Friday, December 30, 2005

Bradford and the Journey to the Desert of Lop

Bradford and the Journey to the Desert of Lop

Meet "Judy", a plush, wild Bactrian camel, from the story "Bradford and the Desert of Lop". Branded with a gold moon and star, this soft, cuddly nighttime companion is sure to send children on a magical, sleepy journey with the Sandman. This 14" soft plush toy includes a neck tag and web site info on The Wild Camel Protection Foundation, a United Kingdom registered charity, with Jane Goodall as its patron. click here

The new line of children's non violent toys and books produced by Wild Heart Ranch empowers children with cancer and brings awareness to the endangered wild Bactrian camel. The wild camels living in the far away Gobi Desert may offer a possible cure for illness based on preliminary research. The book teaches us that, "One small boy with cancer can change the world if you listen."

read more at http://www.wildheartranch.com/ourBrands/ob_desertOfLop.htm
the book at Barnes and Noble :

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=oI0FVKoCnw&isbn=0976176823&itm=3

Monday, December 26, 2005

Nuclear Testing - Desert of Lop

The area , once closed off was the home of 45 tests - 23 atmospheric and 22 underground all conducted at Lop Nur Nuclear Weapons Test Base in Malan Xinjiang

Xinjiang is home to several Muslim Turkic groups including the Uighurs and the Kazakhs . Other minority ethnic groups include Hui Chinese the Kirghiz the Mongols the Russians the Xibes the Tajik the Uzbek the Tatars and the Manchus .

Wild Camels

The wild Bactrian camel, the remarkable ancestor of all domestic camels lives in three separated habitats in China and one in Mongolia. The wild Bactrian camel has been listed bu the IUCN in 2002 as critically endangered after years of pressure from the Wild Camel Protection Foundation. There are approximately 600 surviving in China and 350 in Mongolia making them rarer and more endangered than the giant panda. Their numbers are decreasing each year. The majority of these shy animals live in the parched Gashun Gobi (Lop Nur) desert in the south eastern area of the Mongolian. The wild Bactrian camel is a migrating species and moves across the Chinese Mongolian border.

learn more at www.wildcamels.com

New Highway for Desert in China - Silk Road Revisited

Silk Road ...

Xinjiang is home to the famous Taklimikan and Lop Nor deserts. It's also home to one-fifth of China's land area. Separating it from the Tibetan Plateau to the south are the soaring Altun and Kunlun mountains. To its west are Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan; to the north, Russia; and to the east, Mongolia and the rest of China.

At a cost of 0.8 billion yuan ( about 100 million US dollars), the Chinese Ministry of Communications is building China's longest domestic highway across the Taklimakan desert in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to People's Liberation Army Daily as announced in June of 2005
The "Aral to Hotan desert road" will be 424 kilometers in length. It will start at the city of Aral and end at the Hotan prefecture in the county of Lop.

The original route of the Silk Road , across the Lop Nor Desert and skirting the southern edge of the Taklimikan Desert , was abandoned in favour of a northern route due to the peril involved in crossing the Lop Nor.