1 . Every year about 40,000 people attempt to climb Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. They bring with them lots of waste. The_________ might damage the beauty of the place. The glaciers (冰川) are disappearing, changing the_________ of Kilimanjaro.

Hearing these stories, I’m_________ about the place — other destinations are described as “purer” natural experiences.

However, I soon discovered that much has changed since the days of disturbing reports of_________ among tons of rubbish. I find a clean mountain, with toilets at camps and along the paths. The environmental challenges are_________ but the efforts made by the Tanzania National Park Authority seem to be_________ .

The best of a Kilimanjaro_________ , in my opinion, isn’t reaching the top. Mountains are regarded as spiritual places by many cultures. This_________ is especially evident on Kilimanjaro as climbers go through five ecosystems (生态系统) in the space of a few kilometers. At the base is a rainforest. It ends abruptly at 3, 000 meters,_________ lands of low growing plants. Further up, the weather__________ — low clouds envelope the mountainsides, which are covered with thick grass. I __________ twelve shades of green from where I stand. Above 4, 000 meters is the highland __________ : gravel (砾石), stones and rocks. __________ you climb into an arctic-like zone with__________ snow and the glaciers that may soon disappear.

Does Kilimanjaro deserve its__________ as a crowded mountain with lines of tourists ruining the atmosphere of peace? I found the opposite to be true.

THE STONE IN THE ROAD

Once upon a time, there was a king who ruled a small kingdom. However, he was not content and always dreamed of expanding his territory. He tried every means to make his kingdom more powerful but ended up with little progress. Later he realized that a powerful country greatly relied on its national quality. He thought, “Nothing good can come to a nation whose people only complain and expect others to solve their problems.” For him, it was a crucial task to find a way out. One day, an idea occurred to him that he could do something to test and teach his people.

Early one morning, the king disguised himself and went to a local village. He placed a large stone in the middle of the main street and hid some gold coins under the stone. He made it a rule that anyone removing the stone could get the coins. Then he hid behind a huge maple tree and watched.

Soon the villagers began their daily routine and came to the street one after another. The first person down the street was a milkman with his cart. He crashed into the stone, spilling the milk everywhere. “What fool put this stone here?” he shouted. He picked himself up and angrily went away.

After a while, a group of women came along, each balancing a pot of water on her head. One woman tripped over the stone and her water pot went crashing to the ground. She picked herself up and limped away in tears. Neither she nor her friends thought about moving the stone out of the road.

Then came more people. The king watched all morning, only to find that those people complained about the stone, but nobody made an attempt to move it. The king was in despair. “Is there no one in this village who feels any responsibility to keep their neighbors from harm?” Shaking his head, he decided to turn back.     

Just then, the king saw a young girl coming along.

Just then, the king stepped out from behind the tree.

It was in the afternoon before the end of the Second World War that Antonio Black, who was twelve, caught sight of a beautiful brooch (胸针) in a shop window. The brooch is so beautiful that he was unwilling to leave the store until he had purchased it. But it was too expensive — $5. His family was very poor and his parents struggled to make ends meet. Five dollars would buy almost a week’s food for his family.

Antonio couldn’t ask his father for the money. Everything his father made through fishing went to his mother, Susan. Slim and beautiful, his mother was the center of the home and the glue that held it together. The housework was never-ending, and she struggled to feed and clothe their five children, but she was happy as her family and their well-being were all she cared about.

Nevertheless, he opened the shop’s door and went inside. Standing proudly and straight in his flour-sack (面粉袋改做的) shirt and washed-out trousers, he told the shopkeeper what he wanted, adding, “But I don’t have the money right now. Can you please hold it for me for some time?”

“I’ll try,” the shopkeeper smiled. “People around here don’t usually have that kind of money to spend on things. It should keep for a while.”

Antonio respectfully touched his worn cap and walked out. He would raise the money and not tell anybody, for he thought Mum would be surprised when she saw that brooch. On hearing the sound of hammering (锤打) from a side street, Antonio suddenly had an idea that he could raise money by selling the used nail bags. People built their own homes in Bay Roberts, using nails bought in bags from a local factory. Sometimes the used bags were thrown away at the construction site, and Antonio knew he could sell them back to the factory for five cents a piece. That day he sold two nail bags and hid the money in a rusty soda tin.

Every day after school, Antonio started his plan.

The day finally came!

I was a bad boy in a village in India. At least I was labeled that way because I had no interest in school or studies. I used bad language, hung around with other “bad” boys, skipped school and ran through the fields. No one thought I would do anything worthwhile with my life. And I’d heard many people in our village talking. “Why bother going to school? These kids end up back on the farms anyway. He’ll never amount to anything.” My parents and teachers were disappointed with my average marks.

My mother envisioned a different future and knew the value of education to create a better life. By the time I entered the 12th grade, I had taken a good look at myself and realized the life I was creating. The bad boy image troubled me. I didn’t believe I was a bad boy. I didn’t want to be a bad boy. These realizations forced me to acknowledge that my mother was right — education was my only way out. I worked hard to finish my high school, and then I decided to apply for higher education in university. But this village bad boy faced too many challenges.

