1 . Young Alison Teal never rode in a pushchair or played on a swing on the playground.       1     She saw the view from atop a peak in Peru at just two months old on her mom’s back. They traveled the globe staying not at five-star hotels but in a six-foot-wide tent. From mountaintops to jungles, they immersed (沉浸) themselves in local nature and culture.

Between journeys they would return home to quiet part of the Big Island of Hawaii. Her front yard was the ocean, and her friends were dolphins.       2     Alison would dive into the water and release a sea leaf. A dolphin would catch it on its nose and throw it to the next player. Over the years, the dolphins grew to trust Alison.       3     She let them take the lead in their interactions. After studying at the University of California, Berkeley and then graduating from a film school, Alison continued her world travels. Her adventurous experience and survival skills landed her a spot on the reality show Naked and Afraid, in which she and a co-constant had to live on a deserted island for 21 days. Alison’s deep knowledge of how to live in a wildness saved the pair.       4     “After that, I couldn’t ignore our plastic problem,” says Alison. “I decided to protect our greatest resource, the ocean.”

Along with sharing her mission with her Instagram followers, the conservationist gave a TED talk on her discover.       5     Besides, she helped ban plastic bags in California. Her book, Alison’s Adventures: Your Passport to the World, is filled with travel tales and environment lessons. Alison believes all of us can make changes to protect the Earth.

2 . [1] What do North Carolina’s red wolves, the Eurasian beaver and Przewalski’s horse have in common?

[2] All of them went extinct in the wild — and all of them came back, thanks to reintroduction programs.

[3] Conservation scientists use translocation and captive breeding (圈养繁殖) to re-establish animal populations that have died out in the wild — either entirely or in certain areas. Reintroducing extinct-in-the-wild animals to their native territories can be a double win: helping to restore damaged ecosystems, as well as increasing population numbers.

[4] But setting a species loose in the wild is a risky balancing act. Reintroductions often take years and involve multiple stages. Before bringing back a species, conservationists have to evaluate the threat level — both to and from the animal — and the role it played in the ecosystem. In places where wild populations have died out more recently, there’s a better chance of success. The less time that has passed, the more likely that environment is the same as when the species went extinct. But scientists still need to address the reason why it went extinct in that environment to begin with.

[5] Reintroduced animals can have a positive impact on the landscape, but how fast this happens depends on the type of animal and how damaged the environment is. Herbivores (食草动物) can make a significant change relatively quickly, while predators tend to be reintroduced slowly and carefully. Although they can be useful for managing pest species, conservationists have to ensure they don’t overhunt or threaten other vulnerable animals.

[6] A 2020 study highlighted species reintroduction as one of the most effective ways to save endangered animals. The study estimates that conservation action between 1993 and 2020 saved up to 48 species of birds and mammals from extinction, and that the rate of extinction would have been three to four times higher, during that period, without those efforts.

3 . The 97-year-old botanist, Margaret Bradshaw, is the chief caretaker of Teesdale’s rarest flowers. “Everything about Teesdale is unique,” says Bradshaw with pride — and the authority of someone who has just written a 288-page book on the subject. Bradshaw has been recording rare plants here since the early 1950s and has witnessed great decreases.Her data was the first to prove that — and the need to do something about it.

The main reason for the decrease of these plants is an unusual one. The number of sheep in Teesdale had been reduced by half by 2000, as the uplands were generally believed there were too many sheep. Bradshaw says while sheep are hunted in some upland areas, reducing herding in Teesdale has been destructive. Longer grass overshadows the delicate (娇嫩) flowers, taking away the light they need to grow. As a result of her findings and her work with farmers who herd the land — as well as Natural England, which manages it — sheep numbers are increasing and the timing of herding is being carefully managed. This has led to the partial recovery of some plants.

At 93, she set up Teesdale Special Flora Research and Conservation Trust to record rare plants. A keen horse rider, at 95, she did a 55-mile horse journey across Teesdale, raising almost $ 10,000 for the Trust. When asked about the secret to longevity, “Just keep going,” she says.

“Keep at it.Don’t sit down and just watch TV.”

“I recognise I’m getting older and I’ve been trying to get more people to take over and do the records. They don’t believe I won’t be here forever,” Bradshaw says. Despite Bradshaw’s guardianship of this land, and the love and energy she has put into saving it, the future here is unknown. The last words of her book speak to this endless loss. “This is our heritage, this unique plant species, mine and yours,” she writes. “In spite of trying, I have failed to prevent its decrease, now it is up to you.”

