1 . I first came to Berwickshire for a job-to be the Ranger for the Berwickshire Marine Reserve.I was then Senior Ranger for St Abb’s Head National Nature Reserve and I set up my own business, In Our Nature, offering wildlife journeys,walks,talks and courses in 2020. There’s so much I love about Berwickshire.Its stunning scenery. Its variety of landscapes and habitats and range of amazing wildlife, both above and below the water. Its friendly people. In places you can feel like you are a million miles from anywhere, when in reality you’re just an hour’s drive from Edinburgh.

The thing that supports everything on the Berwickshire Coast is its varied and fascinating geology(地质).The jewel in the crown is Siccar Point. With its world-famous non-conformity(均变)，it’s considered the birthplace of modern geology. The geology not only shapes the landscape, but it also impacts on the wildlife, forming varied habitats from steep sheltered valleys and towering cliffs to sheltered sandy bays.

There’s nothing I like more than being out in nature and sharing my passion with others, so starting up In Our Nature was a no brainer. In the warmer months I offer tours on land and sea to help folk enjoy the amazing wildlife and scenery of the Berwickshire Coast. In the darker months my online courses help people learn about wildlife in the hope that it will increase their enjoyment of the marine and coastal environments they spend time in.

My favourite spot on the Berwickshire Coast has got to be a place called Petticowick. The views up the coast and inland to the Mire Loch are second to none. It’s a place where you can marvel at geology which covers unimaginable periods of time. You can listen to and watch thousands of seabirds that return to the cliffs to breed each spring. Or witness all the amazing activity of the breeding seal colony on the beach below during the early winter.

2 . Earth is a big place, but size isn’t everything. The planet’s richest ecosystems are in rapid decline, forcing us to acknowledge countless creatures worldwide are running out of room.

85% of all species on the IUCN Red List are endangered due to many forms of habitat loss, from complete deforestation to less obvious effects of pollution and climate change. Every species needs a certain amount of habitat to find food, shelter and mates, but for a growing number of animals, the space where their ancestors found those things is now overrun by humans. As habitats decline, animals also grow more vulnerable to secondary dangers like disease or conflict with people.

According to many scientists and conservationists, the best strategy to avoid a dramatic loss of biodiversity is to set aside half of Earth’s surface area for wildlife. That might sound like a big sacrifice at first, but upon closer inspection, it’s still an incredibly sweet deal for us: One species gets half the planet, and all other species must share the other half. This idea has been around for years, confirmed in programmes like the WILD Foundation’s “Nature Needs Half” campaign, but it has gained more different opinions recently. And it may now have one of its most forceful arguments yet, thanks to a 2016 book by well-known biologist E. O. Wilson titled Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life.

Half-Earth, therefore, isn’t so different from today’s Earth. We’re already doing many of the right things, as Wilson recently told the University of California-Berkeley’s Breakthroughs magazine. We still have a few big biodiversity zones left, and others that could still recover. We just need to protect as many wilderness areas as we can, fill in gaps wherever possible and do no further harm. “I’m sure we can go from 10% to 50% coverage, land and sea,” Wilson says. “It could be large reserves that still exist, like in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, in the taiga, the major wilderness areas of Congo, in Papua New Guinea, the Amazon—these can be made inviolate reserves; they can be pieced together.”

4 . The Cambodian Government’s Fisheries Administration and WWF announced that the Irrawaddy dolphin population in the Mekong River numbers just 89. The number is a slight decline from the estimate of 92 in 2018, but shows that the population has stabilized. In recent years after decades of sharp decline.

Critically, the survey’s findings also indicate a positive survival rate of calves through to adulthood, with a “recruitment rate” of 4.22%, signalling an improving trend for the dolphin population. “Although the survey confirmed that the number of river dolphins in Cambodia has stabilized, the population size is still small, so stronger conservation action is urgently needed,” said Mr. Seng Teak, WWF Country Director.

The Irrawaddy dolphins are fully protected under Cambodia’s Fisheries Law. The dolphins, however, continue to face great danger. Gill nets, development of upstream dams, overfishing, and illegal fishing practices such as electrofishing are among major known threats to the survival of the species.

Effective conservation action in recent years has halted the decline in the population, but more is required to ensure that the population expands. The Fisheries Administration and WWF are committed to continuing to work gather with the local communities and other partners to make collective efforts to carry out the recommendations of the 2020 population report.

These recommendations include enforcement of the fisheries law and the ban on illegal gill net use in the protected dolphin habitat, continued robust monitoring of the species population, and management of the Ramsar site in Stung Treng province to improve natural fish stocks for food and prey enhancement for both the local communities and the dolphins.

Maybe you think protecting the environment is a big problem and beyond your ability.     1     fact, there are many simple ways to do so.

Plant more trees. Choose an open area near your house or school. Plant a tree every month, and encourage your friends     2    (join) you. Have more and more trees planted and there will come a day when you have a     3    (green) land than before, thanks to your efforts.

Save energy. There are so many electrical     4    (device) you must be using daily. Turn off a device when you don’t use it and remove the plug from its power supply.

Choose to walk short distances instead of taking a car every time. Go walking to school or use     5     bicycle. And each time you avoid using a car, you are contributing to     6    (reduce) air pollution.

Save water. Water is a very important natural resource. It’s we     7     waste it, and pollute it. Turn off the water taps     8    (immediate) after use.

Make your action     9    (know) by putting up posters in the neighborhood, or your school. Organize small activities like planting trees, cleaning an area, and visiting an animal shelter or volunteer for an organization which works towards creating environmental     10    (aware).

7 . How much rubbish do you imagine a person will produce in his lifetime? It’s about 127,604 pounds of rubbish. However, Lauren Singer, who majored in environmental science at New York University, began working toward living a “Zero Waste” lifestyle while still studying at university and has been completely “waste-free” for the past two years, proving that a waste-free lifestyle is possible.

Lauren regularly writes about her experiences of a zero-waste life on her blog. Though she was determined to take a waste-free lifestyle, she admits that the past two years have been very difficult. However, she now feels that she is getting used to this kind of lifestyle. “I stopped buying packaged products and began bringing my own bags at the supermarket,” she explained, “I stopped buying new clothes and shopped for only secondhand things. As more and more time passes, I produce less and less.

Even though the journey is hard, Lauren’s zero-waste life is well worth the effort. She now saves a lot of money because she only buys what she needs rather than buy things blindly. She also eats fresh fruits and vegetables instead of packaged foods.

Today she has learned to make all of her own everyday eco-friendly products, such as toothpaste, shampoo, kitchen cleaner and so on in order to avoid creating unnecessary rubbish. She also founded her own waste-free company, the Simply Co., through which she sells her homemade products.

The 23-year-old girl has become an inspiration to many. And now she is busy giving talks on TV and accepting news reporters’ interviews about her zero-waste lifestyle.

Lead a waste-free lifestyle — We are the future of this planet!