首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Australia’s Growing Disaster Far
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Australia’s Growing Disaster Far
admin
2019-06-10
28
问题
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Australia’s Growing Disaster
Farming is threatening to destroy the soil and native flora and fauna over vast areas of Australia. What price should be put on conservation?
Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Committee estimates that burning wood from cleared forest accounts for about 30 per cent of Australia’s emissions of carbon dioxide, or 156 million tonnes a year. And water tables are rising beneath cleared land. In the Western Australian wheat belt, estimates suggest that water is rising by up to 1 metre a year. The land is becoming waterlogged and unproductive or is being poisoned by salt, which is brought to the surface. The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) reckons that 33 million hectares have been degraded by salination. The federal government estimates the loss in production from salinity at A$200 million a year. According to Jason Alexandra of the ACF, this list of woes is evidence that Australia is depleting its resources by trading agricultural commodities for manufactured goods. In effect, it sells topsoil for technologies that will be worn out or redundant in a few years. The country needs to get away from the ’colonial mentality’ of exploiting resources and adopt agricultural practices suited to Australian conditions, he says.
Robert Hadler of the National Farmers’ Federation does not deny that there is a problem, but says that it is ’illogical’ to blame farmers. Until the early 1980s, farmers were given tax incentives to clear land because that was what people wanted. If farmers are given tax breaks to manage land sustainably, they will do so. Hadler argues that the two reports on land clearance do not say anything which was not known before. Australia is still better off than many other developed countries, says Den Graetz, an ecologist at the CSIRIO, the national research organisation. ’A lot of the country is still notionally pristine,’ he says ’It is not transformed like Europe where almost nothing that is left is natural.’ Graetz, who analysed the satellite photographs for the second land clearance report, argues that there is now better co-operation between Australian scientists, government officials and farmers than in the past.
But the vulnerable state of the land is now widely understood, and across Australia, schemes have started for promoting environment friendly farming. In 1989 Prime Minister Bob Hawke set up Landcare, a network of more than 2000 regional conservation groups. About 30 per cent of landholders are members. ’It has become a very significant social movement,’ says Helen Alexander from the National Landcare Council. ’We started out worrying about not much more than erosion and the replanting of trees but it has grown much more diverse and sophisticated.’
But the bugbear of all these conservation efforts is money. Landcare’s budget is A$110 million a year, of which only A $6 million goes to farmers. Neil Clark, an agricultural consultant from Bendigo in Victoria, says that farmers are not getting enough. ’Farmers may want to make more efficient use of water and nutrients and embrace more sustainable practices, but it all costs money and they just don’t have the spare funds,’ he says.
Clark also says scientists are taking too large a share of the money for conservation. Many problems posed by agriculture to the environment have been ’researched to death’, he says. ’We need to divert the money for a while into getting the solutions into place’. Australia’s chief scientist, Michael Pitman, disagrees. He says that science is increasingly important. Meteorologists, for example, are becoming confident about predicting events which cause droughts in Australia. ’If this can be done with accuracy then it will have immense impact on stocking levels and how much feed to provide,’ says Pitman. "The end result will be much greater efficiency.’
Steve Morton of the CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology says the real challenge facing conservationists is to convince the 85 per cent of Australians who live in cities that they must foot a large part of the bill. "The land is being used to feed the majority and to produce wealth that circulates through the financial markets of the cities,’ he says. One way would be to offer incentives to extend the idea of stewardship to areas outside the rangelands, so that more land could be protected rather than exploited. Alexander agrees. ’The nation will have to debate to what extent it is willing to support rural communities,’ she says. ’It will have to decide to what extent it wants food prices to reflect the true cost of production. That includes the cost of looking after the environment.’
Questions 1-8
Look at the following statements (Questions 1-8) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A-G.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
List of People
A Jason Alexandra B Robert Hadler
C Dean Graetz D Helen Alexander
E Neil Clark F Michael Pitman
G Steve Morton
Much of the land in Australia is unspoilt.
选项
答案
C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/GsAO777K
本试题收录于:
雅思阅读题库雅思(IELTS)分类
0
雅思阅读
雅思(IELTS)
相关试题推荐
Relativismamountstothedenialofanobjectiveworldaboutwhichtrueandfalsestatementscanbemade;thereisnoabs
ThispassageisadaptedfromTheAmericanRepublic:Constitution,Tendencies,andDestinybyO.A.Brownson,1866.Thean
Howisanewbornstarformed?Fortheanswertothisquestion,wemustlooktothefamiliarphysicalconceptofgravitat
Ashasalwaysbeenthecasewhentragedyhasstruckourcommunity,thepeopleofourtownfeeltheobligation,andrightlyso,t
Lamarck’stheoryofevolution,whicharguedthatacquiredcharacteristicscouldbeinherited,waseventually(i)______bytheworl
Cathedralsusuallytakedecades,evencenturies,tocomplete;thus,nooneexpectedtheNationalCathedraltobebuiltwith_____
随机试题
编一个C程序,父进程首先设置信号SIGUSR1的处理方法和创建无名管道,再创建一个子进程,然后从键盘上读入一个命令串(如ls-l),并通过无名管道向子进程发送该命令串。之后再向子进程发送软中断信号SIGUSR1,父进程等待子进程终止。子进程读到命令后,睡眠
用科学发展观的全面协调可持续发展的原理谈谈人与人、人与自然、人与社会的关系。
房地产经纪机构的经营战略中,下列关于多向多样化战略类型的说法中不正确的是()。
拟建于某自然保护区内的索道建设项目的建设单位,按照相关规定,建设单位应当在()向公众公告环境影响评价的工作程序和主要工作内容。
工程项目实施阶段的主要工作包括()。
投标保证金的实质是为了避免因()等行为而给招标人造成损失。
用人单位未按规定提出工伤认定申请,工伤职工或者其直系亲属、工会组织在事故伤害发生之日或者被诊断、鉴定为( )之日起1年内,可以直接向用人单位所在地统筹地区劳动保障行政部门提出工伤认定申请。
市场预测的一般过程是()。
根据面试技巧,以下面试官的做法中,不正确的是()。
简述皮亚杰的认知发展理论。
最新回复
(
0
)