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  3. Tough Laws on Paper Alarming new figures show that the destruction of the Amazon(亚马逊河) rainforest the world’s biggest tropic

Tough Laws on Paper Alarming new figures show that the destruction of the Amazon(亚马逊河) rainforest the world’s biggest tropic

admin2010-05-26  34
问题                         Tough Laws on Paper
    Alarming new figures show that the destruction of the Amazon(亚马逊河) rainforest the world’s biggest tropical forest has greatly increased. Booming agriculture, especially soya (大豆) growing, is one of the main causes.
    If it were simply a matter of passing strong laws to protect it, the Amazon rainforest-the world’s largest tropical forest, around the size of western Europe-would be safe. Brazil, whose territory(领土) includes about two-thirds of the forest, has impressively tough laws that, on paper, set most of it aside as a nature reserve and impose stiff penalties for illegal logging (采伐). But the latest annual figures for deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, published by the government on Wednesday May 18th, have confirmed a disturbing recent trend., the destruction is accelerating despite all efforts to prevent it. In the year to August 2004, more than 26,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles) of forest were chopped down, an area larger than the American state of New Jersey.
The trees vanish
    The area deforested (采伐森林) in the past year was up 6% in 2003, far worse than the Brazilian government’s predictions that it would rise by no more than about 2%. It was the second worst year for the destruction of the rainforest since satellite surveys began. It is estimated that almost a fifth of the Brazilian part of the forest has now been wiped out; if it were to continue at this rate, it would all be flattened within the next two centuries. Things are hardly any better in those portions of Amazonia that lie in neighboring countries: Ecuador (厄瓜多尔) has lost about half of its forest, mainly due to illegal logging, in the past 30 years. What’s worse, tropical forests have been disappearing at an even faster rate elsewhere in the world, such as in Africa. The world’s greatest stores of biodiversity (生物多样性)-and some of its main suppliers of the oxygen we breathe--are still being chewed up at an alarming rate, despite decades of talk among world leaders and environmentalists about the need to preserve them.
The economy booms
    As has been seen before in Brazil, the surge (汹涌) in the rate of deforestation is a sign that the country’s economy is booming    recently it has been growing at an annual rate of around 5%. Most of the trees felled illegally in Amazonia are sold to domestic buyers, in particular to the construction industry in Brazil’s richer southern states. But the forest is also threatened by the rapid expansion of farming and ranching (经营牧场). In the past year, almost half of the total deforestation was in the state of Mato Grosso on the forest’s southern fringe (边缘), where huge areas have been flattened to grow soybeans. Last year Brazil earned about $10 billion from exporting soy products, exceeding its income from coffee and sugar, the country’s traditional export crops. Mato Grosso’s governor, Blairo Maggi, is also its soybean king-his family’s farms are the world’s largest single producer of the crop.
    The rate at which the forest is being flattened could easily rise further. To increase the region’s economic development and make inroads i0to poverty, the government plans to asphalt (用沥青铺) and widen the potholed (崎岖不平的) BR-163 highway that cuts the forest roughly in half, running from north to south. Though the government has been working with environmental groups and others to try to limit the scheme’s impact, past experience has shown that improved road access invariably means more encroachment (蚕食) on the forest by loggers, ranchers (农场主), farmers, mineral prospectors and others.
Use it or lose it
    For much of Brazil’s recent history, in particular during the country’s 1964-85 military dictatorship (专政), successive governments were obsessed with populating and "developing" Amazonia, convinced that otherwise a foreign power might seize it. Large sums were spent building highways to open up the forest and lavish (滥用的) subsidies (补助金) were offered to get people to resettle there. However, the huge abandoned former forest land alongside previous road schemes shows that, in fact, much of the region [acks suitable soil and climate for agriculture.
Effective measures taken to conserve the forest
    More recent governments have taken the axe to the more surprising schemes that encouraged people to destroy the rainforest. Besides Brazil’s tough conservation laws, there are now countless projects, often backed by multilateral (多边的), agencies, to develop sustainable forestry, eco-tourism and other means of providing a living for the region’s inhabitants without harming their environment. Mato Grosso state has pioneered the use of satellite-mapping to enforce a law that obliges Amazonia’s landowners to leave 80% of forested land untouched. Police, environmental inspectors and other state agencies are being pressed to work together more closely to clamp down on illegal logging.
Poverty is an obstacle to the conservation of the forest
    Nevertheless, the priority of Brazil’s President Lula da Silva and his government is to cut poverty and they know that the surest way to achieve this is through strong economic growth. So, as the hR-163 highway project demonstrates, conservation still comes second to economic development. The many sustainable-forestry schemes are seeking ways to have both instead of having to choose one or the other. But while some are highly promising, taken together they have so far had much less impact than might have been hoped.
    The forest’s best hope may lie with Brazilians’ growing wealth. The country’s steady economic and
political advance since its restoration of democracy is leading to the development of a larger and more
environmentally conscious middle class, a phenomenon which in richer countries has forced governments to take tougher action to conserve natural resources. Around the world, valuable work is being done to’ improve the understanding of the many "services" that the earth’s forests provide    from water filtration (过滤) and flood prevention to fruit and fresh air--and to seek to finance their conservation by charging those who benefit from them.
    In the long term, such movements ought to provide a lifeline for the Amazon forest. But will they come in time? Brazil has already all but lost one of its two original rainforests only slivers(狭长的一小块) remain of the Mata Atlantica, which once covered huge areas along the country’s Atlantic coastline. Its remaining rainforest is still four-fifths intact (完整无缺的). But, day by day, the chainsaws and the bulldozers (推土机) are hacking it away.
In the year to August 2004, ______ of the Amazon rainforest were chopped down.
选项
答案more than 26,000 square kilometers(10,000 square miles)
解析 见第一个小标题的第二段：In the year to August 2004, more than 26,000 square kilometers (10, 000 square miles) of forest were chopped down, an area larger than the American state of New Jersey.
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