KYOTO/NAIROBI, 22 March (UNEP) — The marshlands of Mesopotamia, considered by some to be the biblical location of the Garden of Eden and known as the fertile crescent, are continuing to disappear at an alarming rate.

The Fertile Crescent is a rich food-growing area in a part of the world where most of the land is too dry for farming. The muddy, swampy land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers provided the natural resources that encouraged people to settle in one place.

Fertile Crescent, the region where the first settled agricultural communities of the Middle East and Mediterranean basin are thought to have originated by the early 9th millennium bce. The term was popularized by the American Orientalist James Henry Breasted.

While the current state of the Fertile Crescent is awash with uncertainty, its status as the cradle of civilization remains intact. Fed by the waterways of the Euphrates, Tigris, and Nile rivers, the Fertile Crescent has been home to a variety of cultures, rich agriculture, and trade over thousands of years.

The history of Western Asia may be described as an age-long struggle between the mountain peoples of the north and the desert wanderers of these grasslands—a struggle which is still going on—for the possession of the Fertile Crescent, the shores of the desert-bay.

An unprecedented DNA study has found evidence of a single human migration out of Africa and confirmed that Aboriginal Australians are the world’s oldest civilization.

Chinese

Mongol Empire

Today, there are no empires, at least not officially. But that could soon change if the United States — or even China — embraces its imperial destiny.

Currently, only the United States fulfills the criteria to be considered a superpower. However, the United States is no longer the only uncontested foremost superpower and the world’s sole hyperpower to dominate in every domain (i.e. military, culture, economy, technology, diplomatic).

The American War of Independence resulted in Britain losing some of its oldest and most populous colonies in North America by 1783. After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century and expanded its imperial holdings.

1815