Hi everyone!
Before I begin, a little something about
myself. I am Alefiya Haideri, born & brought up in Pune. A typical Puneri
by nature, I am an outgoing, fun loving person who, for the record has never
attempted writing a blog before. This opportunity has come about as a compulsory assignment for me
academically. A little thing with the brief:
'To write a blog,
talking about the natural resources of any two countries of the world'
And yes, at first, just like you probably are as well, I
thought to myself:
"Who ever writes a blog out of the blue on natural
resources? Nobody wakes up one fine morning saying to themselves that today I
will blog about the natural resources of two countries of the world." But
it was only when I actually started reading on the subject matter that I
realized that there is so much more to what meets the eye.
To start off with, What do we really mean by 'natural
resources'?
While we have actually studied this several times in Geography
lessons in school over and over again, when this topic was assigned to me, my
first assumption on hearing the words 'natural resources' was anything that
exists on the earth and under its surface "naturally".
Whereas I was close,
the actual term is incomplete without the intervention of human beings and invariably
gets linked to the socio-economic trends of any nation. With a direct impact on
the lifestyles of the people, we can simply define it as:
'Natural Resources' are anything that exists without the
interference of any humankind. Either renewable, like sunlight and wind
harnessed into energy, or non-renewable like coal and oil, these resources,
although untouched by humans, invariably are the core raw materials that people
utilize in large quantities in their day to day lives.
Having established that, what was left for me to actually
begin with my data collection was picking two countries of the world to study
about.
Located astride the sea routes between the east and west, being
exposed to a wide range of cultural and political influence throughout its
History, I recently visited a country that has been known from ancient times for its
precious stones, spices, elephants and scenic beauty, and as you might have
guessed, I am talking about the little island country not so far away from our
own, of Sri Lanka. Still hung up on my amazing experience, having been there
only a few weeks ago, I knew right away that this has to be my first country of
choice.
The second country I wanted to write about, I knew would be
a place I have not visited as yet. After a bit of research and much thought, I picked
the country of Iraq to study for two core reasons. One, I was quite surprised
to get to know that, Iraq happens to be the ninth most natural resource rich
country in the world, and two, Iraq has been in the news recently for so many
other reasons, I thought personally, that leaving all of those aside, it would
be interesting to shine some light on another facet of the country, and hence
that became my second country of choice.
