Functional vocabulary. Read through the following text and sum up the role forests play in improving the life in the modern world

Forests

Read through the following text and sum up the role forests play in improving the life in the modern world.

READING three

Discuss in groups whether Antarctica should be a world park and what other regions of world importance can become world parks.

Check the meanings of the following words and find out the words they collocate with.

Fill in the gaps in the following sentences.

Note the pictures to which the following words and word-combinations refer.

Watch the video and do the following exercises.

Suggest why each one of these pictures has a place in this report.

Trace the order in which you first see the following pictures.

Watch the video without sound and do the following tasks.

Study the meaning of the following words and word combinations.

Guess what this report will be about.

Look at the title of this report and answer the following questions.

Before you watch the video do the following tasks.

1. What could a world park be?

2. What places would be suitable for becoming world parks?

3. Do you know any world parks or any plans for one?

back a draft convention	поддержать, одобрить проект договора
endorse a convention	подписать; поддержать, одобрить договор, соглашение конвенцию
fishing vessel	рыболовное судно
krill n	криль; креветка
prawn n	пильчатая креветка
prohibitive cost	непомерно высокая цена
seal n	тюлень
trawl for sth	ловить траловой сетью

() white ice

() blue ice

() sea at dawn

() fishing vessels

() seals

() penguins

krill

million years old

a kilometre deep

unique

beauty

1. Beneath the ice lie ….

2. In the … may be … such as oil, platinum and uranium.

3. Mining is prevented by high … and a voluntary ….

3. Say which countries hold these views:

1. …want a world park, with a ban on mining and oil drilling.

2. … won't oppose plans for a world park.

3. … won't back plans for a world park.

4. … wants to fish there despite damage to the ecology.

environment	ecology	wild
environmental	ecological	wildlife
environmentalist	ecologist	wilderness

A forest is much more than just trees. It also includes smaller plants, such as mosses, shrubs and wild flowers. In addition many kinds of birds, insects and other animals make their home in the forest. Millions upon millions of living things that can only be seen under a microscope also live in the forest.

Climate, soil and water determine the kinds of plants and animals that can live in the forest. The living things and their environment together make up a forest ecosystem that is rather complicated. The trees and other green plants use sunlight to make their own food from the air and from water and minerals in the soil. The plants serve as food for certain animals. These animals, in turn, are eaten by other animals. After plants and animals die their remains are broken down by bacteria and other organisms, such as protozoans and fungi. This process returns minerals to the soil, where they can again be used by green plants. Many forests live for hundreds of years. When they die, they fall to the forest floor and decay, adding to the fertility of the soil. The dead trees are replaced by new trees, which appear as seedlings in gaps in the woodland. If the forest is wisely managed, it provides us with the continuous source of wood and other products.

Forests supply many products. Wood from forest trees provides timber, plywood, railway sleepers, and sawdust. It is also used in making furniture, tool handles, and thousands of other products. In many parts of the world wood still serves as chief fuel for cooking and heating.

Various manufacturing processes change wood into a great number of different products. Paper is one of the most valuable products made from wood. Other processed wood products include cellophane, plastics, and such fibres as rayon and acetate.

Forests provide many important products besides wood. Latex, which is used in making rubber, and turpentine come from forest trees. Various fats, gums, oils and waxes used in manufacturing also come from trees. In some primitive societies, forest plants and animals make up a large part of the people's diet. As long as there are forests, people can count on a steady supply of forest products.

Forests also help conserve and enrich the environment in several ways. Forest soil, for example, soaks up large amounts of rainfall. It thus prevents the rapid runoff of water that can cause erosion and flooding. In addition, rain is filtered as it passes through the soil and becomes ground water. This ground water provides a clean, fresh source of water for streams, lakes and wells. Forest plants, like all green plants, help renew the atmosphere. As the trees and other green plants make food, they give off oxygen. They also remove carbon dioxide from the air. And carbon dioxide built up in the atmosphere can severely alter the earth's climate.

