China’s first-ever college     1     (devote) to the study of giant pandas was inaugurated (揭牌成立) in Nanchong, Sichuan province, on Monday. The college was     2     (joint) established by the Forestry and Grassland Bureau of Sichuan province and China West Normal University in Nanchong.

Giant pandas, a species unique     3     China, are globally recognized as the “flagship species” of the world’s biodiversity conservation. They serve as     4     cultural symbol for Sichuan, home to the majority of the world’s wild pandas.

The college is intended     5     (play) a crucial role in protecting the ecological environment, restoring habitats, constructing a     6     (nation) park of pandas, promoting panda population recovery, facilitating reintroduction into the wild, as well as conducting research and publicizing panda culture.

Since the 1970s, the university has been committed to giant panda research, and     7    (create) “four firsts” in this field, according to the university’s Party chief Wang Yuanjun. The university led the country’s first giant panda field     8     (investigate) and research, established the world’s first giant panda field ecological observation station, promoted China’s first international cooperation on wildlife protection,     9     published the world’s first academic monograph (学术专著)     10     comprehensively explores the ecological environment of giant pandas.

2 . A Danish company named Too Good To Go has been working to combat food waste in the United States and around the world. In the U. S., more than a third of food produced goes uneaten, contributing to environmental issues. Too Good To Go addresses this problem by partnering with restaurants to sell their end-of-day leftovers at discounts, typically ranging from 60% to 80% off.

The app of the same name, which started in Denmark in 2015, has expanded to 17 countries and multiple U. S. cities, including New York, Phoenix, and Seattle, with Los Angeles proving to be one of its most successful markets. The company is now looking to expand its footprint in the southeast.

While the cost savings for customers and businesses are significant, the primary focus of Too Good To Go is reducing food waste, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The app allows users to track their environmental impact by displaying the electricity and carbon emissions prevented through their purchases. To date, the app claims to have saved over 250 million meals, making a substantial impact.

Food waste contributes to climate change in several ways, including the emission of methane gas from rotting food in landfills, the resources used to grow the food, and the energy expended in food transportation and preparation. Too Good To Go estimates that its efforts are equal to taking about 135, 000 cars off the road for a year, and it plays a crucial role in addressing the approximately 6% of total greenhouse gas emissions caused by food loss and waste in the U. S.

Alexandria Coari, the vice president of food waste nonprofit ReFED, recognizes the potential of apps like Too Good To Go. She believes that they have the capacity to reduce the carbon emissions equal to 870, 000 cars in a year, positioning them as one of the top 10 solutions to combating food waste and climate change.

While the app has been successful in the restaurant industry, its expansion into grocery stores and manufacturing is still a work in progress.

4 . While many animal populations seem to dwindle, one species that is moving in the opposite direction of such loss is America’s native wildlife — wood stork.

The wood stork is the only stork that breeds in North America. In 1984, it was declared an endangered species after its population decreased sharply to just 5,000 mating pairs. At the time, scientists predicted that the bird would become completely extinct by 2000. Today, it numbers 10,000 mating pairs, and the Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing a delisting of the wood stork as an endangered species. So how did the population bounce back?

The success is in part down to the resourcefulness of the wood stork. The wood stork’s native home was in the Everglades in Florida, but it migrated north as the Everglades were being destroyed by development of mankind. Wetland preservation and restoration, protection of nesting areas, and management of water flows began with the approval of the wood stork’s first recovery plan in 1986. In the following year, former Savannah Coastal Refuges biologist John Robinette noticed stork nests in Georgia as stork populations moved to safer wetlands.

According to Stephanie Kurose, a senior policy specialist at the Centre for Biological Diversity, the Endangered Species Act is also to thank for this recovery. She said, “The act saved the wood stork and it helped preserve and rebuild vital habitats throughout the southeast, which has improved water quality and benefited countless other species who call the area home.” “The Endangered Species Act has saved 99 per cent of the species that were on the list since 1973. A hundred types of plants and animals have been delisted as their populations become stable again.

