環(huán)球英語 — 662：The Great Green Walls
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Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Marina Santee,
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And I’m Steve Myersco. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
Cork has been used for hundreds of years to close the top of wine bottles. Cork is a soft woody substance. It is perfect for stopping air getting into the bottle. It is made from the skin – or bark – of cork oak trees. Farmers harvest the bark without cutting down the trees. So, the trees are well cared for and live for many years. This creates a good local environment for wildlife.
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However, some wine producers now use a different substance to make the bottle tops. They use plastic. Some people are worried that plastic stoppers could make cork trees useless. WWF is an organisation that works to protect the environment. It wrote a report about cork production in 2006. WWF warned that three quarters of the world’s cork trees could be cut down in the next ten years.
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Portugal produces more cork than any other country. WWF has asked Portugal to grow more cork trees. WWF wants Portugal to grow the trees for one particular reason. They can help stop the desert spreading. Parts of south Portugal are very dry and hot. And this dry desert area is spreading north.
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Portugal is not the only place using trees to stop the desert spreading. Other areas of the world are also using this method. In Africa the problem is much greater than in Portugal. The biggest desert in the world, the Sahara, is getting bigger. In some places it is spreading by up to ten kilometres every year.
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This problem is too big for any one country to fix. So a number of African countries are working together to fight the spread of the desert. These countries include Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan and Ethiopia. Together, they plan to plant trees – a lot of trees.
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The plan is to plant trees between Mauritania, on the west coast, and Djibouti on the east coast. This is a distance of about seven thousand [7000] kilometres. This wall of trees will also be fifteen [15] kilometres wide. So, millions of trees will need to be planted.
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Stopping the spread of the desert is very important to many people in North Africa. Every year a huge amount of farm land is turned into desert. This process is called desertification. Millions of people in these dry areas do not have enough food. Desertification means there is even less land to grow their crops. There are a number of causes of desertification. These include: cutting down trees; letting farm animals eat too much grass; or using too much water on crops. Many people think that climate change is making this problem even worse.
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Senegal is one of the countries involved in the project. The country’s environment minister is Modou Fada Diagne. He said,
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‘Instead of waiting for the desert to come to us, we need to attack it. Poverty and desertification both make each other worse. Desertification means people get fewer crops from their land. It also reduces the quality and value of land.’
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The first part of the tree–planting plan will cost three million dollars. But some people are worried that the project will not be a success. Joséa Dossou Bodjrènou is from the Museum of Natural Science in Benin. He says the project will only work if everyone is involved.
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‘The populations need to know that it is important to plant trees. People also need to learn how to take care of them. If they do not, they would destroy the trees without knowing it is dangerous for their environment. If that happened, all this work would lead to nothing.’
Voice 1
The project has been called the Great Green Wall. But it is not the first of its kind. China has been working on a similar project for many years. Currently, more than a quarter of China is desert. This is the Gobi Desert – the biggest desert in Asia. And it is getting bigger. Every year it grows by about 2,500 square kilometres. So China decided to plant a line of trees – a green wall.
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The Chinese government wants to create a barrier against the desert. The green wall is also meant to stop sand blowing into cities. China’s capital, Beijing often suffers from huge sand storms. These are caused by strong winds blowing sand from the desert into the city.
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When finished, China’s green wall will be 4,500 kilometres long. It will stretch from Mongolia to Beijing. Chinese workers will need to plant billions of trees.
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China has been planting trees since 1978. But since 2001, tree planting has increased. However, the wall could already be failing. Many of the trees are already dying.
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The problem facing China may be related to climate change. But it could also be because of people living near the desert. They need water to survive. They also cut down trees to make fires. And this could be making desertification worse. So, the Chinese government has made laws to stop people from damaging their local environment.
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Some people do not think that planting trees is the right answer. They are worried that the trees could use up too much water in the soil. This could make the ground even drier. Wu Bo is from the Chinese Academy of Forestry in Beijing. He says,
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‘Planting trees is one way to help. But the solution is not that simple. Planting trees does not help with the real issue. We need to find how much water the trees take in. If we do not do this they could have a negative influence.’
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However, some reports do show that sand storms have decreased since China started planting trees. But it may be many years until we find out how effective the green wall really is.
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A nineteenth century French writer once said: ‘Forests come before humans, deserts follow humans.’. Let us hope that the Great Green Walls of China and Africa prove him wrong.
