Английский язык

Today, scientists are trying to store wild strains of all the staple food crops in case the domestic strains develop disease. They have occasionally been successful. A few years ago a deadly virus, Yellow Dwarf Virus, spread through the barley crops in the United States. Scientists at the Center for Plant Genetics in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, had stored wild strains of barley that were resistant to Yellow Dwarf Virus. They sent some seeds to farmers in the U.S. and thereby prevented a complete failure of the harvest. But we cannot always rely on scientists to restore the balance of nature when it goes wrong. We cannot maintain biodiversity in the plant and animal worlds by storing every single species in laboratories. The world’s ecosystem is far too complicated. The best, place to store our genetic resources is in their natural habitat. We must try to conserve what is left of these habitats before it is late.

Conserving biodiversity was one of the most controversial subjects of the UNCED conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The genetic resources in the rainforests, coastal waters, and agricultural landscapes promise financial profits in future years if we invest money in protecting biodiversity today. But the developing countries, which own the rainforests, argued that most research into genetic resources will occur in the industrialized countries, which will protect their discoveries by patent, and most commercial benefits from these discoveries will go to multinational companies in the West. The poor countries therefore demanded that the rich countries pay the full cost of the planned conservation and research programs. The UNCED conference produced the biodiversity treaty (a legal agreement between countries to protect wildlife and conserve genetic resources), but the delegates from the richest country in the world, the United States, refused to sign it because they thought that the financial liability for their country would be excessive.

Extinction is final. It does not just mean death; it means an end to birth. Once the last member of a species has died, that species is lost to the planets forever. Man has the power to upset the balance of nature but he does not have the power to restore that balance. This is why we must try to protect every living species on the earth – even the ugliest insects and the tiny, invisible, unglamorous bacteria. Of all the world’s resources, its genetic resources are the least renewable of all.

6. Answer the following questions:

1. Why is almost every species on earth under threat of extinction?

2. What is a species?

3. Why is each species genetically unique?

4. Why is conserving the rainforests one of the greatest priorities for environmentalists today?

5. What factors does the balance of nature depend on?

6. Why is it important to store wild strains of food crops?

7. Is it in man's power to restore the balance of nature?

7. Render the text in English:

8. Speak on the following topics:

1. The destruction of the rainforests is one of the most urgent environmental crises.

2. Conservation costs money.

3. Extinction is final.

4. The balance of nature within ecosystem.

5. Each species is genetically unique.

UNIT XI

seal (n.) – тюлень

aimlessly (adv.)– бесцельно

pregnant (adj.)– беременные

to recall (v.)– напоминать

plague (n.)– чума, бедствие

to devastate (v.)– опустошить

to weaken (v.)– ослаблять

vulnerable (adj.)– уязвимый

to argue (v.)– доказывать, убеждать

adverse (adj.)– вредный

remarkably (adv.)– удивительно

complacent (adj.)– благодушный, спокойный

reproductive (adj.)– репродуктивный

former (adj.)– бывший

suppression (n.)– подавление, поражение

judiciously (adv.)– рассудительно

to bear on (v.)– преодолеть

by the middle/ end/ beginning of – к середине, концу, началу…

to take steps – предпринять шаги

making matters worse – что усложняет дело

recorded history – историческая летопись

due to – из-за

to come to grips with – вступить в борьбу

personal commitment – личное обязательство

The Case of the Dying Seals

In the spring 1988, the harbor Seals in the North Sea began to die. Adult seals floated aimlessly in the water, too weak to eat or play. Pregnant females aborted their fetuses. The mysterious disease began off the coast of Denmark and spread quickly to seal colonies throughout the North and Baltic seas. By the middle of the summer, seals were dying along hundreds of miles of North Sea coastline. By September, the disease had spread to the Atlantic coast of Ireland.