What is peace?

Peace has always been among humanity's highest values--for some, supreme. Consider: "Peace at any price."1 "The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war."2 "Peace is more important than all justice."3 "I prefer the most unjust peace to the justest war that was ever waged."4 "There never was a good war or a bad peace."5
Yet, we agree little on what is peace. Perhaps the most popular (Western) view is as an absence of dissension, violence, or war, a meaning found in the New Testament and possibly an original meaning of the Greek word for peace, Irene. Pacifists have adopted this interpretation, for to them all violence is bad. This meaning is widely accepted among irenologists6 and students of international relations. It is the primary dictionary definition.

Peace, however, is also seen as concord, or harmony and tranquility. It is viewed as peace of mind or serenity, especially in the East. It is defined as a state of law or civil government, a state of justice or goodness, a balance or equilibrium of Powers.

Such meanings of peace function at different levels. Peace may be opposed to or an opposite of antagonistic conflict, violence, or war. It may refer to an internal state (of mind or of nations) or to external relations. Or it may be narrow in conception, referring to specific relations in a particular situation (like a peace treaty), or overarching, covering a whole society (as in a world peace). Peace may be a dichotomy (it exists or it does not) or continuous, passive or active, empirical or abstract, descriptive or normative, or positive or negative.

The problem is, of course, that peace derives its meaning and qualities within a theory or framework. Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist will see peace differently, as will pacifist or internationalist. Socialist, fascist, and libertarian have different perspectives, as do power or idealistic theorists of international relations. In this diversity of meanings, peace is no different from such concepts as justice, freedom, equality, power, conflict, class, and, indeed, any other concept.

All concepts are defined within a theory or cognitive framework--what I have called elsewhere a perspective.7 Through a perspective peace is endowed with meaning by being linked to other concepts within a particular perception of reality; and by its relationship to ideas or assumptions about violence, history, divine grace, justice. Peace is thereby locked into a descriptive or explanatory view of our reality and each other.

My perspective, which sees peace as a phase in a conflict helix, an equilibrium within a social field, has been presented in the previous four volumes.7a In this Chapter I will review this perspective, make clear the imbedded meaning of peace, describe its related qualities and dimensions, and prepare for considering alternative conceptualizations in the next Chapter. This and Chapter 3 are thus the prologue to my subsequent theory of a just peace.



2.2 PEACE AS A SOCIAL CONTRACT
My perspective and associated meaning of peace are best summarized through a number of social principles. These have been documented and the evidence given for them elsewhere,8 as will be noted for each.




2.2.1 The Conflict Principle
Conflict is a balancing of powers among interests, capabilities, and wills.9 It is a mutual adjusting of what people want, can get, and are willing to pursue. Conflict behavior, whether hostile actions, violence, or war, is then a means and manifestation of this process.




2.2.2 The Cooperation Principle
Cooperation depends on expectations aligned with power. Through conflict in a specific situation, a balance of powers and associated agreement are achieved. This balance is a definite equilibrium among the parties' interests, capabilities, and wills; the agreement is a simultaneous solution to the different equations of power, and thereby the achievement of a certain harmony--structure--of expectations. At the core of this structure is a status quo, or particular expectations over rights and obligations. Conflict thus interfaces and interlocks a specific balance of powers and an associated structure of expectations.

Cooperation--contractual or familistic interactions10--depends on a harmony of expectations, a mutual ability of the parties to predict the outcome of their behavior. Such is, for example, the major value of a written contract or treaty. And this structure of expectations depends on a particular balance of powers.11 Thus, cooperation depends on expectations aligned with power.




2.2.3 The Gap Principle
A gap between expectations and power causes conflict. A structure of expectations, once established, has considerable social inertia, while the supporting balance of powers can change rapidly. Interests can shift, new capabilities can develop, wills can strengthen or weaken. As the underlying balance of powers changes, a gap between power and the structure of expectations can form, causing the associated agreement to lose support. The larger this gap, the greater the tension toward revising expectations in line with the change in power, and thus the more likely some random event will trigger conflict over the associated interests. Such conflict then serves to create a new congruence between expectations and power.

Conflict and cooperation therefore are interdependent. They are alternative phases in a continuous social process12 underlying human interaction: now conflict, then cooperation, and then again conflict.13 Cooperation involves a harmony of expectations congruent with a balance of powers achieved by conflict.



2.2.4 The Helix Principle
Conflict becomes less intense, cooperation14 more lasting. If interaction occurs in a closed system or is free from sudden, sharp changes in the conditions of a relationship (as, for example, if one party to a business contract goes bankrupt, or a signatory to a regional military alliance with the United States has a military coup), then through conflict and cooperation people gradually learn more about each other, their mutual adjustments come easier, their expectations more harmonious and lasting. Conflict and cooperation thus form a helix, moving upward on a curve of learning and adjustments, with the turn through cooperation being more familistic and durable; that through conflict shorter and less intense.15



2.2.5 The Second and Fourth Master Principles
Through conflict is negotiated a social contract.16 As mentioned, conflict is a balancing of powers--a conscious or subconscious negotiation of opposing interests, capabilities, and wills. This process determines some implicit or explicit, subconscious or conscious social contract. It is social in involving a relationship or interaction between two or more wills. It is a contract in that there is an agreement--a harmonization of expectations.
It is this social contract that is peace within social field theory. Peace, then is determined by a process of adjustment between what people, groups, or states want, can, and will do. Peace is based on a consequent balance of powers and involves a corresponding structure of expectations and patterns of cooperation. Moreover, peace may become unstable when an increasing gap develops between expectations and power, as here defined,17 and may collapse into conflict, violence, or war.





2.3 THE NATURE OF A SOCIAL CONTRACT
Social contracts, the structural basis of peace as here defined, take many forms that interconnect and overlap in diverse, complex ways to order social communities and organizations. I can hardly engage here this variety, which would itself require a volume.18 Rather, I shall simply outline the diversity of social contracts, especially so that the nested, overlapping, and multilayered nature of social contracts, and thus peace, is clear.
Throughout the following discussion three points should be kept in mind. First, as mentioned, a social contract is the outcome of parties balancing their mutual interests, capabilities, and wills, and is based on a particular balance thus achieved--a balance of powers.

Second, the powers constituting the balance are not necessarily coercive or authoritative; threat or legitimacy are not the only bases for social contracts. Altruistic, intellectual, or exchange powers (based on love, persuasion, or promises, respectively) may dominate. Thus, a social contract may be a marriage agreement, an understanding developed among scientists over a disputed theory, or a sale in a market.19

Third, a social contract--this peace--is only a phase in a conflict helix and is thus a temporary equilibrium in the long-term movement of interpersonal, social, or international relations.