The tropical rain forest – a forest of tall (about 60 metres) trees in a region of year-round warmth and plentiful rainfall, such as Africa, Asia, Central and South America – is a natural recycler, provider and protector for our planet. It helps to determine temperature, rainfall and other climatic conditions and supports the most diverse ecosystem in the world providing a home for many plants and animals that can live nowhere else. Without the forest many kinds of wildlife could not exist.

Besides economic and environmental value forests are important for recreation as the natural beauty and peace of the forest offer a special source of enjoyment. In many countries huge forestlands have been set aside for people's enjoyment. Many people use forests for such activities as camping, hiking and hunting. Others visit them simply to enjoy the scenery and to relax in the quiet beauty.

Before people began to clear the forests for farms and cities, great stretches of forestland covered about 60 per cent of the earth's land area. Today, forests occupy only about 30 per cent of the land.

Human activities have had tremendous impact on modern forests. Since agriculture began about 11 000 years ago, large areas of forest have been cleared for farms and cities. Deforestation has come up as an acute environmental problem since 1800's when great expanses of forests have been eliminated because of logging activities and industrial pollution. Whole forests have been cut down with the result that a formerly green landscape with a good rainfall is an eroded desert, which is subject to flooding whenever there are rains.

Today severe deforestation occurs in tropical areas, primarily as a result of the clearing of land for agriculture and industry. Until the late 1940's, tropical rainforests covered about 16 million square kilometres of the earth's land. In the 1980's, they covered only about 10 million square kilometres. About 100 thousand square kilometres of tropical rainforests are destroyed each year, mostly in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

In other parts of the world, industrial pollution is a major cause of deforestation. Pollutants combine with rain, snow, or other precipitation fall to earth as acid rain, restricting plant growth in a region and eventually killing most plants there. In parts of Europe, forest areas have been seriously damaged by industrial pollution. Pollution also threatens forests in North America.

As forest areas decrease, the amount of oxygen released into the air through photosynthesis also decreases. Renewal of the oxygen supply, nevertheless, is vital to the continuing survival of oxygen-breathing organisms. Also, as less carbon dioxide is taken up by photosynthesis, the amounts of carbon dioxide released into the air increases. As a result, more heat from the sun is trapped near the earth's surface instead of being reflected back into space. Many scientists believe this greenhouse effect is causing a steady global warming that could lead to threatening climatic conditions.

Unlike most other natural resources, such as coal, oil and mineral deposits, forest resources are renewable. The conservation of forests especially of those that are used to produce timber depends on replacing trees that are cut down so that the forest has a sustained yield – an approximate balance between the annual harvest and the annual growth of wood.

Due to understanding of the role of forests, in some places, such as North America, forest destruction has been slowed. In others, such as India, special
projects like tree-planting campaigns have been launched. Planting trees – a practice known as agroforestry – is not an attempt to convert agricultural land into forestry land but steps taken to integrate trees and shrubs into ongoing agricultural operations and to reduce erosion, improve plant nutrition for food crops, and replenish the fertility of poor soil. If the tree-planting campaign is successful, scientists say, the equivalent of another tropical forest will be created.

World Book

acute adj	острый, злободневный
agroforestry n	лесоводство
be subject to sth	подвергаться чему-л.
count on sth	рассчитывать на что-л.
deforestation n	исчезновение, вырубка лесов
fertility n	плодородие
fungus n, pl ~ i	гриб, плесень, грибок
give off v	зд.: вырабатывать, выделять
moss n	мох
precipitation n	осадки
rainfall n	осадки
rainforest n	тропический лес
rayon n	искусственный шелк, вискоза
renewable adj	возобновляемый
replenish v	восполнять, пополнять
shrub n	кустарник
timber n	лесоматериалы, строевой лес
vital to sth/sb	жизненно важный, необходимый для чего-л./кого-л.
yield n	урожай

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