VOA标准英语2012--Man's Africa Trek Saves Pristine Forests

Man's Africa Trek¹ Saves Pristine² Forests

Michael Fay calls himself a “nature boy.” He’s made a career of exploring the globe in the name of environmental protection, sponsored by organizations like National Geographic³ and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
In September 1999, Fay, then in his early forties, set out on the MegaTransect, a 15-month survey of plants and wildlife that took him more than 3,000 kilometers, on foot, across the forests of west-central Africa’s Congo basin.
As a result of that journey, millions of hectares of pristine forest were put into protected status.
Impossible mission
When the naturalist⁴ set out with about a dozen Pygmy guides to walk across the dense⁵ tropical forests of the Congo and Gabon, most people thought he was on an impossible mission.
“You know, we were [on] like an epic⁶ voyage out there," he says. "Every day you have to find food for 13 people, you have to keep everyone healthy. You have to be the mother, the father, the coach, everybody, for all these guys.”
Fay intended for his journey through the last pristine forests in west-central Africa to draw international attention to the rich biological diversity being threatened by commercial logging.
He admits the local people on his team didn’t really know what they were signing up for.
“They certainly got depressed⁷ after three or four months out on the trail," he says. "So I had to switch teams about halfway⁸ through, because those guys were just burned out, basically.”
At one point, they stopped at a small village where Fay warned his companions not to drink the water because of the risk of disease.
“And sure enough, one of the Pygmies gets hepatitis like, probably two or three weeks later. And the first reaction of those guys to something like that is to scarify them with razor blades and bleed them, you know, to get the bad blood out," Fay remembers. "And so here you’ve got this highly-infectious guy, who all of a sudden everybody’s touching⁹ his blood, and I just had these nightmares of the whole crew getting hepatitis.”
According to Fay, it took about a week to carry the sick man to a river, where they used a dugout canoe to transport him to safety.
Expedition of a lifetime
Using a satellite-based positioning system, digital cameras, and a laptop computer, Fay documented his experiences - good and bad - during his long trek through the forest.
He crossed rivers, hacked¹⁰ through dense underbrush, and slogged through deep, muddy swamps. Along the way, he saw an enormous variety of wildlife, from elephants to aardvarks to gorillas¹¹.
Fay also came across roads and bulldozers, where logging companies were cutting down the forest.
Fay collected samples, took photographs, and compiled a detailed¹² description of, as he puts it, “every pile of dung, every tree, every cry of a chimpanzee” along his route. He sent occasional dispatches describing the trip to one of his funders, the National Geographic Society, which published his accounts online.
“It was hard. But we didn’t lose a single person, and it was an expedition of a lifetime, for sure.”
Making a difference
For Fay, the risk and hardship were worth it. The knowledge that came out of his trip, and the attention it drew to the rich biodiversity of the Congo basin, spurred the creation of 13 national parks in Gabon, which placed more than four million hectares of forest into protected status.
“And those parks are still very much protected and real. And logging - just like I thought - has completely surrounded every single one of those parks in the interim¹³. So if we didn’t do it when we did it, none of that forest would have been saved from logging.”
After he finished the MegaTransect in 2000, Fay rented an apartment in Washington, D.C., intending to write up his findings. But after sleeping outdoors in the forest for so long, he had a hard time readjusting to city life.
“I spent one night in this apartment, and I immediately just fled, you know. And I went to Rock Creek¹⁴ Park, which is the big National Park in the middle of Washington, D.C., and it was like ‘Oh my God, this is perfect, this is beautiful, I can sleep outside, the birds are here, there’s deer, there’s trees, you know it’s forest cover,’ and I thought, you know, ‘Why would I ever want to live inside?’”
Since returning from his expedition across the Congo Basin, Fay has conducted other large-scale surveys of biodiversity. His latest, in 2007, took him on a 3,000 kilometer hike through California’s redwood forests - not bad, for a guy in his early 50s.
And no matter where he is, Fay says he still avoids sleeping indoors, if he can help it.

1 trek   

vi.作长途艰辛的旅行；n.长途艰苦的旅行

参考例句：

• We often go pony-trek in the summer.夏季我们经常骑马旅行。
• It took us the whole day to trek across the rocky terrain.我们花了一整天的时间艰难地穿过那片遍布岩石的地带。

2 pristine   

adj.原来的，古时的，原始的，纯净的，无垢的

参考例句：

• He wiped his fingers on his pristine handkerchief.他用他那块洁净的手帕擦手指。
• He wasn't about to blemish that pristine record.他本不想去玷污那清白的过去。

3 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

4 naturalist   

n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者)

参考例句：

• He was a printer by trade and naturalist by avocation.他从事印刷业，同时是个博物学爱好者。
• The naturalist told us many stories about birds.博物学家给我们讲述了许多有关鸟儿的故事。

5 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

6 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

7 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

8 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

9 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

10 hacked   

生气

参考例句：

• I hacked the dead branches off. 我把枯树枝砍掉了。
• I'm really hacked off. 我真是很恼火。

11 gorillas   

n.大猩猩( gorilla的名词复数 )；暴徒，打手

参考例句：

• the similitude between humans and gorillas 人类和大猩猩的相像
• Each family of gorillas is led by a great silverbacked patriarch. 每个大星星家族都由一个魁梧的、长着银色被毛的族长带领着。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

13 interim   

adj.暂时的，临时的；n.间歇，过渡期间

参考例句：

• The government is taking interim measures to help those in immediate need.政府正在采取临时措施帮助那些有立即需要的人。
• It may turn out to be an interim technology.这可能只是个过渡技术。

14 creek   

n.小溪，小河，小湾

参考例句：

• He sprang through the creek.他跳过小河。
• People sunbathe in the nude on the rocks above the creek.人们在露出小溪的岩石上裸体晒日光浴。