If the wood stork is delisted, it will remain protected by other laws and a monitoring plan will be put in place to ensure the population remains stable.

The panda population in the wild     1     (rise) in the last 20 years, which reflects the pandas’ improved living conditions and China’s efforts in keeping their habitats integrated. Now, it’s time     2     (release) the cubs (幼兽) into the wild.

A gene exchange between captive (被圈养的) and wild pandas aimed at better     3     (protect) genetic diversity is a major project at the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Panda, according to He Shengshan, a guardian and expert at the center. He said wild pandas live in     4     wide range of areas, so the population is divided into 33 groups     5     (base) on their location.

“This is similar to human villages or tribes. Some large groups in the wild may have     6     (hundred) of pandas, while smaller groups may have just a few dozen. After investigation, we found that of the 33 communities, 22 communities had     7     (few) than 30 giant pandas,” said He Shengshan. “Because pandas have poor ability to travel and there are mountains, human activities, highways and railway tracks, giant panda groups can’t communicate with each other, and those with small populations are still at risk of     8     (extinct) over time.”

The training for release is a long process     9     starts before a cub is born. And usually it is divided into two stages. The first lasts from the mother’s pregnancy     10     the cub is about 1 year old, while the second stage runs from the cub to a panda about 1 to 2 years old.

The ginkgo (银杏) tree is thought to be one of the oldest living trees,     1     (date) back to more than 290 million years ago. It is native     2     China, Japan and Korea, but it is also now grown in Europe and the United States. The earliest records of ginkgoes are found in Chinese herbology literature such as Compendium of Materia Medica.

Ginkgoes are large trees,     3     (normal) reaching a height of 20 — 35 meters, with some in China being over 50 meters. The adult tree has a large crown and long branches, and it is usually deep-rooted and resistant to wind and snow damage. With a combination of     4     (resistant) to diseases and insects, some of the trees     5     (claim) to be more than 2,500 years old.

With fan-shaped leaves, ginkgoes are green both on the top and bottom. But during autumn, they turn bright yellow and then fall, which make up     6     beautiful scene. Ginkgoes come in two sexes, with some trees being female     7     others male. The fruit has a soft, fleshy and yellow-brown outer layer     8     is attractive in appearance.

Because ginkgoes     9     (be) around for so long, people have used them for many purposes. It’s commonly used for memory and thought problems, vision problems and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence     10     (support) most of these uses.

7 . The idea that humans are facing a global extinction of experience of nature is popular, but is it true? To give more light on this issue, the scientists measured how the average distance from an individual’s home to the nearest area with low human impact changed in the last decade.

The scientists found that humans currently live 9.7 kilometers away from a natural area on average, which is 7% further away than in the year 2000. Europe and East Asia have the highest average distance to natural areas, such as 22 kilometers in Germany and 16 kilometers in France. The scientists also showed that tree cover within cities has declined worldwide since 2000, suggesting that the possibility for the urban population to access green spaces is reducing as well.

The scientists also systematically searched for scientific publications assessing a trend in experiences of nature, finding that the number of studies assessing these trends was very low (the number is 18), most of which are about the US, Europe and Japan. This shows that more studies should investigate the claim about the extinction of nature experience, especially in Africa and Latin America. The 18 studies found by the scientists show a decline in visits to nature parks in the US and Japan, a decrease in camping activities in the US, and a decrease in the number of flower species observed by Japanese children. They also find signs of decline in the use of natural elements in novels, songs and cartoons.

Despite these examples of decline, other interactions are increasing. Watching wildlife documentaries or interacting with wild animals in videogames is, for example, more common than a few years ago. “New ways of digitally interacting with nature have certainly emerged or increased in recent years,” says Dr Gladys Barragan-Jason. “But several former studies show that these vicarious interactions have a lesser effect on our sense of connection with nature than exposure to nature, such as visiting nature parks.”