2.3.1 Expectations
As used here, an expectation is a prediction about the outcome of one's behavior.20 A social contract harmonizes certain expectations between the parties; that is, it enables each to reliably predict the other's responses. Such expectations are varied; our vocabulary for discriminating among them is well developed. Remembering my fundamental concern with social peace and conflict (and thus I am uninterested in, for example, a legal classification of contracts), these can be divided into status quo and non-status quo expectations. Within these two divisions I can define five types, as shown in Table 2.1.






A. Status quo. The concept of status quo is basic to these volumes. In previous volumes21 I argued that a breakdown of status quo expectations is a necessary cause of violence and war, and I tried to verify this against empirical results.22 The reason for this necessity is that status quo expectations define the basic rights and obligations of the parties involved, and therefore affect vital values. These rights and obligations form the two types of status quo expectations. As Table 2.1 shows, they involve claims, privileges, responsibilities, duties, and so on. Note especially that expectations about property--who owns what--are part of the status quo.

Obviously, the division between status quo and non-status quo expectations is not clear-cut. The criterion of discrimination is salience to fundamental values, and thus intensity of feeling and commitment. For example, agreements over property (such as territory) will usually involve strong emotion and commitment, while agreed upon rules or practices, advantages or benefits are less vital and violations more tolerable. However, we are dealing here with a great complexity of social contracts and the subjectivity of underlying interests, meanings, and values. In some situations a rule, payment, or service may be a life-or-death matter or a question of fundamental principle to the parties involved and thus, for this case, a matter of the status quo. Therefore, the classification of expectations under status quo or non-status quo divisions in Table 2.1 simply attempts to make intelligible the diversity of expectations, rather than to construct conceptually tight demarcations covering all possibilities.

B. Non-Status Quo. One type of non-status quo expectations is distributional, establishing which party can anticipate what from whom, such as benefits, advantages, and services. The two remaining types guide or prescribe behavior between the parties. The social contract often includes rules, customs, or practices that provide standards or define customary or repeated actions. Such may be commands, authoritative standards, or principles of right actions. They may be binding, acting to control or regulate behavior. Such prescriptive expectations in social contracts are mores (long-term, morally binding customs), norms, the law-norms of groups,23 or the customary or positive law of societies or states. Even the "rules of morality constitute a tacit social contract" (Hazlitt, 1964: xii).

C. Overall. Regardless of whether the focus is the rights or obligations, the distributions, or the guides or prescriptions between parties structured by their social contract, these expectations share one characteristic: they circumscribe a region of predictability, or social certainty, between the parties. With a social contract, each party can reliably foresee and plan on the outcome of its behavior regarding the other, as over, for example, claims, privileges, duties, or services. What responses to anticipate, the prospect of reciprocity, the likelihood of particular sanctions, are clear. Social contracts are thus our social organs of peace, extending into the future mutual paths of social certainty and thus confidence.




2.3.2 Theoretical Dimensions

A. Actuality. In Table 2.2 I list 11 theoretical dimensions along which social contracts vary, and have organized them into four general types.24 To begin with, social contracts may be informal, as are unwritten understandings between friends or allies; or they may be formal, as with treaties. They may be implicit, tacit agreements that the parties choose not to mention, as a wife's acceptance of her husband's affairs; or they may be explicit, such as a verbal contract. They may be subconscious, as when co-workers unconsciously avoid sensitive topics over which they might fight. Or, of course, the social contract may be conscious.

These three dimensions--in formal versus formal, implicit versus explicit, and subconscious versus conscious--concern the actuality of social contracts, whether they are a latent agreement underlying social behavior or a manifest compact of some kind.25 A fourth, quite important dimension defines how a social contract is manifested.

A direct social contract is a specific agreement between particular parties. It gives or implies names, dates, places, and definite expectations. Contracts are usually thought of as this kind, such as a construction contract between two firms or a trade treaty among three states. However, direct contracts may overlap or be interconnected through the different parties, and thus form a system of contracts. And these systems themselves may overlap and be interdependent. Out of these diverse, interconnected, and related direct contracts and systems of contracts will develop more general expectations, such as abstract rules, norms, or privileges at the level of the social system itself. No one will have agreed to these expectations per se, nor are they connected to any particular interest, but they nonetheless comprise a social contract (albeit an indirect one) covering the social system. The prices of goods in a free market comprise such an indirect social contract evolving from the diverse direct contracts between buyers and sellers.26 In Section 2.3.3 I will present some of the major forms direct contracts may take; in subsequent sections I will describe several orders of direct and indirect contracts.

B. Generality. A second type of theoretical dimension delineates a social contract's generality. One such dimension concerns whether a contract is unique or common. A unique social contract is a one-time-only agreement within a unique situation and concerning nonrepetitive events or interaction between the parties. Such is the implicit agreement wrought in an alley by a thug, whose knife coerces you to hand over your money; another example is a two-hour ceasefire agreement to enable combatants to clear the battlefield of wounded, or a neutral state granting American relief planes a once-only flyover to rush food and medicine to earthquake victims in a neighboring state. By contrast, a common social contract involves repeated events or patterns of interaction. Treaties, legal contracts, constitutions, and charters are usually of this type. Clearly, the unique-common dimension is a continuum, since between the unique two-minute holdup and the common, overriding political constitution of a state are a variety of social contracts combining in different ways unique and common expectations.

Turning to the second generality dimension shown in Table 2.2, social contracts may be bilateral, involving only two parties, multilateral in covering more than two parties, or collective. The latter covers a society, community, or a group. Constitutions or charters are of this type, as are an organization's bylaws. While this may seem clear enough, there is an intellectual trap to avoid here--that of always viewing collective social contracts as necessarily constructed, designed, or the explicit and conscious outcome of a rational process of negotiation.27 Collective contracts also may emerge from the interwoven, multilayered, bilateral and multilateral social contracts crisscrossing a society. The integrated system of abstract rules, norms, mores, and customs spanning a society form an indirect, collective social contract. It is implicit and informal; its expectations are partly conscious, partly unconscious. The system of informal rules of the road is such a collective agreement governing, along with coextensive formal traffic laws, a community of drivers.

While no group of people may have formally or consciously agreed to a collective social contract--while such may emerge from various, lower-level social contracts, many of which are conscious agreements--it is still based on a particular balance of powers, now involving all members of the collective. Consider, for example, the historically rapid dissolution and restructuring of collective expectations involving rules, customs, and laws that have occurred as a result of conquest (such as Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia conquered and absorbed by the Soviet Union in 1939), of military defeat and occupation (as of Hitler's national socialist, totalitarian Germany), or revolution (witness the French and Russian Revolutions, or the 1974-1978 Cambodian social revolution of the Khmer Rouge). Of course, not all norms, customs, or customary laws are changed, no more than a new bilateral or multilateral contract will discard all previous expectations. New social contracts build on the old. However, a new social contract, collective or otherwise, will be meaningfully different; associated interaction between the parties will change significantly.

