今天也是等国家线和复试名单的一天【(｀⌒´メ)超凶】
源自恒星英语网，翻译详见原网https://m.hxen.com/englishlistening/rumen/huanqiu/2019-10-30/526340.html
Saving Crop Diversity
保护农作物多样性
Thank you for joining us for today's Spotlight. I'm Courtney Schutt.
AndI'm Ryan Geertsma. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. Itis easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
InJuly 2006, five leaders from five different nations joined together. They meton the islands of Svalbard Norway, just one thousand [1000] kilometres from theNorth Pole. They came together to lay the first stones of a new project - alarge vault that will only hold seeds!
Today's Spotlight is on “Noah's Ark of Svalbard.” It will hold allthe seeds of all the world's crops.
Theair we breathe. The water we drink. The foods we eat. These are the mostimportant resources for human life. They are things we need to protect.
Wecan keep the air clean in many different ways. For example, we can burn lesscoal and oil. They pollute the air.
Andwe can keep water supplies clean too. We can use fewer chemicals. Chemicalssink into the ground into our drinking water.
Buthow can we protect our food?
People all over the world enjoy many different kinds of foods. All of thesefoods were at one time very small seeds. All of the world's seeds representcrop diversity. Crops can be different in their size, height, flower colour,fruiting time, seed size, and taste. But, crop diversity is at risk ofdisappearing.
Forexample, in 1949 China grew ten thousand different kinds of wheat. By the 1970sthere were only one thousand different kinds left.
Inthe 1800s, the United States grew seven thousand different kinds of apples.Now, only three hundred different kinds remain.
Mexico has lost eighty percent of their corn crop diversity. And, India haslost ninety percent of their rice crop diversity. Often this happens whenfarmers start using new kinds of seeds. The old seeds are lost. They becomeextinct and disappear.
Yousee, there are not many ways to protect crop diversity. Climate changes,natural disasters like storms and floods, and disease threaten crop diversity.War threatens crop diversity. Even people threaten crop diversity!
That's right. World hunger is a serious problem. The earth struggles to supplyenough food for people in some areas of the world. And population numbers arerising. There are already about six billion people on earth. Experts believethat by the year 2050 there will be nine billion people on earth. Protectingcrop diversity will be important for the future. Crop diversity will be theonly way to feed those nine billion people!
Butfeeding people is just one reason to protect crop diversity. There are otherreasons. For example, crop diversity helps protect crops against diseaseextinction. Imagine if there was only one kind of corn. Now imagine if thatcorn crop got a disease. We would lose corn forever. Crop diversity protectscrops from disappearing.
Also, genetically mixing different kinds of crops together can create newcrops. Some of these new crops can resist disease. Some can live in coldtemperatures. Others can live during times with no water. And some can growwithout using chemicals. These new crops will help fight world hunger in thefuture.
These are the reasons why the Global Crop Diversity Trust has started a newproject. People working with the Trust want to create a "biological basisof all agriculture." That is, they want to hold some of ALL of the world'sseeds inside of a vault. They want to protect the earth's crop diversity.
Theleader of agriculture in Norway is Terje Riis-Johansen. He explains the purposeof the vault.
"The vault's purpose is to protect the survival of crop diversity in theevent of plant diseases, nuclear war, natural disasters or climate change. Itwill also offer the world a chance to restart growth of food crops that mayhave disappeared."
Their first duty is to collect all the earth's seeds!
Justimagine trying to collect all of the world's different kinds of seeds. Thiswould be a very hard job! Did you know that there are more that one hundredthousand different kinds of RICE alone? Now imagine collecting all thedifferent kinds of fruits, vegetables and grains. The Global Crop DiversityTrust hopes to hold over three million seeds in their vault. It seems like analmost impossible job.
But,one hundred countries support the idea of the vault. They are interested instoring and protecting their country's seeds. So, many people are cooperatingto collect their seeds. With so many people working together, the job does notseem as difficult.
TheTrust decided to put its vault on Svalbard, a group of Norwegian islands. Theseislands are very far north, near the North Pole. First, people working for theTrust will drill, or dig a tunnel seventy metres into a mountain. The vaultwill be inside of the mountain.
Second, they plan to keep temperatures at a cool negative eighteen degrees.But, what if there is a power failure? Then, the seeds may die. But, that iswhy the Trust chose Svalbard. Even if the power fails, the vault temperaturewill not rise above freezing. That is because the mountain is covered withpermafrost. Permafrost is soil that stays frozen all year. So, it is like themountain is frozen. Permafrost will help keep the vault cold. In coldtemperatures seeds can survive for thousands of years.
Third, the Trust will build two large steel doors to protect the vault. Only aremote control in Sweden can open these steel doors. They will only open if aperson in Sweden turns a particular control key.
Andfinally, the Trust plans to protect the vault in one other way. They plan tolet nature take control! You see, Svalbard is home to many polar bears. Theselarge white animals walk free on the islands. They hunt for food. And you canbe sure that the bears will chase away people trying to harm the vault.
Eachseed that people plant has its own story. The seed will grow into a fruit, intoa vegetable, or into a grain. Families will eat their own crops. Or they willsell it in a market for other people to eat. Some crops travel across the worldbefore people eat them. But, every piece of food that you eat started its storyas a seed. Protecting crop diversity is important to continue the story ofseeds. Not only that, but crop diversity is important to continue the story ofpeople too.
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