【推荐3】Interactions between people and elephants have a long history. Elephants have been trained and used by human beings for thousands of years, for everything from transportation to construction to logging to war.

In more recent times, Asian elephants have been used in entertainment and as a living ''machine'' to help move logs through the jungle as part of the logging industry. The latter changed in Thailand in 1989, when the Thai government banned the use of elephants in the logging industry. Owners of elephants had very little choice but to turn to tourism to earn enough to care for themselves and their elephants by offering elephant riding to tourists.

Mahouts (象夫) are the elephant handlers who you will see riding or managing the elephants at any camp you visit. The traditional mahout life isn't easy. They are bonded to their elephant and they rarely have time off or time for family.

These years, younger mahouts in Thailand have been more likely to leave the mahout life to find jobs in the city, resulting in elephants having to get used to multiple mahouts. This can lead to additional stress on the elephant, or result in abuse by a mahout trying to manage an elephant that hasn’t built any level of trust with him.

Opponents of elephant riding may suggest that elephant rides be illegal. My worry is that an immediate ban could lead to another massive change in how elephants are treated, similar to ending elephant logging in 1989. How will mahouts that are currently making a living and supporting their elephants through rides be able to continue to do so? The average lifespan of an elephant is 60 years. Any solution needs to take into account the long-term effects on the elephants currently employed giving rides.

【推荐1】Scientists say only enlarging the world’s nature reserve to help protect plants and animals may be useless. The main reason is that levels of human activity are rising in and around the nature reserves. In fact, recognizing spaces as protected areas is not reducing human activity there.

The researchers found that a lack of money to pay for land conservation（保护）is affecting conservation efforts. And it is a lack of communication between people who live in protected natural areas and outsiders. About 17 percent of the world is within protected areas, including the national parks, nature reserves and wilderness areas. Protected areas are important for supporting environments with many different kinds of plants and animals.

The researchers again found increasing human activity in most protected areas in every country. However, they said that human activity appeared to be more of a problem in nations with fewer roads and lower life standards on the Human Development Index（指数）. The index uses information about life length, education and earnings to grade countries on human development.

Across the northern Australia, protected areas often proved effective at slowing human activity when compared with unprotected areas. But in South America, Southeast Asia and African countries, pressure from human activity inside protected areas was higher.

Experts say governments need to provide fund support to help protected areas. Simply recognizing a place as a protected area can’t be the beginning and the end of a conservation effort. Working with local people to take efforts is also important. If they’re not partners in the protected areas, then wildlife conservation is much more difficult.

【推荐2】For a long time, people had to listen to the radio to get news, dramas and music at home. This all changed with the development of the television in the early 20th century.

For most of TV’s history, we have fitted our weekday evenings around broadcasts of EastEnders, Emmerdale and Coronation Street. However, that seems no longer to be so. Today, we have the power to watch whatever we want through streaming services, whenever we want and wherever we want. The services have given us access to more content than was ever possible, including back catalogues of classic shows and movies.

It’s not just the streaming services that are taking away audiences from traditional TV channels. Social media sites also provide competition to traditional TV since they allow the uploading of video content, meaning users can watch more and shorter clips (片段) at their convenience.

In the UK, adults are spending more time watching content on streaming services than ever before. In 2018, the figure was around 26 minutes per day. This has been the trend for the past decade and it doesn’t look like it will change any time soon. While the demand for streaming services is growing, the main UK channels continue to be the most watched overall. For example, in 2018 UK adults continued to watch Channel One for an average of 41 minutes per day, more than any streaming service.

While traditional TV networks have seen a decline, the television set itself doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere any time soon. Most major TV channels have their own streaming services, which significantly increase their viewing figures. Additionally, the UK channels have begun making content that’s only available through its iPlayer service. Channel Three allows its viewers to watch original content at their convenience without having to wait for the show to air on TV first.

So, while around 50% of all households now subscribe to at least one streaming service, there is no way of knowing where television is going.

【推荐3】Friendship is above reason, for, though you find virtues (美德) in a friend, he has been your friend before you find them. It is a gift that we offer because we must; to give it as the reward of virtue would be to set a price upon it, and those who do that have no friendship to give. If you choose your friends on the grounds that you are virtuous and want virtuous company, you are no nearer to true friendship than if you choose them for commercial reasons. Besides, who are you that you should be setting a price upon your friendship? It is enough for any man that he has the power of making friends, and he must leave it to that power to determine who his friends shall be. For, though you may choose the virtuous to be your friends, they may not choose you. It comes, like sleep, when you are not thinking about it; and you should be grateful, without any misgiving, when it comes.

So no man who knows what friendship is will give up a friend because he turns out to be disreputable (声名狼藉的). His only reason for giving up a friend is that he has stopped caring for him; and, when that happens, he should blame himself for this poverty (缺乏) of affection, not the friend for having proved unworthy.

We have our judgments and our punishments as part of the political mechanism that is forced upon us so that we may continue to live; but friendship is not friendship at all unless it teaches us that these are not part of our real life. It is only in the warmth of friendship that we see how cold a thing it is to judge and how stupid to take a pleasure in judging; for we recognize this warmth as a positive good, a richness in our natures, while the coldness that sets us judging is a poverty.

There are men who cannot be friends except when they are under an illusion (幻觉) that their friends are perfect, and when the illusion passes there is an end of their friendship. But true friendship has no illusions, for it reaches to that part of a man’s nature that is beyond his imperfections. A man is your friend, not because of his superiorities (优越), but because there is something open from your nature to his, a way that is closed between you and most men.