CNN 2009-12-09

It's one of the last wilderness¹ areas, in Africa, last great wilderness areas in the world, and you have a very large intact savannah ecosystem² which is adjacent to the largest wetland in Africa. So there are a lot of superlatives here in southern Sudan.

Some catastrophic things happened here to the wild life, particularly to species which don't migrate or don't go too far. And more sedentary species like buffalo³, hartbeest. We.. There were estimated 47,000 hartbeests before the war here, we estimate now, may be a thousand. In southern National Park, something catastrophic happened to the elephants there. They went from 15,000 elephants to, we estimated, less than a thousand. Before the war you had our organization who's working there, there was international attention to the work that was going on here, but everybody had to pull out. And so there is this vacuum of 30 years of work now we've coming back. and we are still in discovery mode.

There is a sense of urgency here which needs to be expressed and we've been talking to our colleagues in the government of Southern Sudan about it, is they have a window of opportunity here, now. Right now they have a window of time when they need proper land who's planting and zoning. They need incentives⁴ and to work with local communities and they need strong law enforcement to secure those populations remaining. And if they do that over the next 5 years, with in partnership⁵ with the international community，they can secure, you know, one of the last great wilderness of the world.

1 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

2 ecosystem   

n.生态系统

参考例句：

• This destroyed the ecosystem of the island.这样破坏了岛上的生态系统。
• We all have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem.维持生态系统的完整是我们共同的利益。

3 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

4 incentives   

激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机

参考例句：

• tax incentives to encourage savings 鼓励储蓄的税收措施
• Furthermore, subsidies provide incentives only for investments in equipment. 更有甚者，提供津贴仅是为鼓励增添设备的投资。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

5 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。