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  3. Humans have been chipping away at the Amazon rainforest since they settled there well over ten millennia ago. Since the 1970s th

Humans have been chipping away at the Amazon rainforest since they settled there well over ten millennia ago. Since the 1970s th

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问题     Humans have been chipping away at the Amazon rainforest since they settled there well over ten millennia ago. Since the 1970s they have done so on an industrial scale. In the past 50 years Brazil has relinquished 17% of the forest’s original extent, more than the area of France, to road-and dam-building, logging, mining, soybean farming and cattle ranching. After a seven-year government effort to slow the destruction, it picked up in 2013 because of weakened enforcement and an amnesty for past deforestation. Recession and political crisis further pared back the government’s ability to enforce the rules. Now Mr. Bolsonaro has gleefully taken a buzz saw to them. Although congress and the courts have blocked some of his efforts to strip parts of the Amazon of their protected status, he has made it clear that rule-breakers have nothing to fear, despite the fact that he was elected to restore law and order. Because 70% — 80% of logging in the Amazon is illegal, the destruction has soared to record levels. Since he took office in January, trees have been disappearing at a rate of over two Manhattans a week.
    The Amazon is unusual in that it recycles much of its own water. As the forest.shrivels, less recycling takes place. At a certain threshold, that causes more of the forest to wither so that, over a matter of decades, the process feeds on itself. Climate change is bringing the threshold closer every year as the forest heats up. Mr. Bolsonaro is pushing it towards the edge. Pessimists fear that the cycle of runaway degradation may kick in when another 3%~8% of the forest vanishes— which, under Mr. Bolsonaro, could happen soon. There are hints the pessimists may be correct. In the past 15 years the Amazon has suffered three severe droughts. Fires are on the rise.
                                                                                                                                      —The Economist
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答案 早在一万多年前人类在亚马孙定居以来，就一直在蚕食着当地的雨林。上世纪70年代以来，人们开始大规模采伐。过去50年里，巴西已将雨林原始面积的17％(超过法国国土面积)用于修道路和水坝、伐木、采矿、种大豆和放牧。政府曾花费七年时间来减缓这种破坏，但因执法力度减弱和对过去毁林行为的赦免，到2013年破坏又重新加速。经济衰退和政治危机进一步削弱了政府的执法能力。现在博索纳罗兴高采烈地向雨林举起了圆锯。虽然国会和法院已经阻止了他取消亚马孙流域部分保护区的一些尝试，但他已经明确表示违规者不必担心，尽管选民选他是为了恢复法律和秩序。由于亚马孙流域七八成的砍伐都是非法的，造成的破坏已飙升至创纪录水平。自博索纳罗1月上任以来，每周消失的森林面积超过两个曼哈顿。 亚马孙的不寻常之处在于它大部分的水资源可以自循环。随着雨林不断萎缩，自循环的规模也变小了，到了某个阈值会导致更多森林枯萎，所以几十年后萎缩的过程就不再需要外力推动了。气候变化导致雨林温度不断上升，使阈值每年都在降低。博索纳罗正在把雨林推向这一绝境。悲观主义者担心，如果雨林再消失3％至8％，失控退化的循环可能就会启动——而在博索纳罗当权之下这可能很快就会发生。有迹象表明悲观主义者可能没错。过去15年中，亚马孙遭受了三次严重的干旱。雨林火灾次数正在上升。”
解析     chip away at sth. 表示“削弱，一点点地除掉”，包含“逐步，不间断，一点点地侵占”的含义，而中文的“蚕食”同样表示“逐步侵占”，将chip away at译为“蚕食”，用词准确贴切，更生动形象。“since they settled…ago”为时间状语，表示“自……以来”，翻译时按照中文表述习惯，将时间状语提前。
    relinquish意为“放弃，让出(权利、财产等)”，to表示“目的”，“relinquish…to…”可译为“将……用于……”表示将17％的森林砍伐. 而将之用于修路等用途。cattle常指“牛”，但结合上下文可知，该词在句中表示“家畜”，因此cattle ranching可译为“放牧”。
    After a seven-year government effort to slow the destruction为时间状语，翻译时若是照搬原文的句子架构，译为“经过政府7年减缓破坏的努力”，译文机械拗121，因此需调整句子结构，可将主语转换为名词“政府”，译为“政府曾花费七年时间来减缓这种破坏”，表意更加清晰。weakened enforcement中weakened本为形容词，做前置修饰语，若译为“减弱的执法力度”，生硬且别扭，因此转换词性，将其转换为动词作谓语，译为“执法力度减弱”，内涵不变，但更加通顺地道。
    第二句中的代词that指代的是第一句中的内容，翻译时为了实现前后衔接紧密，将其合并为一句。feed on意为“以……为食，以……为能源”，结合主语the process可知，feed on itself表示“雨林萎缩的过程可以自行推动，无需再借助人类破坏森林等的外力”，为了表示强调，这里使用正话反说的翻译方法，译为“不再需要外力推动了”。
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