8 . A new form of real estate(不动产)is appearing along the beaches of South Africa and on the dry islands off its coast-tiny white beach huts. With good ventilation and a sea view, they are just big enough to fit a family of African penguins. Their unique selling point: a safe and cool place for penguins to breed.

African penguins, unlike their relatives that live in snow and ice, live well in the cold currents of the South Atlantic Ocean. But when they come to land, their thick black coat absorbs the heat, and they desperately look for cover-both for themselves and their fragile eggs.

Historically, the penguins dug burrows in layers of guano-accumulated seabird and bat feces- that lined Africa’s penguin colonies, but in the 19th century, traders started selling guano(鸟粪)as fertilizer, leaving the penguins and their eggs increasingly exposed to predators and the baking sun. This, combined with other threats such as egg poaching, overfishing and climate change, has caused African penguin populations to plummet. In 2019, they were thought to be less than 20,000 breeding pairs, down from an estimated 1.5 to 3 million birds in 1900.For more than a decade, the species has been listed as endangered by the IUCN.

To date, the African Penguin Nest Project has installed more than 1,500 nests across five of South Africa’s penguin colonies, and plans to expand into Namibia next year, the only other country with breeding populations of the species.

“This is still just a drop in the bucket,” says Graham, who anticipates they will need to deploy at least 4,500 more ceramic homes to protect penguins currently nesting in exposed areas. “The goal is that every penguin that needs a nest will get one.”

9 . Last summer, I was sent to take photos that could communicate the urgency of climate change in northern Canada. When I arrived at an abandoned village on Resolute Bay, I scanned the shore with my camera. Suddenly, I spotted a bear lying on the ground. It didn’t move for almost an hour. But when it finally stood up, I had to catch my breath. The bear’s once strong body was just skin and bones; every step that it took was painfully slow.

When I posted the photos on social media, I wrote, “This is what starvation may look like. I wonder whether the global population of 25, 000 polar bears would die the way this bear is dying.”

I did not say that this particular bear was killed by climate change. But news organizations around the world focused on it. The first line of the story published in National Geographic read, “This is what climate change looks like” — with “climate change” highlighted in yellow. Other news agencies even adopted more dramatic headlines.

It was estimated that my photos had been read by about 2.5 billion people around the world. But there was a problem: Most people and the news agencies didn’t recognize or misunderstood the real message I tried to send with them. Many people expressed gratitude that I’d provided shocking evidence on climate change, while others who are still trying to deny the existence of climate change charged me with spreading false information.

Perhaps I had made a mistake in not telling the full story — that I was looking for pictures that might foretell the future and that I didn’t know what had happened to this particular polar bear.

I can’t say that this bear was starving because of climate change, but I am happy that my photos have moved the conversation about climate change to the forefront, where it must remain until this problem is solved.

Until then, when I come across a scene like this one, I will again share with the world — and take pains to be sure that my intention is clear.

10 . Environmental pollution and other human activities are leading to thousands of deaths among seabirds, a new study has warned.

Ecological experts tracked the behavior of British and Irish seabirds. They used satellites to track hundreds of the creatures to find out where they went to catch fish at sea. The study can help assess potential impact from human activities and where protected areas of the seas should be.

Lightweight GPS tags were fitted to more than 1,300 adult birds from 29 different colonies around the UK and Ireland, including kittiwakes, shags, razorbills and guillemots. Results from the five-year study show the large areas of sea the four seabird species use. They found it was at least 600,000 square miles, an area three times the size of Spain. It shows how far they travel from their nests in search of food for their chicks. And it shows the use of the seas by all four species concentrated in the coastal waters of Scotland, highlighting the importance of conservation measures there.

The four species studied require conservation help, with kittiwake numbers declining 71 percent in the past 25 years and shag populations down 61 percent. This means both seabirds are "red listed" and need urgent protection. Razorbills and guillemots are "amber listed", which means they are considered to need conservation action.

Dr. Ewan, lead author of the research, said, “Many seabirds are at the top of the marine food web. They feed on some small fish but that prey is declining because of human pressures, including climate change. The result is that thousands of sea baby birds are dying each year because their parents can't feed them. For the first time, this study provides us with a full map for the feeding areas for some of our most important seabird species.”

The analysis provides critical data to inform marine management, the experts said.