Finally, the third dimension defining a contract's generality may be narrow, middle range, or overarching. A narrow contract concerns only a few interests, events, or behaviors, such as a contract to paint a car, a trade treaty increasing the quota on imported sugar, or the price of a Sony television set.28 An overarching contract develops from, refers to, or spans a whole system of relationships, such as those of a family, the larger society, or an organization. A marriage contract stipulating duties and rights of spouses, an organization's constitution, or the system of norms covering a society are some examples. Between the narrow and overarching are a variety of middlerange social contracts covering or involving a large amount of behavior, but not the whole society. One's work contract, an alliance between states, and a peace treaty are examples in this middle range.

C. Polarity. The third type of dimension shown in Table 2.2 concerns a social contract's polarity. In the dimension of coerciveness, the parties to social contract may voluntarily accept it, or one or more parties may be coerced into it, either by other parties to the contract or by a third party, such as in a shotgun wedding or governmentally imposed, union-management contract. Between freely determined and coerced contracts are those which one or more parties agree to out of necessity. That is, circumstances, the environment, or events leave virtually no realistic or practical choice. In a one-company mining town where a person has his roots, he may have little, socially meaningful choice but to contract for work with the company. To defeat Hitler in the Second World War, Churchill felt he had little choice but to form an alliance with Stalin.

A second polarity-type dimension concerns whether a social contract is solidary, neutral, or antagonistic.29 Solidary expectations derive from helpful, altruistic, or compassionate behavior. Such expectations are common among close friends or relations, lovers, or close-knit communal or religious groups. Antagonistic expectations, however, derive from mutually competitive, divergent, or opposing behavior. They involve a perception of incompatible purposes, temporarily bound in a social contract, and a belief that satisfying one's interests entails frustrating those of the other parties. A labor-management contract achieved after a long, violent strike is such an antagonistic contract; or a truce between traditional enemies, such as Pakistan and India, North and South Korea, or Israel and Syria. Between solidary and antagonistic contracts lie neutral contracts,30 those which are strictly a matter of business, a question of the parties coolly and objectively satisfying rather specific interests. Examples are agreements for a bank loan, renting an apartment, importing cotton, or increasing the postage on international mail.

D. Evaluative. Finally, there is the evaluative dimension. One of these concerns whether a social contract is good or bad. Fundamental philosophical controversy centers on the idea of good. For the moment, I mean "good" simply in the sense that one might say a treaty is a good one because it has characteristics that one desires or believes rationally commendable or divinely inspired.31

A contract may be positive or negative in the same sense as "good" or "bad." There is a potential confusion in the use of these terms, however, since here a social contract equals peace. "Positive peace" has come to mean, especially among Scandinavian irenologists32 an existing or ideal social state, such as the achievement of individual potential, as reflected in social equality, for example. "Negative peace" is then simply the absence of violence. This, however, is a confusion of categories, and leads to such strange but consistent (by definition) expressions as "a positive, negative peace."33 Simply, I will mean positive as good and negative as bad in qualifying social contracts or peace.

A second evaluative dimension defines one kind of good social contract: whether it is just or unjust. It is this dimension of social contracts that is the major focus of this book. Understanding that a social contract defines a particular peace, my question is: What is a just peace? My answer, developed in Part II is that justice is the freedom of people to form their own communities or to leave undesirable ones . For large-scale societies, just peace is promoted through a minimum government.



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2.3.3 Forms




Table 2.3 presents major forms of direct social contracts. There is no need to describe each in detail here. Suffice to say that each is a structure of expectations based on a definite balance of interests, capabilities, and wills. Each is a social island of peace.



2.3.4 Social Orders
A social order is a particular arrangement of direct and indirect social contracts forming a meaningful, causal-functional34 whole. Two types of social orders are of concern here. One is that of groups; the other of societies.
A. Groups. A group is structured by a direct, overarching social contract that defines members' rights, obligations, and authoritative roles. Behavior is guided and prescribed by sanction-based law-norms. All this may be codified in organizing documents, such as a charter, constitution, or bylaws; or these may be informal, implicit, or even subconscious understandings and norms evolving from the spontaneous interaction and conflicts of group members, as in a family or clan.35

In any case, this social contract may be solidary, neutral, or antagonistic (as in family, work group, and prison, respectively); it may tightly organize members or leave them unorganized; and it may recruit members voluntarily, through coercion, or out of necessity. Group goals may be diffused or superordinate; the basis of authoritative roles may be legitimacy or threats. These diverse characteristics shape the five groups shown in Table 2.4.36





For my purposes here, the most important distinction is between spontaneous groups and voluntary associations on the one hand, and voluntary, quasi-coercive, and coercive organizations on the other. An organization is structured by an explicit, formal social contract aimed at achieving some superordinate goal (profit for a business, military victory for an army, segregating criminals for a prison, education for a university). Expectations are wrapped around this goal: it determines roles, rights, and obligations, as well as law-norms prescribing behavior. An organization is then an antifield.37 Spontaneous interaction is circumscribed, consigned to regions of social space (the interstices of the organizational chart) irrelevant to an organization's goals. By contrast, voluntary groups and associations are less organized, not as strongly directed toward some superordinate goal. Goals may even be absent, diffuse, or unarticulated. Coercion or authority play minor roles. Within these groups and associations field forces and processes have considerable freedom and scope, as in a family, friendship group, or neighborhood association.

These different groups define different structures of peace, different patterns of our interests and capabilities, of our powers.

B. Societies. The second kind of social order shown in Table 2.4 is the society. The three pure types listed have been discussed at length in Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix38 and their empirical validity was assessed there.39 Here, I need only note the more important relevancies.

A society is defined by a division of labor40 and, accordingly, certain shared meanings, values, and norms; social interaction; and a communication system. It is shaped by an indirect, overarching, collective structure of expectations--a mainly informal and implicit social contract. The form of social power primarily underlying this contract determines the type of society. An exchange society is dominated by exchange power; an authoritative society by authoritative power; a coercive society by coercion. By virtue of the dominating form of power and associated social dynamics, each society manifests a particular dimension of conflict, with exchange societies least violent; coercive, the most.41 Each type of society is thus a different kind of peaceful order.

International relations among societies are of special importance here. Nation-states form an exchange society42 with a libertarian government, pluralistic conflict,43 and associated pluralistic structure of peace. In later discussing international peace I will make use of this social fact.

C. Summary. I have shown the diversity of social contracts, and thus peace, through detailing their various expectations, dimensions, forms, and orders. I need only underline now the nested, overlapping, and hierarchical complex of such contracts filling out the structure of a group or society. Consider, for example, a voluntary organization such as a university. It has an overarching contract defining its purposes, organizational structure, positions, and attendant rights and obligations, and associated rules and law-norms. Under the cover of these expectations are defined related social contracts and systems of contracts governing separate administrative functions (such as admission and financial aid), colleges, divisions, and departments. Within the constraints of the university's overarching expectations, each contract or system has a certain life, depending on the administrators, deans, and faculty involved. Each teaching department within a college of division achieves its own informal or formal social contracts establishing rights, obligations, and privileges attendant upon faculty and student rank and defining the role of students and rules for judging issues before the department. As should be clear, each department, college, and administrative division will be an arena of conflict establishing or revising such expectations, although the overarching social contract that constitutes the university remains stable--a region of social peace at its level.

