1 . Mont Kilimaniaro is among Africa’s most breathtaking sites, but hard times have come to the plains below. Death is all around and it’s tragic to behold. The cause is a lack of rainfall in a land where on the contrary there is still plenty of water. Underground springs fed by snowmelt from the mountain, still create swamps(沼泽). The problem is that the absence of rain means grasses and other essential plants are not growing, and the animals that depend on them are dying from a lack of nutrition.

The elephant herds here are among the most successful in the continent. They’re closely monitored and conservationists have given them names. But even these great beasts are dying too, what is for the smaller ones?

A drought induced hunger. Since the start of June almost 60 elephant deaths have been recorded. More than half calves were killed by starvation due to their mothers’ failure to produce milk. Tolstoy, a male, was named after Russian. He was 5-year-old at the time of his death. And he was one of the greatest tuskers like one of the greatest alive.

Very sad story. There are some of the last relatively undisturbed elephants in Africa. While poaching(偷猎)has been destructive elsewhere，these animals have been largely spared. Right now, however, the problem they face here is a drier climate which poses the greatest threat to their survival.

There are plenty of people here who care deeply about these elephants, but the sad truth is that conservationists are powerless to stop the dying. Only fresh rainfall and new plant growth can do that. We are waiting for the rains. If the rains don’t come before the end of the year, the death rate will only increase.

According to the fifth Global Biodiversity Outlook report, biodiversity is declining     1     an alarming rate. As the most biodiverse province in China, southwestern Yunnan is sharing     2     (it)conservation strategy on the international stage.

Seventeen years after the province first     3     (introduce)the concept of Species with Extremely Small Populations(SESP), Yunnan showcased the achievements in conservation on Dec 16 at a side event of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties(COP15)to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, Canada.

“We will forever lose the opportunity for future development that some species bring if they go extinction,” says Yang Hua,     4     worker with the provincial forestry and grassland administration.

SESP,     5     (bring)forward by the province in 2005, was a concept to represent species       6     were found to be restricted in their geographic distribution and showed weak population     7     (grow).

Ever since then, the province’s conservation efforts     8     (help) the population of Asian elephants reach around 360, and that of black-and-white snub-nosed monkeys is now 3, 800.

Sun Weibang, director of the Kunming Botanical Garden, under the Kunming Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,     9     (recent) said that, during a decade of continuous development, Plant Species with Extremely Small Populations(PSESP) was applied as a model     10     (conserve)native plants in countries such as Italy, Russia, Mexico, and Iraq.

3 . Animal and plant species are disappearing at frightening rates. The problem has led to efforts to “rewild” places where such life existed before human development, pollution and climate change forced it out. The American city of Detroit is an example of how human actions can increase rewilding, which generally means helping natural systems in damaged locations, removing dams or building tunnels to reconnect animal pathways cut by roads.

Detroit’s population reached a high of 1. 8 million in the 1950s. Then the population began dropping. By 2000, there were fewer than one million people living in the city. Thousands of houses and other buildings were left empty over the years. Some structures were destroyed, leaving empty areas that plants and animals regained as habitats. Nonprofit groups have also planted trees and community gardens in these areas. Bald eagles found their way back as bans on DDT and some other insect poisons were put in place nationwide. Anti-pollution laws and government-supported cleanups made nearby rivers better for fish and native plants.

Now, Detroit is home to 300 bird species and is a busy visiting place for ducks and others during migration. Additionally, this city offers a special way to study plants and animals in urban settings. Unlike most big cities, its population is decreasing but its streets and buildings remain in place. And there are many kinds of habitats, including large lakes, rivers and human neighborhoods. Detroit’s parklands are so quiet that people don’t even know they’re in the city.

“It used to be that you had to go to some remote location to get exposure to nature,” said John Hartig, a professor of University of Windsor. “Now that’s not the case. Like it or not, rewilding will occur. The question is how we can prepare communities and environments to anticipate the presence of more and more wildlife. After all, many city people have lost their tolerance to live with wildlife. To really make a difference in dealing with the biodiversity crisis, you’re going to have to have people on board. ”

Global biodiversity is now facing wide-ranging and often unprecedented challenges, according to Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. Acting Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, a part of the UN Environment Program.

According to Mrema, China     1    (take) practical measures to promote ecological protection and established many effective mechanisms for green development in the past three decades.

Yunnan boasts     2    (impress) biodiversity. In May, the provincial government released a white paper on its biological diversity, the     3    (one) of its kind in China. According to the document,     4     Yunnan accounts for only 4.1 percent of China’s territorial area, it is home     5     more than 50 percent of the country’s flora and fauna species.     6     important white paper says 90 percent of the ecosystems and 85 percent of the important species in the province have been     7     (effective) protected.

The province has adopted a variety of ways to protect biodiversity, including     8    (improve) its research capabilities, according to Gao Zhengwen, a senior official with the Yunnan Environmental Protection Bureau. Now, the development of biodiversity is getting to a stage     9     scientific and technological breakthroughs have been made in the utilization of biological resources in     10    (industry) with important economic value.

6 . The rainforests of Gabon are one of the last habitats for forest elephants, whose numbers in Central Africa have suffered a dramatic decline in recent decades because of hunting. Smaller than African plain elephants, forest elephants are mysterious beasts, feeding on grass and leaves and fruit. They walk softly, moving quietly among the trees, like ghosts in the night. They appear to plan their search for food, much like humans once planned their food gathering around seasons, returning to the same trees when the fruit is most likely to be ripe.

Just as the elephants depend on the forest to survive, many of Lope’s trees rely on elephants to spread their seeds through the animals’ waste. Some even produce fruit that cannot be digested by any other animals, suggesting an interdependence with origins deep in evolutionary history.

