Caucasus falls in Eurasia so we’ll just include it in Europe. The rugged landscape is home to the two species of highly threatened Caucasian mountain goats.

Irano-Anatolian (Central and Eastern Turkey, part of Southern Georgia, a province of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Northeastern Iraq, Northern and Western Iran, and the Northern Kopet Dagh Range in Turkmenistan).Oaks and Junipers dominate the forests of this region. The famed Silk Road crossed through this hotspot. Many of Turkey’s 1,200 endemic species occur only to the immediate east or west of it. It is home to four endemic and threatened species of vipers.

Mountains for Central Asia (Southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Eastern Uzbekistan, Western China, Northeastern Afghanistan, and part of Turkmenistan). The hotspot’s ecosystems is quite varied and range from high glaciers to low desert. It includes a highly threatened and unique type of walnut-fruit forest, which contains ancestors of domestic fruit varieties and is an important storehouse of genetic diversity. A rich variety of ungulates also call the mountains home, including the threatened argali wild sheep.

Next will be the Asia-Pacific region.

Technorati Tags: biodiversity

The Tubbataha reef is an atoll reef in the Sulu sea, Philippines. It is home to an amazing number of sea life. It was declared by UNESCO as a world heritage park to protect the area from exploitation. Here’s their brief description of the reef:

The Tubbataha Reef Marine Park covers 33,200 hectares, including the North and South Reefs. It is a unique example of an atoll reef with a very high density of marine species; the North Islet serving as a nesting site for birds and marine turtles. The site is an excellent example of a pristine coral reef with a spectacular 100-m perpendicular wall, extensive lagoons and two coral islands.

That description, of course, does not do justice to its underwater beauty. Visit the reef’s official site here for a photo gallery. The thing is, it is ecosystems like the Tubbataha’s that are threatened by the increase in the ocean’s acidity and temperature brought about by run-away greenhouse gas emission and global warming.

We can help make people aware of this impending disaster by voting for Tubbataha as one of the new 7 wonders of the world. If not for us, then for our kids, the future.

Get your votes counted here.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Women

I didn’t finish the whole Miss Earth 2007 program. I couldn’t keep my eyes open after the part where all those beautiful women strutted their stuff in bikinis (or maybe that the only part I was interested in :D). I kinda liked the bikinis.

I quipped to my better-half that they were tastefully done, more suited to the show’s intended audience rather than those teeny weeny things that’re really popular in beaches. My lady remarked they were designed by Avon. Hmnn, she does her homework too.

Right before dozing off, I remember thinking that the Miss Earth pageant has finally arrived and can hold a torch to the other international beauty pageants. So this morning I woke up to the news that Miss Canada won the crown.

Jessica Nicole Trisko was one of our favorites and we share her joy and that of her countrymen for representing Mother Earth until November of 2008. We wish her luck in her effort to educate people about the consequences of their everyday decision on the welfare of the environment.

We do hope that the organizers of the pageant will do something with those trench-coat like yellow sheets or whatever they call them that the contestants wore during their entrance. They were emblazoned in front with their respective country’s names and an environmental slogan. One said “reduce, reuse, recycle” and we hope they’ll end up recycled too.

Technorati Tags: reduse reuse recycle, Women

I already have this domain, www.treasurenature.com, for almost 3 months but time was always short so the matter of continuing my nature blog from blogger.com was forever bumped aside by more pressing concerns. The coming Miss Earth competition in Vietnam and the Philippines prompted me to put it up as I wanted a post on beautiful women (who can better represent Mother Nature?) to be TreasureNature’s first ever (second actually, as there’s an introductory post).

Miss Earth’s humble beginning was the result of a media/entertainment company’s defeated attempt to produce the Miss Asia-Pacific contest. This commercial undertone can be ignored in the face of the Miss Earth’s campaign of environmental awareness and nature conservancy, not to mention an eye-pleasing spectacle of red hot babes in sexy swimsuits. The first competition was first held in 2001 and has become the 3rd largest beauty pageant in the world since then. For 2007, 96 beautiful women (all models) of different color, creed, and nationality will vie for the title.

The Miss Earth beauty pageant attracts a different breed of women as they have to be involved with environmental causes and preservation of the Earth. The pageant gained worldwide fame (or notoriety, depending on our views) when Vida Samadzai, an Afghan, competed in a red bikini in 2003. This was followed by an uproar in Pakistan last 2005 when it was represented by Naomi Zaman. Both are strong and independent women.