The university itself is within an overarching social contract that is the larger society. Families, Businesses, universities, governments, churches, are all are collective social contracts within society, which also includes the numberless bilateral and multilateral social contracts among groups, subgroups, and individuals and the collective contracts ordering subsocieties. Each social contract is a specific peace within a particular conflict helix; each may have within it lower-level conflict (for example, a state within a region of international peace may suffer internal guerrilla war and terrorism); each peace may exist within an ongoing, antagonistic conflict (as internally peaceful states engage in war).

Peace is therefore complex, multilayered. To say the least, discussing peace requires being specific about the social contract involved. To present a theory about a just peace demands clarity about the associated expectations, dimensions, and social orders.



2.4 CONCEPTUAL LEVELS AND DIMENSIONS OF PEACE
The dimensions, forms, and orders of social contracts described above are also, by definition, those of peace. What must be added here and in the next Section are additional distinctions not usually applied to social contracts but which help locate peace as a social contract among our diverse conceptualizations of peace. This and Section 2.5 also represent part of my effort at vocabulary building--developing in a systematic manner, and locating in one place, those terms applicable to peace that will be used in subsequent chapters.




Table 2.5 presents the conceptual level and dimensions of peace to be discussed here.





2.4.1 Conceptual Levels
A. Levels. Undoubtedly, peace is often conceptually opposed to war. Obviously, then, one conceptual level for analyzing a just peace involves those social contracts determined by international, civil, or revolutionary war.
Peace, however, especially among pacifists, is also opposed to violence. This includes war, of course, but additionally covers violent acts not ordinarily thought of or legally defined as war. Indeed, in the contemporary world legal war (that is, war as a legal state of relations invoking special international laws) is rare, while warlike violence is as intense and prevalent as wars were during past centuries. Nonetheless, this is more than a matter of defining war empirically. Many do feel that peace, conceptually, applies only to those human relations which exclude personal, organized, or collective violence.

Those opposing the idea of peace to violence or war usually see peace as an absence of such behavior. But a different view, especially in the East, sees peace as harmony, tranquility, concord. Peace is then conceptually opposed to nonviolent, antagonistic conflict, such as that manifesting threats and accusations, hostile quarrels, angry boycotts, and riotous demonstrations.

Another concept goes even further, seeing peace as absolute harmony, serenity, or quietude; that is, as opposed to any kind of conflict, antagonistic or otherwise. Conflict is a general concept meaning, in essence, a balancing of power,44 which may involve not only hostile or antagonistic balancing but also that of intellectual conflict (as in friendly disagreement over facts), bargaining conflict (as in haggling over a sale price), or a lover's conflict (as when each tries to give the other the choice of a movie to see). Each of these conflicts ends in a social contract, and therefore in a kind of peace. I mention this conceptual level for completeness, however. My conceptual focus here, as for all irenologists, will be on peace at the level of antagonistic conflict, whether violent or not.

B. A Threshold. Especially significant for a theory of just peace is the distinction between nonviolent, antagonistic conflict on one side and violence on the other. There is an empirical threshold here. As I will argue later in Section 7.4.2 and Section 8.2, the conditions for a just peace at the level of violence will increase the amount of nonviolent conflict. A just peace free from long-term violence is, at the level of societies at least, only possible at the price of peace from nonviolent conflict.





2.4.2 Social Levels
A. Levels. Clearly, peace as a social contract occurs at different levels of social relationships. Table 2.5 lists four of concern here. One is international, the level of most historical concern about peace. A second level concerns the central government or ruling power (such as a dominant religious leader or political party) of a state. Peace here is the outcome of, or can disintegrate into, revolution or civil war; guerrilla war and terrorism; political turmoil involving riots, demonstrations, general strikes, and assassinations.
A third level involves group relations within states, such as among religious and ethnic groups, nationalities, classes, castes, unions, and families. A state, at the level of its central government, may be peaceful, manifesting a stable social contract, while some of its regions may experience continuing group violence. The final level involves the interpersonal relationships among individuals.

B. Crosscutting Levels. Social levels of peace are crosscutting: each of the conceptual levels may refer to any one of the social ones. Even war is applicable to individual relations, as when conflict goes beyond a violent incident to involve a campaign of violence to defeat or destroy another person.

It should, be clear, then, that there may be peace from war, but not from antagonistic, nonviolent conflict. Moreover, there may be peace from international war, while internal war rends a state. Conversely, a state may be at peace while engaged in international war. Peace among states may be widespread, central state governments may be stable and secure, while some groups in one province, region, or other political subdivision are locked in total war. From the perspective of a particular citizen, his state and social groups all may be at peace, while personal peace eludes him--he simply may not get along with his neighbors or co-workers.

Peace is thus multilayered and complex. This must be kept in mind in defining a just peace.





2.4.3 Conceptual Dimensions
A. The Metalevel. Section 2.3.2 presented major theoretical dimensions of social contracts, and thus of peace. The dimensions considered here and shown in Table 2.5 refer only to peace as a concept and not the concept of peace. This is like the difference between ethical and metaethical concepts, or political and metapolitical ones. In each case, the former refers to the content; the latter to the concept about the contents.45 For example, a peace can be overarching (Table 2.2); a concept of peace can be abstract.
B. Empirical Concept. The first such dimension defines whether the concept is empirical, abstract, or theoretical--a construct.46 An empirical concept47 of peace refers to readily observable phenomena. It is measurable (operational). Peace as absence-of-killing violence is such a concept; as is peace as an absence of legally declared war or a peace treaty (or any written social contract, for that matter).

C. Abstract Concept. While also referring to empirical phenomena, an abstract concept of peace is not directly observable. Rather, it usually denotes a bundle of empirical attributes or qualities, or is reflected in patterns of behavior. Examples are concepts such as status, power, or ideology, which are detached from particular instances or events or specific empirical characteristics. Abstract concepts provide general, theoretical understanding of social reality, while empirical concepts are usually common-sense descriptions of immediate perception.48 For general use peace as a social contract would be an abstract concept, although some social contracts may be quite concrete and hence empirical. The abstraction involved is clearest when we consider implicit, or even subconscious, agreements involving tacit expectations. The abstract, nonformal rules of the road are part of such an abstract social contract. And consider the overarching social contract whose expectations define rules and norms spanning society but which no one signed or directly agreed upon, which few are aware of, but which most obey. Most families are integrated by such expectations that wife and husband, parents and children have of each other but which an observer would have difficulty defining empirically (although certainly indicators could be developed, as for status or power).

