1 . The founder of Earth Day was Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. During the late 1960s, Americans witnessed the uninvited side effects of high productivity. Factories and power plants were sending out smoke and industrial waste while Americans were using petrol for their massive(大量的) cars, making air pollution almost synonymous with the nation’s development.

What moved Senator Nelson to action was the 1969 massive oil spill in California, the largest in the United States at that time. The spill proved to be an environmental nightmare as it had a significant effect on marine life, killing about 3,500 sea birds, as well as marine animals such as dolphins, elephant seals and sea lions, fueling public anger. Inspired by the student antiwar movement at that period of time, Nelson found it an appropriate time to direct the energy of the students towards a fight for environmental protection. He decided that it was time to educate the Americans on the need to protect the environment. Thus Earth Day was born in 1970, and public environmental awareness took centre stage.

On 22^nd April 1970, millions of Americans took to the street and thousands of students marched to appeal for a healthy, sustainable environment. There was now a new synergy(协同作用) among different groups which had previously been fighting their causes related to the environment. Their fight for environmental conservation became so overwhelming that affected businesses were forced to follow environmental standards if they wanted to continue their operations.

As it became more apparent that environmental issues were not just localized ones but a global concern, the year 1990 saw Earth Day reach out to many more around the world. Earth Day 1990 helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, bringing together many nations for a united effort towards protecting the environment.

3 . Weaving environment-friendly materials into beautiful clothing is normally brands' first step toward achieving sustainability.

Allbirds is a shoe brand founded in 2016 in New Zealand, which just entered China two years ago. Many influencers are fans of the brand, including Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, Dick Costolo, the former CEO of Twitter, actress Emma Watson, and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

The brand chooses natural and sustainable wool from merino sheep as the main raw material, and it costs 60 percent less energy than producing typical synthetic (合成的) shoes; it sources tree fiber involved from farms in South Africa, where people minimize fertilizer and irrigate the land with rainfall, directly saving 95 percent water and cutting carbon footprint in half; sugarcane (甘蔗) involved is sourced from southern Brazil, which relies on rainwater as well.

The brand received Forest Stewardship Council certification, approving that it sources materials that meet strict standards to protect forests, and the animals and people who depend on them.

During China Fashion Week, which was recently held, an increasing number of Chinese brands showed their practice of sustainability. Demain presented the potential of plant-based regenerated fiber; Damowang formed recycled PET fabric into clothes, which cause 32 percent less carbon emission while producing comparing to normal PET fabric; I-La introduced new collection made from biodegradable (生物降解的) natural materials; Chicco Mao called attention to the catastrophic impact of global warming on coastal ecology through design.

According to the report, although the number of mass market retailers, who make products from sustainable materials, stays low, it has increased fivefold in the last two years.

Yan Yan, the head of Responsible Supply Chain Association, talked about sustainable fashion at China Fashion Summit on March 27. She said, “the realization of sustainable fashion counts on the transformation of the whole industry, involving designers' awareness, the selection of raw materials, manufacturing process, consumption concept and where these products will end up with.”

7 . The Sanjiangyuan National Park, China's first experimental national park, has been established to protect the local environment. The area is known as the country's "water tower" because it houses the headwaters of the three great rivers of the country: the Yangtze, the Yellow and the Lancang rivers.

Covering a total area of 123,100 square kilometers, the national park emphasizes the protection of the entire ecosystem, including all of the local natural resources such as wild animals, water, grassland and forests.

Since the national park started its trial operation in 2016, locals have been called on to help protect and improve the environment. Their work includes patrolling (巡逻) the grassland as well as monitoring and rescuing the park's wildlife. To date, there are 17,211 rangers (护林人) operating in the national park.

