Unit 2

Conservation

1. Look at the pictures. Choose one and discuss in group what thoughts it provokes.

4
3
2. (a)
Read
the text
about an almost
extinct African
lion and decide
in groups which
of the options offered is true or false. Correct the false ones.

African lion may be added to U.S. endangered

species list to curb trophy hunters
by John Platt

A coalition of conservation groups filed a petition Tuesday to list the African lion (Panthera leo) as a
1
protected species under the U.S. 2Endangered Species Act (ESA), citing the American appetite for sports
hunting and lion products—such as lion-skin rugs—as major factors in the big cat's 3decline.

The petition was filed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), The Humane Society of the
United States (HSUS), Humane Society International (HSI), Born Free USA, Born Free Foundation and
Defenders of Wildlife.

"The king of the jungle is 4heading toward extinction, and yet Americans continue to kill lions for sport," Jeff
Flocken, IFAW's Washington, D.C., office director, said in a prepared statement. "Our nation is responsible
for importing over half of all lions brought home by trophy hunters each year. The African lion is in real
trouble, and it is time for this senseless killing and unsustainable practice to stop."

Although lions are difficult to count, populations are estimated to have dropped nearly 50 percent in the past
three decades, mainly due to 5unsustainable hunting. Other threats include 6habitat loss, disease, the
bushmeat trade, use of lion parts in traditional African medicine, and 7retaliatory killings for livestock killed
by lions. Current estimates range from 23,000 to 40,000 lions left in Africa, down from an estimated 75,800
in 1980. 

According to the groups' petition, at least 5,663 wild lions

were traded internationally for 8recreational trophy hunting
purposes between 1998 and 2008, with 64 percent of those
trophies being imported into the U.S.
"Because of their evolutionary and biological behaviors, trophy hunting is particularly bad for lions," Flocken
said at a press conference on Tuesday. Among the cats, trophy hunters tend 9to target the large, visually
striking male pack leaders. The death of a leader leaves a pack unstable, resulting in younger males fighting
and often 10killing each other for dominance. The new 11top male often also ends up killing all of the pack's
cubs 12to preserve his genetic dominance, and some females may die trying 13to protect their offspring. "The
countries that allow hunting have the worst 14drops in lion populations," Flocken said.

Adding lions to the list of species protected by the ESA would create 15a ban on the import of hunting
trophies. This would "hopefully reduce the threat to lions by eliminating the incentive of bringing back a
trophy," Flocken said. Listing the species would also prohibit the sale of commercially traded lion parts such
as skins, claws and skulls, which can sell for thousands of dollars each.

ESA protection would further help lions by 16raising awareness of their plight, said Bob Irvin, senior vice
president for conservation programs at Defenders of Wildlife. "Without the Endangered Species Act, the very
symbol of African wildlife could disappear forever," he said.

Americans are hardly the only factor 17pushing lions toward extinction. Africa's human population is growing
quickly, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where it could hit 1.75 billion by 2050. This 18puts enormous
pressure on lions' habitat, which has already shrunk to less than a quarter of its historic range. It will also
fuel further human–lion conflicts, with lions perceived as dangers to safety and prosperity, much the same
way wolves are often seen in the U.S.

The U.S. Secretary of the Interior now has 90 days to assess whether 19listing lions under the ESA may be
warranted, 12 months to decide whether to propose listing, and then another 12 months to make a final
decision.

Asiatic lions (P. l. persica) are already protected under the ESA. Only about 400 of that particular subspecies
20
remain the wild, all living in a single forest in India.

1. The sports hunting trophy for an African lion is mainly a skin-rug.

2. Americans bring home about a third of all hunted lions.
3. Uncontrolled hunting is the cause of dropping the lion population by half.
4. Retaliatory killing is hunting lions to reduce the range of livestock killed by them.
5. Targeting the female pack leaders is the most dangerous hunting practice for lions.
6. Female lions die protecting their genetic dominance.
7. Commercially distributed parts of lion’s bodies may in bulk cost as much as thousands of dollars.
8. African population growth threats to lions as the latter are considered harmful for the society.
9. Listing lions under the ESA has been confirmed.
10. Asiatic lions live single in Indian forests.