Peace as a social contract is an abstraction within the idea of a conflict helix, which is part of social field theory. This theory provides an explanation of conflict, violence, war, and peace. So much, I trust, was made clear in Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix and Vol. 4: War, Power, Peace.

There are other abstract definitions of peace: For example, peace as law or justice; or peace as concord, harmony, or tranquility. Often the theoretical context for an abstract definition of peace is not explicit, but nonetheless is clear from the context within which the concept is developed or used.

D. Construct. Finally, peace as a construct49 means that "peace" serves a stepping-stone role in theory. It is a theoretical concept; analytic, not synthetic. The content given to a construct is not defined independent of a theory but wholly within the operations and deductions of a theory. By contrast, while measurements or indicators of an abstract concept certainly would be directed by a theory, the actual data (or content) are collected (or observed) independently.

This is a difficult but important idea, and I would like to take a moment to make it clear. Consider a simple explanatory theory that y = h + tx, where y is the level of armaments of state i, x is the level of armaments of an opposing state j, and t and h are theoretical coefficients conceptualized as "x's perception of threat from y," and "the hostility that j feels toward i," respectively.50 This simple explanatory theory says that one state's armaments are a function of those of the opposing state's, depending on its perception of the threat from the other and its hostility toward it. Now y and x are abstract concepts, since "armaments" is a concept covering a tremendous empirical diversity of weapons and indicators. Nonetheless, by adding auxiliary statements to the theory one might measure armaments through such indicators as defense expenditures or number of armed military personnel. Data on these indicators could then be collected from sources readily available and independent of the theory.

However, within this theory, threat and hostility are constructs. No measurement of them or indicators need by given; no data collected specifically on them. Rather, the coefficients are totally defined by fitting y = h + tx to the data on x and y. Such a fit could be made by bivariate regression analysis where h is the intercept and t the regression coefficient; y the dependent and x the independent variables. This gives numerical values to h and t without any specific data collected on them. As constructs, they would have been given empirical content totally dependent on the theory y = h + tx and data on x and y.

Keeping this simple arms theory in mind, I must now discriminate between the loose and tight versions of social field theory. In the loose version (specifically, that presented in most of these volumes, especially concerning the conflict helix), the mathematical structure of field theory is usually background;51 content, conceptual understanding, and explanation are usually foreground. A structure of expectations--social contract--is treated as an abstraction. It is given ostensive content, such as in discussing a union-management contract, an implicit agreement ending a family quarrel, an international settlement of a dispute, or the law-norms integrating a group.

In the tight theory,52 mathematical structure, substantive interpretation of primitive terms or constructs,53 operationalization, and empirical tests are of concern. The tight theory is meant to be as explicit, formal, and general as possible. Expectations are constructs weighting behavioral dispositions in a social field and technically function as canonical coefficients in application.54 And to enhance the theory's generality, I have considered a structure of expectations as implicitly an indirect, overarching social contract of a social field (such as a spontaneous or self-organizing55 society). This structure is a cooperative component--another construct56--underlying the variation in manifest interaction. It is reflected in common patterns of social interaction, and thus is empirically measured indirectly only by a mathematically defined axis lying through an empirical pattern of social interaction spanning society.57

For the tight theory, then, applicable to an indirect, overarching social contract for social fields, peace is a construct. Its whole meaning is given by the theory; it serves to aid empirical explanation and theoretical understanding; its empirical content is traced by the cooperative patterns of social interaction.

In this Vol. 5: The Just Peace I will not deal with the tight theory, whose role is precise and testable scientific explanation, not intuitive understanding. The loose theory will provide sufficient framework for our purposes here. And, as in previous volumes, I will treat peace as an abstraction, even when referring to indirect, overarching social contracts.

Incidentally, peace as a construct is not unique to field theory, although as far as I know no other such tight theory so treats it. Peace as divine grace in Christian theology or as shalom in Judaism, of which one meaning is a covenant with Jehovah, are constructs. Their empirical meaning is not given directly or abstractly; rather, they are primitive terms whose content comes from the empirical nature of other, linked theological concepts. Moreover, the concept of "positive peace" developed by Johan Galtung is a construct within a neo-Marxist theory of exploitation; "positive peace" has no direct empirical or indirect abstract empirical content, but is defined as the ability of individuals to realize their potential, which in turn is equated in theory with equality, itself an abstraction measured by various indicators of equality.58

E. Descriptive-Normative. The empirical-abstract-construct dimension of peace concepts is the first conceptual dimension. The second defines whether the concept of peace is descriptive or normative. A descriptive concept is one simply denoting some aspect of reality, such as trade, state, or president.

A normative concept is evaluative, denoting or implying goodness, desirability, what ought to be, or the negation of these denotations. Compassion, equality, and exploitation are such normative concepts. Clearly, the same concept may be used descriptively or normatively depending on context and intent. However, some concepts have a built-in evaluation that even a careful descriptive analysis may not avoid, such as with the concepts murder, torture, exploitation, charity, and love. As with love, peace undefined is an implicit good, a hope, desire, a human ideal. "Give peace in our time, 0 Lord."59 In its common usage, peace is normative.

However, regardless of the affective connotation of peace, the concept can be used descriptively. For example, if peace is conceived as an absence of war or a peace treaty, it is possible to write about the peace in Europe since 1945, the peace of the Versailles Treaty, or the average periods of peace in history, without necessarily connoting that these are good historical periods (although for pacifists, peace as an absence of war is, ipso facto, good in all contexts).

My use of peace as a social contract is meant descriptively. Not all social contracts are good. Some are quite bad,60 as was the horrible peace (as absence of international war) of the Khmer Rouge over Cambodia in 1974-1978 (before the Vietnamese invasion). Since peace is meant here to be (normatively) as neutral a concept as possible, it is sensible to ask when peace is good, or (as a subcategory of the good) when it is just--or when bad or unjust. For the very reason I have treated peace descriptively in previous volumes, even though it is my fundamental normative goal, I now must conclude by pointing out in this Vol. 5: The Just Peace when peace, so described, is just or unjust and, given my analyses and results, what will foster a just peace.





2.5 QUALITIES OF PEACE




2.5.1 An Existent




Table 2.6 presents four qualities of peace entailed by my conceptualization. Clearly, from Section 2.2, peace is a sociopsychological existent. It has dispositional and manifest61 being. In this it is on a par with conflict.62 Conflict is manifested in particular patterns of behavior; so is peace.63 Conflict and peace may be absent, as when two individuals or groups lack contact or awareness of each other. And conflict and peace are coupled existents, closely related within a social process I call the conflict helix.
Other conceptualizations also treat peace as an existing something, such as peace as harmony, integration, or virtue. However, the currently conventional definition of peace as the absence of violence or war treats peace as a void, a nonexistent. This creates several analytical problems, which will be mentioned below.64





2.5.2 Dichotomous
Peace as an existent is dichotomous: it is or it is not. It would be meaningless to talk about more or less of a peace, as it would be meaningless to talk about more or less of a contract, a nation-state, a president, or an elephant.65 Of course, a state may be large or small, rich or poor. Likewise, peace varies along several dimensions; it may take on different forms or social orders.66
It is necessary here, then, to remember the distinction between a peace existing or not and the attributes, form, or order of the peace that exists. Thus, I might say that peace in the world is increasing and mean that more states are subscribing to a particular overarching, international peace. Or by saying that peace is more intense I might imply that a specific peace is involving more and more cooperative interaction.