Kunsang, now 39 years old, is a Tibetan herdsman (牧人) turned park ranger for the headwaters of the Yellow River in the national park. On November 16^th, 2020, Kunsang put his life at risk while attempting to save a wolf trapped in a broken ice patch on a lake. Braving temperatures of minus 10 degrees Celsius, Kunsang rushed over to the wolf and pulled the wild animal out from the icy opening on the frozen lake with the help of his colleague.

The efforts of rangers including Kunsang are paying off, and the national park has seen its wild animal populations bounce back apparently in recent years. Hoh Xil (Kekexili) National Nature Reserve, one of the largest no man's lands in China and a part of the Sanjiangyuan National Park, is now home to more than 70,000 Tibetan antelopes, said Wang Xiangguo, deputy director of the park. The official explained that the population numbers for the rare species, which is under first-class state protection in the country, once declined sharply to no fewer than 20,000 due to the impacts of illegal hunting.

8 . After a lifetime of bringing nature back. Sir David Attenborough wants us to get out of our comfort zones and help save the natural world. "I think it's terrible that children should _________without knowing what a tadpole（蝌蚪）is. It is very _________ . “ he says. He sees a very different world: Arctic sea ice has _________ and some of the reefs where he dived are lifeless. His latest film, A life On Our Planet, highlights the large scale of humanity's impact on _________ , He says, the earth is heating up and could possibly _________ it into sudden, catastrophic disaster. Probably no one else alive has _________ as much o£ the Earth's surface as Attenborough. He warned if we don't mind our ways, we will _________ life as we know it. including ourselves.

For so many years, he travelled with just a leather suitcase. His wife would see him off at the airport, never knowing _________ when he would return. In 1997・ when he was filming a _________ about birdlife, his wife suffered a serious illness. He flew to her bedside just in time for her to squeeze his __________ before she died. Afterwards, he __________ himself into his work again. These days» more often he is in a recording studio so he stresses it's film crews who spend months capturing footage（镜头），not he that should take the __________

Despite his __________ , he remains modest.   The future is at stake not for him but for the next __________,“he says, “We are representatives of a very __________ damaging species.

So just be modest. Don't waste.”

Nowadays, people are understanding the need to solve the climate and biodiversity problem. Poor ecosystems, forest fires, Covid-19 and more extreme weather events are showing us that the destruction of the natural world is greatly impacting on the planet.     1     , it is time to take action.

Rainforest Concern     2     (establish) in 1993 aims to protect endangered natural habitats, the biodiversity they contain, and the people who depend on them for their     3     (survive). For over 20 years, Rainforest Concern     4     (protect) threatened cloud forests in north-west Ecuador, within the global biodiversity hot spot,     5     contains one-sixth of all plant life on the planet.

One of the most immediate threats to the bio-region is heavy industry, resulting in polluted rivers and the     6     (disappear) of hectares of forest, massively impacting on regional climatic conditions and     7     (potential) putting even more species on Red List.

To protect the cloud forests from threats, Rainforest Concern supports community reserves and has created a private reserve,     8     (focus) on forming ecological passages to connect existing protected areas. These measures are all helping to protect the weak cloud forest ecosystem from     9     (damage) and stop the reduction of its wildlife. But it takes money     10     (keep) going, and with more human pressures on the region, threats are increasing, and the forests and our planet are running out of time.

10 . The lives of sea turtles begin on a beach when hatchlings crawl up out of their sandy nests and try to get to the sea as fast as they can. Those that aren’t eaten by killers on their way to the water swim out into the ocean until they find somewhere they can hide, eat and grow.

Ten to fifty years later, depending on the species, the sea turtles mate in shallow waters. Then the females return to the same beach where they were born to lay their eggs, and the cycle begins again.

Turtles that successfully avoid the numerous threats to their existence can live up to 100 years. But predators, fishing nets and garbage are major problems, and only one out of every 1,000 hatchlings will reach adulthood. There are seven sea turtle species, and six of them are either threatened, endangered or critically endangered. Many organizations around the world are working hard to ensure that sea turtles will not disappear from our oceans.