(b). Continue working in groups. Put your heads together and discuss why Americans, not Africans, rose
an alarm about lion’s possible extinction? Brainstorm at least three arguments the African authorities
might find to keep recreational trophy hunting lions. Share with other groups.

(c) Look through the highlighted words and match their number with an equivalent:

___ diminishing number of heads

___ shrink the area of living
___ fighting for leadership
___ hunting for leisure
___ animal species prohibited for hunting
___ live one’s natural life (for animals)
___ destroying natural living conditions
___ the masculine animal heading the pack
___ making the trouble with somebody public
___ under the threat of disappearing as a species
___ to hunt the heading masculine animal
___ to defend the cubs
___ included in the list of Endangered Species Act
___ hunting for the predators which harm livestock
___ hunting without foreseeing the consequences
___ prohibition to take the hunting trophies abroad
___ a legal doc enlisting animals which may disappear
___ to stay the strongest genetic ancestor
___ die out
___ likely to die out

3 (a). Read the text and correct the statement below.

Tropical Rainforests and Their Deforestation

Every hour over ten thousand people are born in different parts of the world
that’s three humans every second. The human population has now reached over 6
billion and is predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050, stabilizing at some point in the
future between 9 to 12 million. This phenomenal increase in humans has brought
about large scale changes to the biosphere and atmosphere as humans rush to claim
the earths finite resources to match the consumer lifestyle that people in the developed
world, and increasingly more the developing world, lead. One such over-consumed
ecosystem is the tropical rainforest which is being deforested at an alarming rate to
fuel human consumerism.
Tropical rainforests form a lush but now fragmented green belt around the
earth’s equator. They are the most bio-diverse ecosystems on earth. Tropical
rainforests cover just six percent of the worlds land mass yet they harbor half of the
world’s land species.
 Tropical

rainforests in Columbia, Ecuador and Peru comprise two percent of the earth’s surface
and yet contain the highest biodiversity of plants on earth having some
40, 000 species of plants. Indeed seventy percent of all the world’s plants are found in
tropical rainforest. Moreover, it is believed that fifty percent of all species currently
on earth live in rainforests estimated to be between one to fifteen million species.
Tropical rainforests hold a plethora of insects, birds, mammals, amphibians,
reptiles far exceeding any ones most vivid imagination before their discovery . There
are the great apes such as the formidable mountain gorillas in central Africa, the
chimpanzees, our closest living animal relatives and orangutans. Other mammals
include different species of tigers, jaguars, monkeys, slow loris and even slower
sloths, deers such as the diminutive, shy, knee high lesser mouse deer, forest
elephants, the bizarre and elusive okapi, half striped half chocolate brown and a
relative of the giraffe nobly strolling through the rainforests of central Africa daintily
feeding on fruits and leaves. There are reptiles such as chameleons with their ability
to change into a multitude of colours, amphibians such as frogs resembling bird
droppings and the splendid tree frog with its green upper body, yellow under body
and bright red eyes ringed in black.
There are hundreds of thousands of insects including insects resembling leaves
and sticks, a diverse array of beetles and thousands of coloured butterflies darting in
and out of the leaves in a rainbow of colours. Bird life is also prolific and there are a
multitude of coloured birds including parrots and toucans, and parakeets darting in
and out of the trees. 
As well as the rich biodiversity and aesthetic appeal, tropical rainforests
provide a home to many indigenous people with rich and unique cultures. The "back to
nature" artistic movement that flourished in England early in the 20th century focused on
tropical rain forests and inspired some of the most luminous literary description of the
period. W. H. Hudson's romantic fantasy "Green Mansions" and Arthur Conan Doyle's
"Lost World" were set partly under the cathedral-like arches of Amazon rain forests, and
Joseph Conrad's evocative "Heart of Darkness" was based on the author's experiences
with rain forests in the Congo.
Well into last century a hint of somewhat sinister mystery pervaded the great rain
forests; within living memory, headhunters roamed the Peruvian forests from which the
Amazon springs, and even today vestiges of forest Indian culture survive in Brazil and
elsewhere in South America.
Tropical rainforests also provide foods, medicines, and other resources. Think
of the jungle fowl, from which we derived chickens, nuts such as brazil nuts, bananas,
chocolate and spices, anti-cancer drugs from the Madagascan periwinkle, quinine
from cinchona bark, rubber for tyres and other uses tapped from rubber trees and
many other yet undiscovered foods, medicines and products. All these products can
be harvested sustainably to provide peoples needs and benefit local people and the
economy. 
Tropical rainforests are essential for local climate and the global climate being
important for water and carbon cycles. Vast amounts of water are taken up by
rainforest trees and vegetation and released again during transpiration. This natural
cycling of water maintains the local climate and prevents flooding.
Tropical rainforests are being deforested at an alarming rate.