2.5.3 Internal and External
In my view, peace is internal and external. It is a social contract among people or groups involving these psychological and social realities. The former comprises the parties' expectations and the congruence of these expectations with their mutual interests, capabilities, and wills. These are all psychological variables. The social reality, manifesting the harmonization of certain expectations among the parties, may be evidenced in specific documents (such as a written contract), physical structures (such as certain government buildings), and patterns of cooperative interaction. To say, then, that peace is an existent means that the particular expectations, meanings, and values within the minds of the parties and their social manifestations are all causally-functionally67 integrated into a social contract. Thus, like an iceberg, peace seen on the surface of social relations is only a small part of the overall structure.68




2.5.4 Active
Finally, peace as a social contract is active, not passive. It is created through negotiation, adjustment, resolution, decisions. It comprises predictions (expectations) about the future. It is manifested through cooperative interaction. Its existence depends on congruence with the balance of powers. It is a phase in the dynamics of the conflict helix.
By contrast, peace as the absence of violence or war is passive. True, it may be generated by negotiation and resolution. But the resulting peace is inactive, inert. It is a social void-something to build a wall around to protect and maintain. Any condition or structure or lack thereof constitutes such a peace as long as there is no social violence-even a desert without human life.69





2.6 ADVANTAGES OF
THIS CONCEPTUALIZATION
Peace conceptualized as a social contract has a number of advantages. First, peace is then defined as part of a dynamic social process with a well-defined nature; it is given meaning and substance in definite relationship to conflict and cooperation.
Second, peace stands in clear theoretical and substantive relationship to such important concepts as perception, situation, expectations, interests, capabilities, will, power, status, class, and behavior.70 This gives the nature of peace considerable substantive and theoretical clarity. That is, peace is locked into an overarching social theory.

Third, as a social contract peace is operational, and empirical patterns of peace, so defined, have been well delineated.71

Fourth, because of the theoretical and substantive meaning of peace, peacemaking and peacekeeping policies are given concrete direction and crucial variables are spotlighted. For example, keeping the peace then depends, most generally, on maintaining congruence between the balance of powers and the structure of expectations (social contract). This might be done by altering expectations unilaterally to adjust to changing capabilities, or strengthening will to lessen a developing gap with expectations.72

Fifth, peace as conceptualized embodies a number of psychological principles, such as subjectivity, intentionality, free will, and individualism.73 This, plus the social principles mentioned in the previous Section, enable a clear and straightforward application of the social contract theory of justice. As will be shown in the next part, a just peace is a hypothetical social contract of a particular kind, one to which individuals would fairly and impartially agree.

* * *
This Chapter has described peace as a social contract. And it has made the necessary definitions and distinctions in order to compare this idea of peace to alternative conceptualizations.

The Adisham bungalow

The adisham bungalow was built by sir Thomas Adisham bungalow is located with a distance of 4km from Haputale, a misty town in the southern edge of the Central range of mountain in SriLanka. it was built by Sir Thomas Lister Villiers, who was a grandson of Lord John Russell, twice prime minister of Britain.

While Sir Thomas was being the chairman of George Steuart Company, he built the Adisham as his dream house in an idyllic site at Haputale, surrounded by virgin forest and commanding views across hills and valleys.

The house was designed in the Tudor style, on the lines of Leeds Castle in Kent, with stout granite walls of locally quarried stone, long, narrow turret windows and chimneys.The roof was covered with flat Burma teak shingles. The doors, windows, paneling, staircase and floors were all of Burma teak. The lay-out of the garden was also British.

Today's Adisham is primarily a monastery, where a few monks follow a schedule of prayer, meditation, work and service. Adisham has made itself famous for fine products such as strawberry jam, orange marmalade, wild guava jelly and fresh fruit cordials.

The planets

The Planets (plus the Dwarf Planet Pluto)
Our solar system consists of the sun, eight planets, moons, dwarf planets (or plutoids), an asteroid belt, comets, meteors, and others. The sun is the center of our solar system; the planets, their moons, the asteroids, comets, and other rocks and gas all orbit the sun.

The nine planets that orbit the sun are (in order from the sun): Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (a dwarf planet or plutoid). A belt of asteroids (minor planets made of rock and metal) lies between Mars and Jupiter. These objects all orbit the sun in roughly circular orbits that lie in the same plane, the ecliptic (Pluto is an exception; it has an elliptical orbit tilted over 17° from the ecliptic).

Easy ways to remember the order of the planets (and Pluto) are the mnemonics: "My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas" and "My Very Easy Method Just Simplifies Us Naming Planets" The first letter of each of these words represents a planet - in the correct order.





The largest planet is Jupiter. It is followed by Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, and finally, tiny Pluto (a dwarf planet). Jupiter is so big that all the other planets could fit inside it.

The Inner Planets vs. the Outer Planets
The inner planets (those planets that orbit close to the sun) are quite different from the outer planets (those planets that orbit far from the sun).
The inner planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. They are relatively small, composed mostly of rock, and have few or no moons.
The outer planets include: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (a dwarf planet). They are mostly huge, mostly gaseous, ringed, and have many moons (again, the exception is Pluto, the dwarf planet, which is small, rocky, and has one large moon plus two tiny ones).

Temperatures on the Planets
Generally, the farther from the Sun, the cooler the planet. Differences occur when the greenhouse effect warms a planet (like Venus) surrounded by a thick atmosphere.

Density of the Planets
The outer, gaseous planets are much less dense than the inner, rocky planets.

The Earth is the densest planet. Saturn is the least dense planet; it would float on water.

The Mass of the Planets
Jupiter is by far the most massive planet; Saturn trails it. Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, and Pluto are orders of magnitude less massive.

Gravitational Forces on the Planets
The planet with the strongest gravitational attraction at its surface is Jupiter. Although Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are also very massive planets, their gravitational forces are about the same as Earth. This is because the gravitational force a planet exerts upon an object at the planet's surface is proportional to its mass and to the inverse of the planet's radius squared.

A Day on Each of the Planets
A day is the length of time that it takes a planet to rotate on its axis (360°). A day on Earth takes almost 24 hours.

The planet with the longest day is Venus; a day on Venus takes 243 Earth days. (A day on Venus is longer than its year; a year on Venus takes only 224.7 Earth days).

