点击查看：2016年12月英语四级听力MP3在线练习汇总 

　　Indonesia Strikes Down Plans for Development in Rainforest

　　印度尼西亚罢工，计划发展热带雨林

　　Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem is one of the few places where tigers, orangutans, elephants and rhinoceros all live in the wild.

　　But there has been talk of possible development of the area for geothermal energy -- heat that comes from the Earth.

　　Wildlife activists are worried about the plan.

　　Rudi Putra is an adviser at the Leuser Conservation Forum.

　　He asked, “Why do they want to build it inside Aceh’s best remaining forest?” He believes that if the plan is approved, the area “will lose many, many animals.”

　　The Leuser ecosystem is in Aceh, Indonesia’s westernmost province. Last month, the provincial governor asked the central government to change zoning laws for 8,000 hectares of the ecosystem to permit geothermal exploration.

　　Under the plan, a Turkish company would explore part of the 800,000 hectare Gunnung Leuser National Park. The United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared the park a World Heritage site.

　　The re-zoning request was structured to help Indonesian President Joko Widodo. He has promised to add 35,000 Megawatts (MW) of electricity to Indonesia’s energygrid by 2020. The plan is designed to increase renewable energy production.

　　But environmentalists worry that such a development would start a series of events leading to Leuser’s collapse. Once the destruction is started, they say, officials would be powerless to stop it.

　　Farwiza Farhan leads a group called Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh. She says “anywhere you put roads, destruction follows.” She says timber companies and small farmers used the roads to gain entry to forests, leading to environmental destruction.

　　“Right now it is geothermal, but what’s next? Even now they can’t protect Leuser,” she said.

　　Federal laws for protecting wildlife are in place. But in recent years, illegal development and logging has been a problem. Some observers say the ecosystem is shrinking by about 5,500 hectares a year.

　　In Sumatra, logging and land development for farming has destroyed almost one fourth of the forests since 2000.

　　Recently, the Indonesian environment ministry ruled on the Aceh provincial government’s plan.

　　The environmental group Mongabay says the ministry denied the request. The group said it learned about the decision last week during a meeting of the International Union for Conservation and Natural Resources (IUCN) in Hawaii.

　　The minister’s director for protected areas told Mongabay that the minister received the proposal. But “the result was disagreement with the rezoning, so that’s that. [The plan] stops there,” he said.

　　I’m Christopher Jones-Cruise.

　　_______________________________________________________

　　Words in This Story

　　ecosystem – n. everything that exists in a particular environment, including living things -- such as plants and animals -- and things that are not living -- such as rocks, soil, sunlight and water

　　geothermal – adj. of, relating to, or using the natural heat produced inside the Earth

　　zoning – n. a system of rules used to control where businesses and homes are built in a city or town

　　site – n. the place where something (such as a building) is, was or will be located

　　grid – n. a network of electrical wires and equipment that supplies electricity to a large area

　　timber – n. trees that are grown in order to produce wood

　　log – v. to cut down trees in an area for wood

长按二维码关注即可顺利获得425分

获取最新46级考试资讯

获取46级考前作文预测

获取历年考试真题试卷

获取2套仿真内部资料

英语四六级题库【手机题库下载】 | 微信搜索"566四六级"

　　相关推荐：

　　考试吧2016年12大学英语四级作文范文大全20篇

　　考试吧收藏：历年英语四级真题听力(含MP3)汇总

　　2016年12月大学英语四级大纲词汇汇总（带音标）

　　2016英语四六级词汇记忆：60组近义替换高级词

　　考试吧整理：2016年大学英语四级核心单词1000个

　　2016年大学英语四级考试词汇常见前后缀汇总

　　2016年英语四级词汇：常用成语词汇积累123句