Each year hundreds

of thousands of
hectares of tropical
rainforests are being
opened for logging
and then for
clearance for
plantations for
planting sugar cane,
for bio-fuels, for
growing oil palm
plantations and for
raising cattle. All of these practices provide short term gains and in their wake some 2
or 3 years later leave a dust bowl where a rainforest once stood.  Tropical rainforests
are complex ecosystems and nutrients from fallen leaves and debris are quickly
recycled in the hot, humid environment and reabsorbed by the trees and vegetation.
This rapid recycling of nutrients into the trees means that the soil is nutrient poor, and
after the trees are removed the soil quickly becomes depleted of nutrients and is
unable to support plantations or cattle and the land is soon barren and abandoned. The
barren land is exposed to the elements and wind and rain soon wash away the top soil
until a dust bowl remains. The top soil is washed away to lower ground and silts up
rivers leading to localized flooding of villages and towns.
Without tropical rainforest trees and vegetation to take up water the water
cycle changes and there is further and more extensive flooding. Rainforest vegetation
is a voracious consumer of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is increasing at a troubling
rate leading to enhanced global warming and climate change on a global scale. It is
estimated that deforestation accounts for 25% of the annual emissions of carbon
dioxide and other heat trapping gases. Saving tropical rainforests is at the heart of
preventing climate change. The deforestation of tropical rainforests is leading to a
phenomenal loss of global biodiversity and the consequent loss of medicines, foods
and other resources. Deforestation is also leading to localized changing weather
patterns, flooding and an increase in carbon emissions and climate change. The loss of
the rainforests is affecting the entire planet and needs to be halted right now.

1. The main reason of rainforest deforestation is growing cities.

2. Rainforests are valuable due to geographical position.

3. Rainforest species biota covers two percent of the earth surface.

4. Rainforests make the ground for Western underground cultures.

5. Food and medical products provide by the rainforest may be harvested on condition
of the inevitable extermination of some species.
 6. The word ‘sustainable’ in the text means ‘supportive’.

7. Natural cycling of water in the rainforest is concluded in increasing precipitation.

8. The long-term result of rainforests deforestation is the soil able to support plantations.

9. Among the most destructive consequences of rainforest deforestation they name

rising global sea level;

(b) Look at the NASA photos and graphs depicting the rate of the rainforest deforestation.
Taken by NASA's Landsat 1 satellite in 1975 and 2012, the two images reveal dramatic
effects of clear-cutting for roads and agriculture in Rondônia, a rural state in western Brazil.
This process began with the construction of a major north-south highway in the 1970s, according
to NASA's Earth Observatory, followed by secondary roads through dense forest at right angles to
the first road. As settlers continued expanding over the decades — first by cutting down trees,
then burning ground cover — their merging agricultural tracts took on a "fishbone pattern," as
NASA describes it.

The rate of Amazon

deforestation is now
much slower than it
used to be, having
fallen nearly 80
percent since its
most recent peak in
2004). Yet roughly
224,000 square miles
of the rain forest
have still been lost
since 1980,
including more than
1,000 square miles
per year in Rondônia from 1980 to 1992. And deforestation speed isn't necessarily the most
important stat to measure.
"Because these roads cut deep into the rain forest and then spread outwards, there's a much
greater loss of habitat and species than if there was a single area of deforestation," Tucker
says in a NASA statement accompanying the photos, "because the amount of edge is critical for
biodiversity."

