Tourists have been warned not to take sand and seashells from beaches in Sardinia, an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. More than 40 people,     1     took a combined 100 kilograms of sand and shells, have been fined up to £2,575 each. The law     2     (introduce) in 2017 to ban people from taking the items as souvenirs of their trips. Experts express     3     (they) worry that it could cause beaches to become smaller.

The last time Yunnan caught national attention was when some Asian elephants left their home and     1     (guide) by experts to return to their original habitat safely without     2     (harm) any human. Asian elephants in China, mostly     3     (find) in Yunnan, are under the highest level of state protection. Today, the wild elephant population in Yunnan     4     (grow) to about 300, up from 193 in the 1980s. The province has established 11 national or regional-level nature reserves to provide shelter for these mammals.

World Pangolin (穿山甲) Day is on the     1     (three) Saturday of February each year. This year, it fell on Feb 18. It’s a day     2     (help) people learn more about pangolins.

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), more than 1 million pangolins have been killed or sold in the last 10 years. The growing demand for their scales and meat is the main reason for their decline.     3     (luck), this situation is getting better. The Chinese government has banned buying and eating the animal. Breaking this law will be regarded as a crime.

The iceberg that was for a time the biggest in the world is no more. A68, as it was known, covered an area of nearly 6,000 km²    1    it broke away from Antarctica in 2017. That's like a small country. But satellites show the mega-berg has now virtually gone, broken into countless small fragments    2    the US National Ice Center says are no longer worth tracking. Most glaciologists regard A68 as the product of a very    3    （nature）process, and it has nothing to do with human-induced climate change.

Microplastics, referring to plastic fragments and particles (碎片和微粒) less than 5 millimeters in diameter (直径), have been found on Mount Qomolangma as high as 8,440 meters above sea level, just 408.86 meters below the peak of the mountain, according to a recent study published in the journal One Earth. Scientists collected snow and water samples from 19 different     1     (spot). They found microplastics in all the water samples and part of the snow samples. The most     2     (pollute) sample was from the Base Camp in Nepal,     3    most human activity on the mountain is concentrated. It had 79 particles of microplastics per liter (升) of snow.