Despite being remote and relatively untouched by people, Lope National Park and its elephants appear to be in trouble. Researchers have discovered that Earth’s warming temperatures could be lowering the fruit yield of many species of trees at the park, which in turn seems to be causing forest elephants to go hungry. Because certain tree species depend on the animals to survive, the struggles of the elephant population could endanger the long-term sustainability(持续性) of the forest.

“Even in a place like Lope National Park, where we have very little human pressure and a very small population, wildlife cannot escape the impact of human activities—that being climate change,” says Robin Why tock, an environmental scientist at the University of Stirling in Scotland and one of the authors of a 2020 paper describing these findings in Science magazine.

Mountain gorillas, which are found in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Conga, Uganda and Rwanda,    1    (face) multiple threats to their survival over the last 120 years. Due to poaching(盗猎), habitat     2    (lose) and human-caused illnesses, there were only around 600    3    (leave) by 1989.

Today, that number has increased to more than 1000—thanks in part to the work of Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka.    4    Kalema-Zikusoka began her career with the Uganda Wildlife Authority in 1996, she treated mountain gorillas     5    (suffer) from a deadly illness which they had picked up from humans living in unsanitary (不卫生的) conditions near the forests. “I realized that you cannot protect the gorillas     6    improving the health of their human neighbours,”she says.

In 2003, she founded Conservation Through Public Health(CTPH),    7    addresses(处理) the physical and economic wellbeing of the local Batwa people who lived in the forest. The organization teaches hygiene, conservation awareness and     8    (provide) economic opportunities for families that would otherwise poach.

Kalema-Zikusoka, who last year received     9    United Nations Champion of the Earth Award, said: “We’re showing people that we don’t care only about wild animals and the forest. We also care about    10    

8 . I am drawn to the peace and pure beauty of primary nature. Being in it heightens my perceptions and narrows my focus. As I concentrate on the surroundings, an inner stillness fill me and helps mega in a sense of place. This was the case when I packed my camera equipment and explored some of Europe’s old-growth forests to highlight these unique environments that have remained untouched for centuries, despite threats of human disturbance.

The visits were often challenging because of unfavorable weather conditions and the distances I had to cover while going multiple times to the locations for a good picture. But the joy of the experience always prevailed. Hiking off trail through the foggy laurel forests of Madeira, I was enveloped by trees that may have been up to 800 years old and whose trunks provided me with shelter when clouds released a sudden down-pour. It felt like entering a holy space.

Wandering in the Scots pine forests of northern Sweden and the mountain tree lines of southern Norway rewarded me with the sense of freedom I always get in the Scandinavian wilderness. The beech (山毛榉) stands rising from the steep slopes of Italy kept me in awe of the power that forests protected from development can possess. I feel honoured that I was allowed access to explore and photograph these wonderlands.

Except Russia, only about 2 percent of the forest areas in Europe are primary, or have never been cleared, reflecting a dazzling richness of life that once filled vast wooded ecosystems. Most of the areas are now protected, but as the human population continues to grow—with disastrous impacts on the planet and its living creatures—the future of these forests is far from certain. I hope that they will still be standing for many centuries more.

9 . Humpback whales are superb singers with complex vocal performances that last for tens of minutes, often repeated for many hours. An album of their songs gained worldwide fame in the 1970s and is still the best-selling recording of nature sounds ever made.

Only male humpbacks sing, and all the singers in a wide sea area deliver the same songs in the same way during each year. But songs vary between populations. North Atlantic humpbacks, for example, sing different ones to those in the North Pacific. Songs also vary every year, sometimes slightly, sometimes with more radical shifts.

These song patterns allowed a team from the University of Queensland, Australia to see how precisely humpbacks in different geographical populations can match each other’s songs. Using seven years of recordings, the researchers took a deep dive into the details of six song types made by humpbacks from eastern Australia, which were learned a year later by whales around New Caledonia — an island group around 1,200 km away.

“We found they actually learned the exact sounds, without simplifying or leaving anything out,” says Jenny Allen, who led the study. “Each year we observed them, they sang a different song, so it means humpback whales can learn an entire song pattern from another population very quickly, even if it’s complex or difficult.”

Such copying is remarkable — a bit like a human hearing opera, then singing it back perfectly. It also suggests cultural sharing. Songs are likely being learned on migration routes or at feeding grounds.

10 . After wildfire store through Australia this year (and many other years), Dr Alexandra Car they from Macquarie University came up with the idea of cardboard homes for wildlife, giving them a fighting chance of survival after wildfires.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) ran an innovation challenge in order to restore species and landscapes, help them adapt to a changing climate and regenerate Australia after burning flames (火焰) spread across much of the habitat. Funding from WWF will enable field trials of this unique idea of cardboard habitats for wildlife.

“Bushfires destroy vegetation where small animals hide,” Car they told WWF. “Raptors (猛禽) arrive within minutes after a fire, while foxes can travel many kilometres towards fires because they know the hunting will be excellent. They come in and kill our native animals who have little place to hide on a burnt landscape.”

The cardboard shelters are six-sided pyramids (金字塔形的物体), 60cm wide on each side and 60cmt all. They can be flat-packed, allowing for easy transportation from the factory to the wilderness. They have been designed as a safe house for wildlife such as possums, bush rats and reptiles, as well as smaller creatures such as insects. These shelters are biodegradable (可生物降解的), with holes that allow light in so that vegetation can regenerate and eventually take over the site.

While environmentalists have always placed makeshift shelters in the form of logs and chicken wire (铁丝网) structures, the solutions involve dragging heavy things around, damaging fire grounds and preventing bush regeneration.

This initiative could also be used in South Africa, where many bird species are badly affected by fires.