How to Stop Extinction

Comprehension check

1. Answer the following questions:

a) Why are the humans compared to the dinosaurs?

b) What kinds of human activity are the most dangerous for the birds?

c) What mammalian group is the most endangered? What factors threaten marine mammals?

d) What are the main reasons for the habitat loss that affects amphibians?

e) Why do fish receive “an even a heavier blow from humanity”?

f) What is the animals’ fate forecast for the nearest future?

2. Make a list of factors mentioned in the text that lead to the threatened status of the animals. Rate them according to their importance. Discuss them as a class.

Focus on language

1. What is the difference between threatened, endangered and extinctspecies? Which of them means:

a) in possible danger

b) may soon disappear

c) have already disappeared

2. Words threatened, endangered and extinct have synonyms. Use a word or a phrase in an appropriate form from the box below instead of the Russian equivalents.

a) As almost everyone knows, species can become …………………………… (вымершими) quite naturally because they can’t adapt to changes in climate and changes in other animals and plants around them.

b) Natural extinction happens when a species is …………………… (вымирает) gradually but steadily at the end of its evolutionary period on Earth.

c) Much of the Earth’s great biodiversity is rapidly ………………………….. (исчезает), even before we know what is missing.

d) Mekon giant catfish ………………………………… (численность уменьшилась) by 80% in just 13 years because of humans.

e) Organizations like the World Wildlife Fund and Born Free, campaign to save animals which are …………………… (под угрозой вымирания).

f) Pollution, building, hunting and overexploitation affect animal habitats which means that animals become ………………………………. (подвержены вымиранию).

g) Today, nearly 400 animals are listed as ………………….. (исчезающие) or ……………………… (находящиеся под угрозой исчезновения) in the United States.

h) The giant pandas __________________ (имеют статус исчезающего вида) – on to about 1,000 of these black-and-white relatives of bears survive in the world.

i) Most of the animals are _________________ (в беде) only because of the humans and their overexploitation of natural resources.

j) Many organizations make lists of animals _______________ (в опасности) to attract our attention to this problem.

3. Rewrite the following statistics. Use the expressions from the box above.

a) 48.5%

b) 30 species out of a total 90

c) 43 out of 80

d) 65%

e) seven in 100

f) 74 out of 100

Task 3

a) just under 50%

b) a third

c) about a half

d) nearly two thirds

e) 7%

f) approximately three fourth

4. Match each of the percentages 1-6 with expressions from the box.

a) 10%

b)

c) 25%

d) 33%

e) 75%

f) 90%

5. Fill in the chart with the appropriate information from the text. Describe it in the form other than given in the text. Report back to the class.

Mammals diversity under threat

Find the information in the Internet and make a list of species that are threatened, endangered or extinct in your region. Specify which of them receive the heaviest blow from the human activities. Share the information as a class.

Discuss

Split into the groups of 3 and discuss the questions below. Then discuss them

as a class and take notes of what you hear. Make use of the Study Help box.

1)

status of animals in your region? Are

they different from those mentioned

in the text?

2) What kind of human activity

is the most dangerous for the species

in your region?

3) Which of your personal activities

add to further extinction of animals?

Choose a group or a species of vertebrates. Write an essay to describe the extinction rate for the chosen group of animals in your region.

Cover the following items:

- background information on the group;

- species that constitute this group;

- endangered status of the group or some particular species that belong to it;

- rates of extinction and examples;

- reasons for extinction or endangerment;

- the measures taken to protect them;

1. You are going to listen to the interview “The Sixth Mass Extinction” with Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Do you know anything about the previous mass extinctions and the reasons that had caused them?

2. Name five problems that you think will be discussed in this interview. Listen and check your guesses.

3. Put the questions in order they were discussed. Cross out those that were not asked during the interview.

a) What are the rates of background extinction?

b) How does the present day rate of extinction compare to background extinction?

c) What do you think are the main causes of animals extinction?

d) Why are those causes directly responsible for extinction?

e) Why do you believe we are facing the sixth mass extinction?

f) How can an individual slow down the extinction?

g) What should be done to reduce mass extinction?

4. Listen again and check. Note down the speakers answers.

1. What do the following words mean? Look them up in the dictionary if necessary.

legislation

restriction

summit

convention

treaty

self-policing

implementation

commitment

2.

3. Choose the correct definition for the expression “environmentally literate”?

1) knowing much about animals and environment and understanding their relations

2) knowing how to spell the word “environment”

3) taking care about the environment

4. Preserving animal diversity is a burning issue. Brainstorm the ideas of the measures that should be taken to protect the endangered species at different levels: international, national, local. Discuss your ideas as a class.

5. Read the text and compare your guesses with the measures mentioned in it.

How to Stop Extinction

The protection of endangered species and habitats should be a top priority for international organizations, governmental agencies, industry, and individuals if there is hope for preserving the earth’s valuable biodiversity for future generations.

In the face of today and future declines, the world's governments have clear moral and practical reasons to act. Habitat loss is an issue that must be solved mainly on a national and local level.

