VOA科学技术2024--Researchers: Protecting 1% of Earth's Surface Would Save Rare Wildlife

A recent report by environmental researchers says that protecting 1.2 percent of the Earth's land surface could prevent most extinctions.

Extinction¹ is the permanent disappearance² of an animal or plant from the Earth.

The researchers estimated that such an expansion of nature preserves would cost about $263 billion.

In 2022, United Nations delegates to the COP15 meeting in Montreal, Canada, promised to protect 30 percent of the Earth's surface by 2030. The U.N. calls the promise the "30-by-30 target." It aims to protect plants and animals severely³ affected⁴ by climate change, pollution, and habitat destruction.

In October, U.N. delegates will gather for a COP16 biodiversity meeting in Colombia to discuss plans for reaching the 30-by-30 goal.

The recent study was published in Frontiers in Science. In it, the researchers aimed to identify the highest value areas around the world. Carlos Peres said he hopes the areas identified will be included in protection plans. Peres was a co-writer of the study and is a conservation ecology expert at the University of East Anglia in Britain.

Perese said, "Most countries do not actually have a strategy."

He said, "The 30-by-30 targets still lack a lot of details because it doesn't actually say what 30 percent should be protected."

The study's proposed protections would cover an additional 1.6 million square kilometers. This is an area about one fifth the size of the United States. The study includes 16,825 sites that are home to rare and threatened wildlife.

It is estimated that nearly 16 percent of the world's surface already has some level of protection.

The study estimated that the cost of purchasing land by governments would be about $263 billion. Many of these areas include private property and would be bought at current market values over the next five years.

"Time is not on our side," Peres said, "because it will become increasingly more expensive and more difficult to set aside additional protected areas."

Most of the cost of creating protected areas is in buying the land. The study did not consider the costs for policing and maintaining the nature preserves.

About three-quarters of the sites are tropical forests. The Philippines, Brazil, and Indonesia are home to more than half of the high-valued areas.

Russia is the one country with the most high-valued areas. The study said about 138,000 square kilometers should be the target of conservation.

Several African countries are also at the top of the list. Madagascar has the fourth-highest number of areas. And the Democratic Republic of Congo has the largest area targeted for conservation in Africa.

The United States is among the top 30 countries in the study. The study said about 0.6 percent of the U.S. should be targeted for conservation. That is an area about the size of the state of Delaware.

The researchers only considered land and freshwater areas. They did not consider oceans or marine⁵ protected areas. The study also did not include kinds of animals such as invertebrates⁶, or animals without a backbone⁷, like insects.

The U.S.-based nonprofit group One Earth paid for the study.

Words in This Story

preserve -n. a protected area for a special purpose

habitat -n. a place where wildlife naturally lives

biodiversity -n. the condition of having many different kinds of plants and animals in a place

conservation -n. efforts to preserve and maintain natural lands and resources

ecology -n. the study of relationships between living things

strategy -n. a long-term plan to reach a goal

expensive -adj. costly⁸; requiring a lot of money

tropical -n. related to areas of the Earth between about 22 degrees north and 22 degrees south latitude⁹

marine -adj. related to the sea or oceans

1 extinction   

n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种

参考例句：

• The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
• The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。

2 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

3 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

4 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

5 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

6 invertebrates   

n.无脊椎动物( invertebrate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Insects and worms are all invertebrates. 昆虫和蠕虫都是无脊椎动物。 来自辞典例句
• In the earthworm and many other invertebrates, these excretory structures are called nephridia. 在蚯蚓和许多其它无脊椎动物中，这些排泄结构称为肾管。 来自辞典例句

7 backbone   

n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气

参考例句：

• The Chinese people have backbone.中国人民有骨气。
• The backbone is an articulate structure.脊椎骨是一种关节相连的结构。

8 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

9 latitude   

n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区

参考例句：

• The latitude of the island is 20 degrees south.该岛的纬度是南纬20度。
• The two cities are at approximately the same latitude.这两个城市差不多位于同一纬度上。