（带文稿）1023 毁林如崩，修复如登，亚马逊雨林的生死劫

张老邪导读叨哔叨：

2019 亚马逊热带雨林大火的新闻牵动了全球人民的心，无疑使全球变暖火上浇油，欧洲国家甚至提出拒绝和纵火国继续商业合作。除了巴西，这则新闻还提到了毁林的一个罪魁祸首，那他们毁林的动机和手段是......

Transcript

    Forests can be destroyed quickly. Regrowth happens much, much slower.

        But around the world, people are working to help it happen.

    In the Peruvian Amazon, illegal gold mining damaged forests and poisoned the ground. Now scientists work to change this wasteland back to wilderness.

    Almost 5,000 kilometers north are former coal mining lands across Appalachia, in the American state of West Virginia. Workers there tear out old trees that never put down deep roots. They make the soil better so native trees can grow there once more.

    In Brazil, a plant business owner grows different kinds of young plants to help reconnect forests along the country’s Atlantic coast. Such efforts also help endangered animals, like the golden lion tamarin.

Golden lion tamarins sit on a tree branch in the Atlantic Forest in Silva Jardim, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Rebuilding woodland requires patience. It can take several decades or longer for forests to regrow as true habitats.

    “Planting a tree is only one step in the process,” says Christopher Barton. He is professor of forest hydrology at the University of Kentuckty’s Appalachian Center.

A bulldozer loosens the soil in a field in Monongahela National Forest, W.Va., on Aug. 27, 2019, in a process known as "deep ripping."

    And yet, there is urgency to that work. Forests are one of the planet’s first lines of defense against climate change. They collect as much as 25 percent of manmade carbon released into the air each year.

    Trees and other plants use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to produce chemical energy to fuel their growth. They then release oxygen. As forests have shrunk, however, so has Earth’s ability to deal with carbon releases.

    Successful reforestation programs pay attention to native plants. They are also overseen by groups with a proven commitment to monitoring forests -- not just for tree-planting events that happen only once. And, successful programs help people living nearby. They may create jobs or reduce the effects of erosion, which may damage crops and homes.

    The effects of reforestation could be great. A recent study in the publication Science reported that if around 500 billion young trees were planted, they could take in 205 gigatonnes of carbon once they were fully grown.

    The Swiss researchers who carried out the study estimated this is equal to about two-thirds of manmade carbon emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

    Other scientists have disagreed with those numbers. And, some fear that mass tree-planting events will be seen as an easy solution to climate change. This could prevent people from looking for other needed action.

    But all agree that trees matter – a lot.

Forestry researcher Jhon Farfan carries young trees to replant a field damaged by illegal gold miners in Madre de Dios, Peru, on March 29, 2019.

    In southeastern Peru, forestry researcher Jhon Farfan works in the Amazon to reforest old gold mines. He inspects lands where the forest has already been lost to illegal mining. The mining activity was fueled by the major increase in gold prices following the 2008 worldwide financial crisis.         The gold mining left the land poisoned.

    Since the project began three years ago, the team has planted more than 42 hectares of native trees. It is the largest reforestation effort in the Peruvian Amazon to date.

    In the United States, activists deal with poor past attempts to heal the land after mining. Heavy machines had pushed soil into West Virginia’s Cheat Mountain in the 1980s. The soil was packed so hard that tree roots could not expand.

    The non-profit Green Forest Work is working with the U.S. Forest Service to restore native Appalachian forests. They do this by tearing down other trees in a process called “deep ripping.”

Dona Graça, smiles as she holds up a sprouting seed from a collection of forest species from the Atlantic Forest, at her nursery in an urban area of Casimiro de Abreu, Brazil, Tuesday, April 16, 2019.

    In Brazil, a woman named Dona Graça runs a tree nursery that grows seedlings of species native to the country’s Atlantic coastal rainforest. Local replanting efforts often use her seedlings. They aim to reconnect broken pieces of forest.

    Dona Graça says she is angry at what has happened to the coastal forest, which has shrunk as Rio de Janeiro and other cities have expanded.

She raises many kinds of rare, native trees from seed. She does this, she says, for future generations.

    “In the future when I pass away ... that memory I tried to leave for the people is: It’s worth it to plant, to build,” she said.

    I’m Anne Ball.

话说，2019都快结束了，你为2020种下了点什么没？

学习要胆大心细耐得烦，忌囫囵吞枣不思考。

“日拱一卒，功不唐捐”

胡适校长在北大毕业典礼的语录，也送给诸君 ღ( ´･ᴗ･` )