國家地理:保護著海岸和生命的消失的森林(4)

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But after years of abuse from man and nature, the mangroves seem to be nearing their limits. Illicit logging, mostly for building materials to house the region's booming population, has thinned out the periphery of the forest. At the same time, increasing water salinity caused by the encroaching sea is killing off many higher value, storm-stopping tree species, such as the sundari that gives the forest its name. The salinity assault comes from both land and sea: Upstream dams on rivers in India have reduced freshwater flow into the Sundarbans, while sea-level rise caused by climate change is flushing more salt water into the mangroves.

但在經(jīng)歷了人與自然多年的破壞之后，紅樹林似乎已經(jīng)達到了極限。為了給急劇增加的人口提供住房，人們大量砍伐樹木，當作建筑材料，造成了紅樹林邊緣的退化。與此同時，海面上升導致水中含鹽量的增加，紅樹林失去了很多價值，也失去了阻攔暴風雨的樹種，比如被用來命名這片森林的蘇達利樹。導致水中含鹽量增加的原因同時來自陸地和海洋：印度河流上游的大壩導致流入孫德本爾斯的淡水減少，氣候變化導致的海平面上升又使更多的咸水流入紅樹林。

"The salinity front is just going up and up and up," said Mashfiqus Salehin, a professor at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology's Institute of Water and Flood Management. "New areas will salinize, and moderately salinized areas might become unlivable. It's becoming a big problem." In the worst-case scenario, in which sea levels rise by more than six feet this century, Bangladesh alone stands to lose some 800 square miles of mangroves in the Sundarbans. The best-case scenario is a loss of roughly 80 square miles. Salehin and other scientists fear even that much might prove disastrous for a country so poor the forest is besieged by human needs.

孟加拉國大學水澇管理工程技術學院教授馬斯菲克·莎爾金表示：“含鹽量高的水域在不停地擴張。新的區(qū)域正在逐漸鹽化，中度鹽化的區(qū)域不再適宜人類居住。這將是一個大問題?！弊顗牡那闆r下 本世紀海平面將上升超過六英尺，單是孟加拉國就會失去孫德本爾斯地區(qū)約八百平方英里的紅樹林。最好的情況下也會失去大約八十平方英里。即使是后者，莎爾金和其他科學家也擔心這會對一個人類如此需要紅樹林的國家造成致命性打擊。

The land itself is disappearing. Without the tangled roots of the mangroves to stabilize it, land erodes into the sea -- and with upstream dams trapping river sediment, it's not replenished as it once was.

土地正在流失。沒有了虬曲的樹根，土壤被沖進海洋--上游的大壩又阻攔了河流的沉積物，下游的土壤無法再像以往一樣得到補充。