Even at relatively slow rates of destruction, the effect on biodiversity can be devastating if
wildlife habitats are fragmented — a distinctive effect of Rondonia's fishbone pattern, Tucker
and Skole found, because it creates more exposed edges between clear-cut areas and intact forest.
These "edge areas" not only suffer more from wind damage and desiccation, but they also provide
humans with easier access for hunting, poaching, animal capture and logging.

(c) Using the information in 3 (a) and (b), fill in the chart below and organize a short
panel discussion distributing the aspects among reporters: Rainforests: Will they Stay?
For reference as for reasons and threats of deforestation you may use the following sites
Mongobay.com; Rainforest Information Centre.

Geographical position

Role in biodiversity

Role in culture

Useful products

Main reasons of
deforestation
Main dangers and
tendencies in development
Possible ways to stop
deforestation
 (d) Look at the map of deforestation hotspots and comment on it using facts about forests
below.

10 Facts about Forests

01. The total forest area of the world is just below 4 billion hectares, nearly 30 percent of Earth’s
area. Russia contains the largest forested area, followed by Brazil, Canada, and the United States.
Tropical rainforests cover an area larger than Europe.

02. Over 1 billion people rely on forests for their livelihoods. Around 60 million indigenous people,
about the population of the United Kingdom, depend on forests. A third of the world’s people use
biomass fuels, mainly firewood, for cooking and heating.

03. The world’s rainforests are home to half of life on earth. The Amazon is the richest biodiversity
hotspot in the world, holding about a quarter of land species.

04. Tropical and temperate forests absorb around a ton of CO2 per hectare per year from the
atmosphere. Due to the depth of peat, one hectare of tropical peat forest can store 3000 to 6000 tons
of carbon per hectare.

05. An area of rainforest the size of a football pitch is lost every four seconds. About 13 million
hectares of tropical forests are destroyed each year, an area nearly twice the size of Belgium.

06. The highest levels of deforestation are in South America, with 4.3 million hectares lost per year.
The fastest rates of deforestation are in Southeast Asia.

07. Deforestation and forest degradation releases about 1.7 billion tons of carbon annually, about 20
percent of global carbon emissions. Total emissions from deforestation in 2008-2012 are expected to
equal 40 billion tonnes of CO2.

08. The biggest causes of deforestation and forest degradation are agricultural expansion,cattle

ranching, road and urban infrastructure development, commercial logging, mining, subsistence
farming, and collection of firewood.  

09. The United States is the world’s biggest supplier of wood, with nearly 20 percent of the world
market. It is followed by Brazil, Canada, Russia and China. According to WWF, nearly 30 percent of
the EU’s timber imports could be from illegal logging.

10. To halve emissions from the forest sector by 2030 through carbon markets would cost between 17
and 33 billion dollars a year, according to the Eliasch Review. The EU reckons that it would cost 15 to
25 billion euros every year to halve deforestation by 2020.

Sources: Centre for International Forestry Research, Global Canopy Programme, UN Food
and Agriculture Organisation, The World Bank, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
WWF, Eliasch Review 

5 (a). Watch the fragment “Ecosystems Conservation”. Mind the names of the species;
elephant true, also called true hyrax, a small mammal relative to elephants and micro-cebus,
also called grey mouse-lemur.

(b) Discuss the following:

1. Considering the savannah as an example, do only elephants matter in
the ecosystem? Why?
2. What should we be aware of providing ecosystem conservation policy?
3. What roles in keeping life going on the earth do (a) oceans (b)
rainforests (c) mountains (d) pole regions and (e) deserts play?
4. What are the main purposes of the Zurich Zoo Park?
5. What is the Parks contribution to science?

6. Using the sites indicated below make a media presentation about an endangered
animal. Extend upon the following points:
 habitat
 population
 rate of extinction
 reasons of extinction
 ways to conserve or recreate the range

Use the following sites: Endangered animals, 10 animals hunted to extinction

7. Having summed up the unit, try and define what conservation is and why it is a
cornerstone in modern environmental policy. For this use the rubric Summing the Discussion
(the very last one).