1 . World Environment Day is celebrated worldwide on June Fifth. The United Nations ______ this special day in 1972 to get people to think about taking care of the ______.

Public events for World Environment Day ______ from June first through June fifth. The events and conference help teach world leaders and citizens how to______ the environment.

Every year World Environment Day is celebrated in a different ______. In 2005 it was held in San Francisco, California. It was the first time ______ the beginning of World Environment Day that the conference was held in the United States.

The main ______ of World Environment Day that year was “Plan for the Planet”. The events and conferences showed us how to have “Green Cities”. It ______ that people talked about the ways that cities could have ______ environment.

Most people in the world live in cities, ______ makes them especially important areas of environmental ______. Cities use more than seventy-five percentage of the world’s natural ______ such as water and gasoline. World Environment Day will ______ on how people in cities can work together to help save the planet.

San Francisco held public talks to discuss pollution ______, clean energy sources and the importance of healthy parks and gardens. Special experts were among the ______. For example, former vice-president Al Gore talked about climate changes. There were also ______ events such as music concerts, movies, and art shows. Local farmers and restaurant owners served food that had been ______ grown, “green” of course.

The Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, ______ city leaders from all over the world to attend this conference and ______ ideas. The United Nations hopes to create an international ______ that countries and citizens will follow to help improve the earth’s environment.

2 . Conservationists are breeding (饲养) lions in the Southern African nation of Zimbabwe. The wildlife experts hope to increase the lion population to keep the great cats from _______.

In some areas, lions and human beings are _______ control of land. Researchers believe something must be done quickly to _______ the animals.

The African Lion and Environmental Research Trust (ALERT) has more than 100 _______ in its breeding program. Antelope Park Farm is one of two sites ALERT operates in Zimbabwe.

Gary Jones heads the Antelope Park Farm. He says ALERT has become involved _______ a sharp drop in the number of lions. His group believes this has been _______ mainly by humans. There are more people moving to this area every year. The lions have _______ land on which to live.

Gary Jones says the decrease in the lion population affects the whole _______. He adds that other African nations are also seeing the _______ effects of this.

There are countries,________ in central and north Africa, where the lion population has reached a(n)________ level. Burundi, a country of east-central Africa, for instance, does not have lions in its national parks. It ________ wants to have lions reintroduced back into its national parks. The reason is that when you take the lion out of the equation (平衡) , suddenly you get all ________ things start happening with the balance of ________. For example, you get too many prey (猎物) species, like giraffes and zebras.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization says ________ animals are threatened when farmers try to ________ their plants or animals.

Rene Czudek works for the UN agency. He says his organization has ________ a human-wildlife tool kit (成套工具) that some countries are using to reduce ________ between human and wildlife. “In fact the tool kit is a kind of instrument that extension workers can use with the ________—explain to them how wildlife behaves, and then show them what the risky behaviors are, and how they should ________ their fields accordingly,” Mr. Czudek said.

3 . In our modern world, when something wears out, we throw it away and buy a new one. The _______ is that countries around the world have growing mountains of _______ because people are throwing out more rubbish than ever before.

How did we _______ a throwaway society? First of all, it is now easier to _______ an object than to spend time and money to repair it. _______ modern manufacturing (制造业)and technology, companies are able to produce products quickly and inexpensively. Products are plentiful and _______.

Another cause is our _______of disposable (一次性的) products. As _______ people, we are always looking for _______ to save time and make our lives easier. Companies ________ thousands of different kinds of disposable products: paper plates, plastic cups, and cameras, to name a few.

Our appetite for new products also ________ to the problem. We are ________ buying new things. Advertisements persuade us that ________ is better and that we will be happier with the latest products. The result is that we ________ useful possessions to make room for new ones.

All around the world, we can see the ________ of this throwaway lifestyle. Mountains of rubbish just keep getting bigger. To ________ the amount of rubbish and to protect the ________, more governments are requiring people to recycle materials. ________, this is not enough to solve (解决) our problem.

Maybe there is another way out. We need to repair our possessions ________ throwing them away. We also need to rethink our attitudes about ________. Repairing our possessions and changing our spending habits may be the best way to reduce the amount of rubbish and take care of our environment.