Years ago, the authors conducted human-wildlife conflict surveys in the Tibet Autonomous Region’s counties,     1     (locate) in the TAR’s remote Chang Tang region. These surveys showed     2     previously undocumented and growing problem of human-snow leopard conflict. Next, snow leopard telephone interviews were conducted with Tibet Forestry Bureau staff,     3     (result) in an additional new conflict and sighting location records. This new location information, together with records provided by other observers,     4     (collect) to make a snow leopard distribution (分布) map.

This effort greatly expanded knowledge of the snow leopard’s distribution in this region,     5     remains one of the least understood of the snow leopard’s key range areas. New knowledge on snow leopard in the Chang Tang will help identify human-snow leopard conflict hot spots and influence design of human-snow leopard conflict relief and conservation strategies for northwest Tibet. Nevertheless, much field work will also be required     6     (describe) snow leopard distribution in the Chang Tang.

Importantly, in the past few years, a number of major transportation infrastructure (基础设施) projects     7     (make) the Chang Tang more accessible. This has led to a     8     (great) increased number of tourists visiting western Tibet, Mt. Kailash and Lake Manasarovar     9     particular. All these developments have a large potential to cause disturbance to snow leopards and their prey species, including influencing their movements     10     destroying their habitat.

4 . The amount of sea ice surrounding Antarctica has reached its lowest level since modern records began, for the second year in a row. Sea ice is frozen seawater that floats on the ocean’s surface around the planet’s polar regions. It forms at much lower sustained temperatures than freshwater ice does, at around-1.8 degrees Celsius. Sea ice builds up during the winter until it reaches its maximum extent, and then melts (融化) away in the spring and summer until it reaches its minimum extent.

In Antarctica, where summer and winter are relative to the Northern Hemisphere, sea ice normally reaches its maximum extent in September when sea ice covers around 7 million square miles. At its minimum extent at the end of February, historically only around I million square miles remains. Last year the minimum sea ice extent was less than 772, 000 square miles, the lowest total since scientists began recording sea ice extent with satellites in 1979. On 21 February this year, that number had reduced to just 691, 000 square miles, which is roughly 40 per cent less than the average between 1981 and 2010.

The record-breaking minimum was expected after an extraordinarily hot January which was the seventh-warmest since records began 174 years ago. “By the end of January, we could tell it was only a matter of time until the record was broken,” said Will Hobbs, an Antarctic sea ice expert at the University of Tasmania and the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership. Antarctica’s minimum sea ice extent will likely continue to decrease in the coming decades as global temperatures rise as a result of human-caused climate change and more multiyear ice, which acts as a seed for new ice growth, melts away.

Sea ice is crucial for polar predators(捕食性动物) such as penguins in Antarctica and polar bears in the Arctic, which use the ice as a platform for hunting. But the sea ice also helps stabilise ice on Antarctica. “Lower sea ice extent means that ocean waves will pound the coast of the giant ice sheet，further reducing ice shelves around Antarctic,” said Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

7 . With needle-like teeth and sharp pointed nose, a gray nurse shark isn’t a creature that most people would want to meet. But Shalise Leesfield isn’t one of them.

The Australian teenager couldn’t think of a better creature to meet when scuba diving off the coast of South West Rocks, near her home in Port Macquarie, a coastal town north of Sydney.

“Many people say gray nurse sharks look frightening, but I think they are the sweetest animals ever,” she says.

The slow-moving sharks, which like to stay near the sea floor in warm, shallow waters, are — for the most part — harmless to humans. But the gray nurse shark is under threat. Populations have fallen and habitats have been lost due to ocean warming and human development, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which lists the species as seriously endangered.

One area where they can still be seen is Fish Rock, an underwater cavern (洞穴) with a unique ecosystem, 40 miles up the coast from Leesfield’s home. But fishers are allowed access within 200 meters of Fish Rock. This is leading to a drop in the number of gray nurse sharks and increased pollution, says Leesfield. She wants to enlarge the no-fishing area, establishing a protected zone.

With Leesfield’s efforts, the area has been nominated as a Hope Spot, which is part of the mission Blue program launched by famous oceanographer Sylvia Earle that identifies places as critically important to the ocean’s health and supports protection.

“When people think about Hope Spots, they think about Sydney Harbour or the Great Barrier Reef. So to get Fish Rock up on that list is just such incredible news,” she says.

Now, Leesfield is working with politician Cate Faehrmann, marine spokesperson for the Australian Greens party in New South Wales, to legalize protection of the sharks and make the no-fishing zone protected by the law.

8 . Laura Madden is a small business owner and sustainable fashion advocate. “ReFashioned Art is a purpose-driven business, combining style and sustainability (可持续性),” Madden says,“I love fashion, but I also care deeply about the environment.”

She slowly built her network and became an influencer who ran a popular blog. She shares that her passion for sustainability came about in 2015 when she watched a life-changing documentary about the social and environmental issues brought up by the fashion industry. “My guilty pleasures－ shopping and fashion － that I assumed weren’t hurting anyone, were in reality hurting a lot of people,” she says.“I couldn’t stand the fact that something I loved so much was creating so much suffering on the planet. How could something that brought me so much beauty and joy be so dirty and destructive?”

With this realization, Madden became an advocate for sustainable fashion－including purchasing most of her own clothes second-hand and supporting sustainable brands. Although she was busy enough in 2019, she became a professional artist, creating pieces made from sustainable materials.

She notes that ReFashioned Art is first and foremost an art brand. “I am using my work to tell a story and create a narrative that style and sustainability can co-exist,” she says. “By repurposing old items into something more fashionable, elegant, and contemporary, I hope to inspire you to look for beauty where it is not normally found.”

For those interested in supporting sustainable art and fashion. Madden shares,“Get creative and look for beauty. Looking forward, I would love to partner with more designers.”

She adds,“We only have finite resources. The best thing we can all do is ask, ‘How else can I use this item?’”

9 . Last fall, the Great Salt Lake hit its lowest level since record keeping began. The lake sank to nearly six meters below the long-term average. The lake’s shrinking threatens to upend the ecosystem, disturbing the migration and survival of 10 million birds, including ducks and geese.

Duck hunters aren’t the only ones worried about the Great Salt Lake. The decades-long decline in lake level is raising alarm bells for millions of people who live in the region. The low lake level and increasing salts in the lake water threaten to destroy economic mainstays like agriculture, tourism and mining. Exposed salts can also reduce air quality and so threaten public health.

Saline lakes (咸水湖) are terminal lakes. They have no rivers flowing out of them. As water disappears, salts are left behind. At the same time, the people who live in these deserts use freshwater for crops, homes and industry. Residents get water from streams and rivers into canals, pipelines or reservoirs before it reaches the lakes. And as the lakes shrink, the salt in water increases.

Lake Poopo, a highland lake in Bolivia that used to stretch 90 kilometers long and 32 kilometers wide, is now a salty mud flat. The Aral Sea shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, once the world’s fourth largest lake, has at times in recent decades shrunk to a tenth of its historic 68,000-square-kilometer surface area. Some saline lakes, like Nevada’s Winnemucca Lake, dried up so long ago — the waters that fed it were led to agricultural fields — that most people have forgotten they were ever wet.

The good news is that people still have time to halt the Great Salt Lake’s decline by using less water. Cutting agricultural and other outdoor water use by a third to half through a combination of voluntary conservation measures and policy changes would allow the lake to refill enough to support the region’s economy, ecology and quality of life. If this succeeds, the Great Salt Lake can be a model for how to save other saline lakes around the world.