Firstly, my family had very limited money. In addition to that, my grades were not good. There was very little chance I’d gain admission to a university. Still, I took a chance and applied. The last day of admissions, I visited the university to check my result. I looked down the list, and there it was, “Parashram J. Patil”. Finally, I’d been admitted. Now, it was the last day to pay, so I had to find money to cover my fees.

Helpless, I sat outside the department head—Professor Parth’s office.

From then on, things changed.

6 . Going against the tide of flocking to well-known tourist destinations on vacation, a growing number of holidaymakers in China tend to spend their leisure time at lesser-known attractions. Reverse tourism (逆向旅游) has appeared as a   new trend among young holidaymakers in China.

According to data from an online travel agency, the number of rooms booked at hotels in less-traveled cities during the holiday was up 30 percent year-on-year. Bookings for four-star or five-star hotels in less-traveled places all increased ten times at a minimum. Some lesser-known scenic spots posted double-digit (两位数的) growth during the holiday. Baimaiquan Park in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, received 52,100 visits in the seven days, up to 15.78 percent year-over-year.

Besides crowds, some vacationers chose less-traveled places to save on the cost of trips to popular destinations. In addition, lesser-known attractions are not as “commercial” as developed ones and are able to offer more actual experiences and natural encounters.

Essentially speaking, total relaxation is becoming a real expectation for many people when they travel. Changes in demand may be the fundamental reason for the popularity of reverse tourism. COVID-19 is another key factor fueling reverse tourism. As preventive measures continue, traveling has an unpredictable quality. Travelers have thus become more cautious and tend to choose local attractions or places with fewer tourists.

“The rise of reverse tourism is not a bad thing,” said Zhengzhou Daily. It means that vacationers now have more options, which brings more possibilities to the tourism market. More importantly, it noted, the trend is set to force popular destinations to improve themselves instead of resting on their past honor.

Jiang Han, a senior researcher, said that reverse tourism will become one of the future directions for the market. To give a real boost to the tourism market, Jiang suggested that more efforts be made to tap the potential of underestimated, lesser-known destinations. It is necessary to dig deeper into the local customs and highlight the local characteristics to improve the quality of local tourism.

8 . Biodegradable(可降解的) food packaging is designed to detect to what degree the food has gone bad by changing its color. Best-before labels are often poor predictors of when food becomes dangerous to eat, which can lead to waste and food poisoning, says Benedetto Marelli at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So he and his colleagues tried to create the package that can react to changes in food.

They made four films(膜) similar to plastic package, each consisting of two layers. One layer was made from a protein extracted from silkworm silk, while the other was made of one of four so-called covalent organic frameworks (COFs). These materials contain carbon and hydrogen, as well as atoms like oxygen or nitrogen, all arranged in a network that allows air and water to go through easily.

After checking the films were non-toxic and strong, the researchers tried to compost(堆肥处理) them. For the best performing film, 50 percent of it degraded after being placed in soil for 30 days, which is comparable to existing biodegradable plastics.

The material also changed colour when immersed in water with different pH values, due to the COF layer’s interaction with the liquid. Because the pH of food increases as it spoils, the researchers tried to use a piece of the film as a colour-changing label attached to a packet of raw chicken. The label started off orange but turned yellow and got 17 percent lighter after 20 hours at 30℃, indicating that the meat had begun to spoil. The researchers also loaded the COF layer with a chemical. After 15 days, so ya beans packaged in the film and left in high heat and humidity went bad, but only a third as much as beans wrapped in traditional plastic.

“For a successful market entry, the material will need to be affordable and easy to produce. The standard for competing with plastic production is very high.” says Marelli.

10 . Lisa Gautier receives nearly a dozen parcels of human hair every day. With her San-Francisco-based non-profit organization Matter of Trust, Gautier turns donated hair into mats used to soak up oil spills on land, and booms(long tubes)used for spills at sea.

A standard way to clean up oil from land is to use mats made from polypropylene(聚丙烯). But polypropylene is a non-biodegradable plastic, and producing it ultimately means more drilling for oil. Hair, by contrast, is an environmentally friendly resource that can soak up around five times its weight in oil, according to Matter of Trust, and it is abundant.

Oil spills can pollute drinking water, endanger public health, harm plants and wildlife, and damage the economy. According to Gautier, the spills that hit the headlines only make up 5% of global oil pollution.

Megan Murray, an environmental biologist at the University of Technology Sydney, develops sustainable technologies to tackle oil spills. Her research indicates that as well as being biodegradable, human hair is often just as effective as polypropylene, and in some circumstances even better. “The hair mats are very beneficial to land spills,” says Murray but adds that when raw oil is spilled on beach sand, it is very difficult to absorb it using any of the materials she has tested. Another advantage of hair is that it costs less than conventional materials and is “globally available as a recycled material,” she says.

However, Murray cautions that hair mats are not a perfect solution, because they are single-use, and can only be dealt with by burning or by burying into soil which then isn’t suitable for growing food. She is now researching methods to extract the oil from a used hair mat, meaning both can be reused.

As the hair mat designs aren’t under patent, other groups have begun producing their own mats and booms. Gautier is pleased to see the movement growing. “Anyone can make a hair mat,” she says. “It creates green jobs, it cleans water, it reduces waste in landfill, and it’s promoting renewable resources.”