The planet with the shortest day is Jupiter; a day on Jupiter only takes 9.8 Earth hours! When you observe Jupiter from Earth, you can see some of its features change.

The Average Orbital Speed of the Planets
As the planets orbit the Sun, they travel at different speeds. Each planet speeds up when it is nearer the Sun and travels more slowly when it is far from the Sun (this is Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion).

The Planets in Our Solar System
Planet Distance from the Sun
(Astronomical Units
miles
km) Period of Revolution Around the Sun
(1 planetary year) Period of Rotation
(1 planetary day) Mass
(kg) Diameter
(miles
km) Apparent size
from Earth Temperature
(K
Range or Average) Number of Moons
Mercury 0.39 AU, 36 million miles
57.9 million km 87.96 Earth days 58.7 Earth days 3.3 x 1023 3,031 miles
4,878 km 5-13 arc seconds 100-700 K
mean=452 K 0
Venus 0.723 AU
67.2 million miles
108.2 million km 224.68 Earth days 243 Earth days 4.87 x 1024 7,521 miles
12,104 km 10-64 arc seconds 726 K 0
Earth 1 AU
93 million miles
149.6 million km 365.26 days 24 hours 5.98 x 1024 7,926 miles
12,756 km Not Applicable 260-310 K 1
Mars 1.524 AU
141.6 million miles
227.9 million km 686.98 Earth days 24.6 Earth hours
=1.026 Earth days 6.42 x 1023 4,222 miles
6,787 km 4-25 arc seconds 150-310 K 2
Jupiter 5.203 AU
483.6 million miles
778.3 million km 11.862 Earth years 9.84 Earth hours 1.90 x 1027 88,729 miles
142,796 km 31-48 arc seconds 120 K
(cloud tops) 18 named (plus many smaller ones)
Saturn 9.539 AU
886.7 million miles
1,427.0 million km 29.456 Earth years 10.2 Earth hours 5.69 x 1026 74,600 miles
120,660 km 15-21 arc seconds
excluding rings 88 K 18+
Uranus 19.18 AU
1,784.0 million miles
2,871.0 million km 84.07 Earth years 17.9 Earth hours 8.68 x 1025 32,600 miles
51,118 km 3-4 arc seconds 59 K 15
Neptune 30.06 AU
2,794.4 million miles
4,497.1 million km 164.81 Earth years 19.1 Earth hours 1.02 x 1026 30,200 miles
48,600 km 2.5 arc seconds 48 K 2
Pluto (a dwarf planet) 39.53 AU
3,674.5 million miles
5,913 million km 247.7 years 6.39 Earth days 1.29 x 1022 1,413 miles
2,274 km 0.04 arc seconds 37 K 1 large (plus 2 tiny)
Planet Distance from the Sun
(Astronomical Units
miles
km) Period of Revolution Around the Sun
(1 planetary year) Period of Rotation
(1 planetary day) Mass
(kg) Diameter
(miles
km) Apparent size
from Earth Temperature
(K
Range or Average) Number of Moons

Another Planet?
In 2005, a large object beyond Pluto was observed in the Kuiper belt.

A few astronomers think that there might be another planet or companion star orbiting the Sun far beyond the orbit of Pluto. This distant planet/companion star may or may not exist. The hypothesized origin of this hypothetical object is that a celestial object, perhaps a hard-to-detect cool, brown dwarf star (called Nemesis), was captured by the Sun's gravitational field. This planet is hypothesized to exist because of the unexplained clumping of some long-period comet's orbits. The orbits of these far-reaching comets seem to be affected by the gravitational pull of a distant, Sun-orbiting object.

Planet Activities and Quizzes
Planet Coloring pages

An interactive puzzle on the Solar System.

Find It!, a quiz on the planets.

A fill-in-the-blank (cloze) activity on the Solar System - or go to the answers.

Solar System Model to make.

Solar System calendar to print out and color.

Solar System Crafts

How to write a report on a planet - plus a rubric.



Astronomy: K-3 Theme Page
Activities, quizzes, books to print, and printouts.

Nine Planets
A Book With Tabs
An activity book on the Solar System to print for fluent readers. The book contains information, pictures, and questions to answer.

The Solar System Book
A simple printable coloring book about the Solar System to print (for early readers). Pages on the Solar System, the sun, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Solar System Coloring Book


Color and learn about our Solar System, the Sun, the planets, asteroids, comets, and our moon.


Solar System Diagram
Label the Sun and planets.
Answers

Earth's Atmosphere
Label the atmospheric layers of the Earth.
Answers

Earth Diagram
Label the inside of the Earth.
Answers

Celsius Bar Graph Questions #2:
Printable Worksheet
A printable activity worksheet in which the student reads a bar graph of the average temperatures of the planets to answer questions, for example, "On average, is it warmer on Jupiter or Mars?" Or go to the answers. Go to a pdf version of the worksheet.


Moon Phases Diagram
Label the phases of the waxing and waning moon.
Answers

Lunar Eclipse Diagram
Label the lunar eclipse.
Answers

Planet-Sun Orbital Diagram
Label the aphelion (farthest point in orbit) and perihelion (closest point in orbit) of a planet in orbit.
Answers


Put 10 Planet Words in Alphabetical Order - Worksheet
Put 10 planet words in alphabetical order. The words are: Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, moon, Neptune, Pluto, Saturn, Uranus, Venus. Go to the answers.

The Planets in English
A Label Me! Printout
Label the Solar System in English.
Answers

The Planets in French
A Label Me! Printout
Label the Solar System in French.
Answers


The Planets in German
A Label Me! Printout
Label the Solar System in German.
Answers

The Planets in Italian
A Label Me! Printout
Label the Solar System in Italian.
Answers

The Planets in Portuguese
Label the planets in Portuguese.
Answers

Yala national park

Yala National Park is geographically located in Sri Lanka at latitude 06°16' - 06°42' North and longitude 81°15' - 81°42' East. The Park can be visited via the town of Tissamaharama in the Hambantota District of the Southern Province.

While Block I has good access roads, access to Blocks II and III is limited mainly to dry weather. There are eight Park bungalows all of which are within Yala Block I. Another has been constructed at Katagamuwa Sanctuary, and one more is now ready for occupation in Yala Block IV. Accommodation is available for 8-10 people in each bungalow on the basis of prior reservations with the Department of Wildlife Conservation. Apart from resident visitors occupying the bungalows, a large number of day visitors enter the Park.

The Block I boundaries of the Park, take in 19 kilometers of sea coast in the southeast from Amaduwa to Yala, 19 kilometers from Yala up the Menik Ganga to Pahalahentota, 19 kilometers from Pahalahentota to Bambawa, and 3 kilometers from Bambawa to Palatupana.

