国家地理 保护着海岸和生命的消失的森林(4)（在线收听）

But after years of abuse from man and nature, the mangroves seem to be nearing their limits. Illicit logging, mostly for building materials to house the region's booming population, has thinned out the periphery of the forest. At the same time, increasing water salinity caused by the encroaching sea is killing off many higher value, storm-stopping tree species, such as the sundari that gives the forest its name. The salinity assault comes from both land and sea: Upstream dams on rivers in India have reduced freshwater flow into the Sundarbans, while sea-level rise caused by climate change is flushing more salt water into the mangroves.

但在经历了人与自然多年的破坏之后，红树林似乎已经达到了极限。为了给急剧增加的人口提供住房，人们大量砍伐树木，当作建筑材料，造成了红树林边缘的退化。与此同时，海面上升导致水中含盐量的增加，红树林失去了很多价值，也失去了阻拦暴风雨的树种，比如被用来命名这片森林的苏达利树。导致水中含盐量增加的原因同时来自陆地和海洋：印度河流上游的大坝导致流入孙德本尔斯的淡水减少，气候变化导致的海平面上升又使更多的咸水流入红树林。

"The salinity front is just going up and up and up," said Mashfiqus Salehin, a professor at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology's Institute of Water and Flood Management. "New areas will salinize, and moderately salinized areas might become unlivable. It's becoming a big problem." In the worst-case scenario, in which sea levels rise by more than six feet this century, Bangladesh alone stands to lose some 800 square miles of mangroves in the Sundarbans. The best-case scenario is a loss of roughly 80 square miles. Salehin and other scientists fear even that much might prove disastrous for a country so poor the forest is besieged by human needs.

孟加拉国大学水涝管理工程技术学院教授马斯菲克·莎尔金表示：“含盐量高的水域在不停地扩张。新的区域正在逐渐盐化，中度盐化的区域不再适宜人类居住。这将是一个大问题。”最坏的情况下 本世纪海平面将上升超过六英尺，单是孟加拉国就会失去孙德本尔斯地区约八百平方英里的红树林。最好的情况下也会失去大约八十平方英里。即使是后者，莎尔金和其他科学家也担心这会对一个人类如此需要红树林的国家造成致命性打击。

The land itself is disappearing. Without the tangled roots of the mangroves to stabilize it, land erodes into the sea -- and with upstream dams trapping river sediment, it's not replenished as it once was.

土地正在流失。没有了虬曲的树根，土壤被冲进海洋--上游的大坝又阻拦了河流的沉积物，下游的土壤无法再像以往一样得到补充。