The Miss Earth crown was won by Denmark in 2001, Kenya in 2002, Honduras in 2003, Brazil in 2004, Venezuela in 2005, and Chile in 2006. This year, 90 countries will be represented in the finals this November 11, 2007. Check bellow if you have a candidate to root for:

1. Albania - Shpresa Vitia
2. Argentina - Maria Antonella Tognolia
3. Aruba - Marilen Newman
4. Australia - Victoria Stewart
5. Bahamas - Sharon Eula Rolle
6. Belgium - Melissa Cardaci
7. Belize - Leilah Pandy[1]
8. Bolivia - Carla Fuentes Rivero
9. Bosnia and Herzegovina - Dzenita Dumpor
10. Botswana - Millicent Ollyn[2]
11. Brazil - Patricia Silva Ferreira Andrade
12. Canada - Jessica Trisko
13. Cameroon - Pauline Marcelle Kack
14. China - Yu Pei Pei
15. Colombia - Mileth Johana Agamez Lopez
16. Congo - Maurielle Nkouka Massamba
17. Costa Rica - Natalia Salas
18. Cuba - Ariana Barouk
19. Curaçao - Fyrena Martha
20. Czech Republic - Eva Čerešňáková
21. Denmark - Trine Lundgaard
22. Dominican Republic - Themys Febriel
23. Ecuador - Verónica Ochoa
24. Egypt - Sherrihan Faoud
25. El Salvador - Julia Iris Ayala Regalado
26. England - Clair Cooper
27. Ethiopia - Nardos Desta Tafese
28. Fiji - Minal Ali
29. Finland - Anna Pohtimo
30. France - Alexandra Gaguen
31. Georgia - Nanka Mamasakhlisi
32. Germany - Sinem Ramazanoglu
33. Ghana - Diana Naa Blankson
34. Guadeloupe - Virgine Mulia
35. Guatemala - Jessica Scheel
36. Iceland - Katrín Dögg Sigurdardóttir
37. India - Pooja Chitgopekar
38. Indonesia - Artri Aldoranti Sulistyowati
39. Israel - Mor Donay
40. Italy - Bernadette Mazu
41. Japan - Ryoko Tominaga
42. Kazakhstan - Zhazira Nurkhodjaeva
43. Kenya - Volen Auma Owenga
44. Korea - Ji-Eun Yoo
45. Latvia - Ilze Jankovska
46. Lebanon - Amale Al Khoder
47. Liberia - Telena Cassell
48. Lithuania - Monika Baliunaite
49. Macau - Zhang Xiao Yu
50. Malaysia - Dorkas Cheok Huai Yee
51. Mexico - María Fernanda Canovas Leal
52. Moldova - Patricia Filomena Chifor
53. Nepal - Bandana Sharma
54. Netherlands - Milou Verhoeks
55. New Zealand - Claire Kirby
56. Nicaragua - Iva Grijalva
57. Nigeria - Stacey Garvy
58. Niue - Shevalyn Ligovai Poimafiti Maika
59. Northern Ireland - Aine Gormley
60. Norway - Margaret Hauge
61. Pakistan - Nida Shaheen
62. Panama - Nadege Herrera
63. Paraguay - Montserrat Quevedo
64. Peru - Odilia Pamela García
65. Philippines - Jeanne Angeles Harn
66. Poland - Barbara Tatara
67. Puerto Rico - Shalimar Rivera
68. Romania - Alina Gheorge
69. Scotland - Jenna Pollock
70. Sierra Leone - Theresa Turay
71. Singapore - Chen Nicole Lin
72. Slovak Republic - Barbora Palovičová
73. Slovenia - Tania Trobec
74. South Africa - Bokang Montjane
75. Spain - Ángela Gomez Duran
76. St. Lucia - Oneka McKoy
77. St. Martin - Vanessa Delphin
78. Suriname - Safyra Duurham
79. Sweden - Ivana Gagula
80. Switzerland - Stephanie Gossweiler
81. Taiwan R.O.C. - Sonya Lee
82. Tanzania - Angel Delight Kileo
83. Thailand - Jiraporn Sing-ieam
84. Tibet - Tenzin Dolma
85. Trinidad & Tobago - Carleen Ramlochansingh
86. Tunisia - Oumaima Taleb
87. Turks and Caicos Islands - Tameka Teshan Deveaux
88. Uganda - Hellen Karungi[3]
89. Ukraine - Galyna Andreeva
90. USA - Lisa Marie Forbes
91. U.S. Virgin Islands - Je T’aime Cheree Cerge
92. Venezuela - Silvana Santaella
93. Vietnam - Truc Diem Truong
94. Wales - Sarah Michelle Fleming
95. Zambia - Sphiwe Mutale Benasho
96. Zimbabwe - Nyome Omar

No matter which country takes home the crown, mother earth will always emerge the winner in this pageant. With these women in the forefront of environmentalism, life is beautiful.

Technorati Tags: beautiful women, nature