Early History
"The earliest epigraphic "Brahmi" inscriptions discovered in Sri Lanka and in this region date back to the 2nd century B.C. Prior to this the Indo-Aryan settlers from Northern India as represented,in the legend of Vijaya, were well established and in full control of the area. Edifices of the earliest Buddhist cave monastery type began to be constructed wherever there was human habitation and in suitable rock outcrops, of which there are many in the area. There are to this day innumerable and very interesting remains of cave dwellings from the pre-Christian era."

This region was part of the Rohana (Ruhuna) Kingdom, having an advanced civilization as evinced by remains of dagabas and ancient artificial reservoirs (tanks), built by clever hydrological engineers, to irrigate large extents of cultivable land.

After the 10th century, historical evidence draws attention to the absence of inscriptions later than the 10th century A.D. "Architectural and sculptural remains of the medieval period are absent. It would appear to be a justifiable inference that some sudden de-population of the region occurred. The ancient chronicles supply no information whatsoever and the jungle tide spread covering the past with a mantle of secondary forest. These have matured to the climax stands seen in Yala today.

The Modern Era
At the turn of the century Yala Block I was declared a Game Sanctuary. A small area west of the Sanctuary was set aside in which resident sportsman might shoot. The main force behind this decision was the Game Protection Society (now the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society) founded in 1894 by the plantation owners, executives of firms, sportsmen and amateur naturalists favouring the conservation of wildlife. Records denote that the first Game Ranger of the Sanctuary was H.H. Engelbrecht, an Afrikaaner and a Boer prisoner of war who was not returned to South Africa on account of his refusal to swear allegiance to the British monarchy. After his release Engelbrecht came to the nearby coastal town of Hambantota. Being on his own on foreign soil, he found life hard. The Government Agent of the district however, took pity on Engelbrecht and made him the custodian of the Game Sanctuary around 1908. With his experience of wildlife on the veldt, the post suited him admirably. He administered the region fearlessly and with courage, using his whip to punish any miscreants. Many are the tales of his daring and prowess with the gun. However, his German ancestry proved to be his undoing. He was falsely accused during the First World War (1914­-1918), of supplying meat to a German warship, the "Emden", and was taken into custody. After the war, he was released and once again returned to Hambantota where he died in poverty. Long after his death, it was proved that he was innocent of the accusation.

Climate
Being located in one of the arid regions of Sri Lanka, the climate of Ruhuna National Park is usually hot and dry. The area receives its annual rainfall during the north east monsoon from November to January, and unpredictable inter-monsoonal rains in March/April and September. February is a dry month, with the dry season proper commencing in June and lasting until September and sometimes until mid October.

The mean annual temperature near sea level is 270C, although in the dry season a daily maximum of 370C is not uncommon.

Physical features
"Most of the area is underlain by Vijayan rocks formed over 600 million years ago. Rock outcrops or inselbergs stand out of a relatively flat plain, looming to heights of up to 800ft. They are made up of migmatites, hornblende, and granite gneisses. Pleistocene and Holocene alluvial and aeolian deposits cover the Vijayan series near the Menik ganga and along most of the coast line."

The Menik Ganga is now a seasonal river, since its damming for irrigation purposes higher up, as far back as 1878. There are four other seasonal "aras" or streamlets carrying water during the rainy season.

The breached and denuded earth bunds of several irrigation tanks are still visible, together with natural water holes and tanks (wewa), improved to hold water. These sources of water are a link in the survival of the wildlife found within the area.

Amongst the rock ridges and monoliths are several natural rock pools that have a charm of their own. Some contain water throughout the year, and have their own development of water plants and fauna.

In the southeast, the Park is bounded by the sea. The many bays carve out an intricate mosaic. Unspoilt natural beaches and sand dunes provide a beautiful environment of undulating and shifting sands. This is surely one of the most spectacular seascapes of Sri Lanka. Far out at sea are two lighthouses, Great and Little Basses, which stand on two submerged ridges by those names and beam a red and white light respectively at night.

Lagoons fringe this part of the coastline, each lined with mangroves and filled with brackish water. The extensive parklands that surround these lagoons offer visitors superb locations for viewing animals and bird life.

The Depth sea

The sea is one of the great unexplored parts of this planet. In its depths lie great mysteries that will shake the face of our science and civilisation. Some of these have been discovered recently, lifeforms that inhabit hot volcanic vents, creatures with their own light sources, strange structures unlike any seen on the surface. This is a real laboratory of life, as different from the surface as anything that we could imagine on a distant planet. If we can find such novelty here, right under our nose, then just think on the possibilities for life in forms quite alien to those based upon our own DNA.
This possibility is investigated in the field of Artificial Life, here we study processes that resemble those common to the life we know, yet implemented in very alien ways. Our creatures live in silicon, their bodies are made up of patterns of light inhabiting a computer core, they evolve in ways similar to natural life, mutating, having sexual relations, competing for space and time. In this world of tomorrow we see, speeded up a thousand fold, natural selection in action coupled with a new phenomenon, that of self-organization. These systems evolve themselves to an edge of chaos state, the operating parameter that allows them to adapt most efficiently to changes in their environment. This is exactly the same state that we see in natural and human systems, leading many to claim that we have now succeeded in playing God, we have created life itself...

Sinharaja rain forest

Sinharaja Forest Reserve is a national park and a biodiversity hotspot in Sri Lanka. It is of international significance and has been designated a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The hilly virgin rainforest, part of the Sri Lanka lowland rain forests ecoregion, was saved from the worst of commercial logging by its inaccessibility, and was designated a World Biosphere Reserve in 1978 and a World Heritage Site in 1988. The reserve's name translates as Kingdom of the Lion.

The reserve is only 21 km from east to west, and a maximum of 7 km from north to south, but it is a treasure trove of endemic species, including trees, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Because of the dense vegetation, wildlife is not as easily seen as at dry-zone national parks such as Yala. There are about 3 elephants and the 15 or so leopards are rarely seen. The commonest larger mammal is the endemic Purple-faced Langur.

An interesting phenomenon is that birds tend to move in mixed feeding flocks, invariably led by the fearless Greater Racket-tailed Drongo and the noisy Orange-billed Babbler. Of Sri Lanka's 26 endemic birds, the 20 rainforest species all occur here, including the elusive Red-faced Malkoha, Green-billed Coucal and Sri Lanka Blue Magpie.

Reptiles include the endemic Green pit viper and Hump-nosed vipers, and there are a large variety of amphibians, especially tree frogs. Invertebrates include the endemic Common Birdwing butterfly and the inevitable leeches.

Kilimanjaro national park

Kilimanjaro National Park is a national park, located near Moshi, Tanzania. It is centered on Mount Kilimanjaro, and covers an area of 753 km² (291 square miles) from 2°45'–3°25'S, 37°00'–37°43'E.

In the 1910s, Mount Kilimanjaro and its forests were declared a game reserve by the German colonial government. In 1921 it was made a forest reserve.

In 1973, the mountain above the tree line (about 2,700 m / 9,000 ft) was reclassified as a National Park and was opened to public access in 1977. The park was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987.