VOA标准英语2012--Integrated Landscapes

 

Integrated Landscapes

There’s a new campaign to address the growing and often competing demands for natural resources. It’s called the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative.

The initiative warns that “rising human demand” for food, water, land and energy “will collide on a global scale unless bold and creative action is taken now.”

A coalition¹ of agricultural and environmental organizations has released a new report recommending an “integrated or whole landscape” approach. It’s an approach that brings together diverse and competing groups to discuss common needs.

“The world is actually at a crossroads right now looking forward over the next couple of decades to dramatic increases in population and economies that are threatening major food crises, major water crises, major climate crises, major rural energy crises [and] major biodiversity crises. There are attempts right now through policies and programs and funding to treat each one of those separately,” said Dr. Sara Scherr, an agricultural and natural resource economist² and founder³, president and CEO of EcoAgriculture Partners.

Those crises may be triggered in part by competition within a given area for resources. Scherr said the integrated landscape approach can deal with these more holistically⁴.

“This whole approach came out of the realities of competing interests -- that in agricultural landscapes it’s not just the farmers that want the water and it’s not just one set of farmers that want the water. That maybe the crop farmers are competing with the livestock⁵ farmers for water and they’re competing with the local towns for water. So a lot of these alliances that we’re talking about started off as conflict situations or at least a lot of tempers being raised on a regular basis,” she said.

Bringing people together

The report says the landscape model creates “coalitions of diverse stakeholders to negotiate more acceptable trade-offs.”

“It’s an approach to addressing these multiple interests and these overlapping⁶ interests that shifts from a position of tradeoffs that says that the only way I’m going to get my water is if you don’t get your water, to one that says if we managed our watershed⁷ better and we had re-vegetated degraded areas and we protected our streams etcetera, we actually would get much more water overall, and we would be able to allocate⁸ among us,” she said.

Surveys show there are several hundred landscape initiatives now underway in Africa and Latin America.

“Let’s do agricultural production systems that also are good for watersheds⁹. Let’s do watershed management that’s also good for agricultural productivity. Let’s incorporate better wood energy into farms by growing trees and shrubs¹⁰ that are also good to provide other forms of incomes for farmers,” said Scherr.

She said too often people focus only on their area of interest or expertise¹¹.

“What we find out there right now is that the agriculture people talk to the agriculture people. The water people talk to the water people. The climate people talk to the climate people. Even the words that they use are really different. They look at a landscape and see different things in the landscape,” she said.

The Landscapes for People, Food and Nature report recommends “a vastly expanded network of technical assistance, professional training, and education to support the efforts of local “landscape leaders” and policy makers¹². Scherr says she hopes the idea will be addressed at Rio+20, the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development.

“I think,” said Scherr, “we have a historic opportunity at Rio and I think we’ve got a lot of people coming to Rio who have come to realize the importance of working across the boundaries. And I think that Rio is the place to turn this into a major strategy for moving forward in terms of sustainable development.”

The Rio+20 Summit will be held in Rio de Janeiro from June 20th to the 22nd.”

1 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

2 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

3 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

4 holistically   

adv.holistic（整体的，全盘的）的副词形式

参考例句：

• Menu items and dialogs, when they are translated, to be considered holistically. 在翻译菜单项和对话框时，需要全盘考虑，确保翻译的界面保持整体的一致性很重要。 来自互联网
• If we examine this entity holistically, we can discover how incredible it really is. 如果我们整体检查这实体，我们可以发现它真的是多么让人难以置信。 来自互联网

5 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

6 overlapping   

adj./n.交迭（的）

参考例句：

• There is no overlapping question between the two courses. 这两门课程之间不存在重叠的问题。
• A trimetrogon strip is composed of three rows of overlapping. 三镜头摄影航线为三排重迭的象片所组成。

7 watershed   

n.转折点，分水岭，分界线

参考例句：

• Our marriage was at a watershed.我们的婚姻到了一个转折关头。
• It forms the watershed between the two rivers.它成了两条河流的分水岭。

8 allocate   

vt.分配，分派；把…拨给；把…划归

参考例句：

• You must allocate the money carefully.你们必须谨慎地分配钱。
• They will allocate fund for housing.他们将拨出经费建房。

9 watersheds   

n.分水岭( watershed的名词复数 )；分水线；转折点；流域

参考例句：

• Hyetographs are important in estimating stormflow hydrographs from upstream watersheds. 降雨历线资料为上游集水区推估洪水流量历线的重要依据。 来自互联网
• Sediments check dam in small watersheds in loess hilly gully area come from three proportion, i. 黄土丘陵沟壑区治沟骨干工程泥沙淤积来源于坡面侵蚀、沟道侵蚀和库区岸坡坍塌。 来自互联网

10 shrubs   

灌木( shrub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
• These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。

11 expertise   

n.专门知识(或技能等)，专长

参考例句：

• We were amazed at his expertise on the ski slopes.他斜坡滑雪的技能使我们赞叹不已。
• You really have the technical expertise in a new breakthrough.让你真正在专业技术上有一个全新的突破。

12 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》