The main approach that countries have taken to safeguard habitat is to establish systems of national parks, wildlife refuges, forest reserves, marine sanctuaries, and other formally protected areas.

A major problem of the reserve system is a lack of implementation. Many parks exist on paper, but completely are unprotected on the ground. These "paper parks" are most common in developing countries, which have the most of the world's biodiversity, but have the least in the way of money or expertise because of poverty and are not able to save most biodiversity.

The "paper park" syndrome reflects the lack of a wider social commitment to protect biodiversity and wildlands. The tactics for building that commitment will require two basic strategies:

1. Environmental education programs must be built into school curricula (preferably beginning at an early age) to help people understand the complexity and value of natural communities.

2. Practical and cultural initiatives are needed that can help local people make a living from nature without permanently damaging it. Well-planned ecotourism projects may play such a role.

Efforts to save endangered species also include captive breeding. The species later should be returned to the wild and restore or enlarge the breeding population. Genetic cloning techniques may one day help stop extinction for endangered species but these measures may reduce the genetic diversity of the species and its ability to survive in the wild.

To give biodiversity and wildlands living space, humans have to find ways to reduce the size of their impact on the planet. That means stabilizing and even reducing the human population, far greater efficiency in materials and energy use, educational standards that build an awareness of our responsibility in managing 3,200,000,000 years' worth of biological wealth. Ultimately, it means replacing our consumer culture with a less materialist and far more environmentally literate way of life.

Humans, after all, can change. Even in the midst of this mass extinction, we still largely control our destiny, but only if we act now.

http://books.google.com/books?id=rptyOXsraDoC&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=wildlife+refuges,+forest+reserves,+marine+sanctuaries,+and+other+formally+protected+areas.&source=bl&ots=gpGYgu0J-r&sig=7RamS8PTlTEBR2hi9MUgaLSNVpI&hl=ru&ei=jIS2SqPGF8L4-Aa--YDiCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=wildlife%20refuges%2C%20forest%20reserves%2C%20marine%20sanctuaries%2C%20and%20other%20formally%20protected%20areas.&f=false

Comprehension check

1. Answer the following questions:

1) What measures do countries take to preserve their biodiversity?

2) What success have they achieved?

3) What problems do the developing countries face with in preserving biodiversity?

4) What technique can help captive breeding?

5) What should be done to create social awareness of the problem?

6) What can you personally do to prevent the extinction?

2. What is “conservation”? Split into 3 groups and give the definition to this word. Discuss your definitions and choose the best one.

3. What verb can you derive from the word “conservation”? Look back into the text and find three synonyms.

4. Complete the sentences with prepositions if necessary.

a) Actions to restore and preserve the threatened species require … efforts from all the countries.

b) The reduction of human impact on nature means greater efficiency … material and resources use.

c) We must replace our consumer approach … a less materialistic and much more caring approach to nature.

d) The state, the school and the family must bring up the responsibility … preserving the environment we all live in.

e) The mankind can hope … the future only if it stops the extinction of the species today.

f) Every individual should make the contribution and help … save the variety of animals on our planet.

g) … the face of further extinction increase the humanity should unite its efforts.

5. Match the antonyms.

On paper wealth

Lack the least

The most enlarge

Reduce reserve

Poverty diversity

Wildland on the ground

Focus on Language

Practice

1. Correct the following sentences. Make use of the Focus on Language box.

1) People must to think about the environment they live in to preserve it for future generations.

2) Certain measures have got to be taken to preserve the biodiversity of the region.

3) We should to remember that animal genetic diversity is the part of the earth’s natural heritage.

4) The priorities of the breeds to be conserved need be determined.

5) In the future the species won’t must be threatened or endangered due to neglect.

6) We has to prepare a watch list of species, which are under the categories of endangered and threatened species as well as genetically eroded species.

7) The use of appropriate tools such as field recording must is exploited.

A conservational zoologist and a journalist meet at the International Environmental Congress.

Role A. You are a journalist who is going to write an article about the International Environmental Congress. You talk to the zoologist from the conservationists group who has just made his presentation at the congress.

Ask about:

- his/her vision of the situation with the extinction of the species worldwide

- the rates of extinction

- particular examples of the endangered and extinct species

- the possible reason for the situation and the possible outcome

- the measures to be taken to solve the extinction problem.

Role B. You are a conservational zoologist at the International Environmental Congress. You have just presented your paper. Answer the questions of the journalist who is going to write an article about the congress and your presentation.

- Tell about the situation with the worldwide extinction of animal species

- Give examples to illustrate the rate of extinction of some particular animals you have studied

- Name some endangered or already extinct species.

- Give the possible reason for the situation and speak about the future of the Earth’s species

- Suggest the measures that have to be taken to change the situation for the better.

Summarizing

1. Read the text below to find the Russian equivalents to the following English word combinations:

on the verge of extinction

the current extinction

no exaggeration to say

to depend exclusively on

to be responsible for

the Amur leopard

the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

world fauna

optimistic estimates

the total number

on-coming catastrophe

literally disastrous

not viable

under the supervision of scientists

overhunting

long-term observations

slowly but surely

alarm situation

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