英语听力教程第三版(张民伦主编)Unit 1 The Earth at Risk听力原文
I: And what did you find in South America?
B:In South America (as in Central Africa and Southern Asia) tropical forests are being cut down at an alarming rate. This is done so that people can support themselves by growing food or to create ranches where cattle can be raised to be exported to Europe or America as tinned meat. The problem is that the soil is so poor that only a couple of harvests are possible before this very thin soil becomes exhausted. And it can't be fed with fertilizers like agricultural land in Europe. For example, in Brazil in 1982 an area of jungle the size of Britain and France combined was destroyed to make way for an iron ore mine. Huge numbers of trees are being cut down for export as hardwood to Japan, Europe, USA to make things like luxury furniture. These forests can't be replaced — the forest soil is thin and unproductive and in just a few years, a jungle has become a waste land. Tropical forests contain rare plants (which we can use for medicines, for example) and animals — one animal or plant species becomes extinct every half hour. These forest trees also have worldwide effects. You know, they convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. The consequence of
destroying forests is not only that the climate of that region