Queensland, Australia is one of the world’s worst places for deforestation
1,000 rugby pitches’ worth of forest disappear every day
Feb 22nd 2018 | Sydney
MOST deforestation takes place in poor countries. In richer places, trees tend to multiply. Australia is an unhappy exception. Land clearance is rampant along its eastern coast, as farmers take advantage of lax laws to make room for cattle to feed Asia. WWF, a charity, now ranks Australia alongside Borneo and the Congo Basin as one of the world’s 11worst “fronts” for deforestation.
The worst damage occurs in the north-eastern state of Queensland, which has more trees left to fell than places to the south, where agriculture is more established. It has been responsible for over half of Australia’s land clearance since the 1970s. Its bulldozers are at present busier than they have been for a decade. They erased 395,000 hectares of forest, including huge tracts of ancient vegetation, between 2015 and 2016—the equivalent of 1,000 rugby pitches a day. As a share of its forested area, Queensland is mowing down trees twice as fast as Brazil.
rampant: used to describe something that is very common or that is spreading very quickly and in a way that is difficult to control
bulldozer: a powerful and heavy vehicle that has a large curved piece of metal at its front and that is used for moving dirt and rocks and pushing over trees and other structures
一般都是穷国家才砍伐森林来种地放牧等，而富裕的国家则是不断地种树和绿化，但是澳大利亚却是一个反例，它砍树的速度是巴西的两倍，2015-16年间，每天都消失1000个rugby球场大小的森林！
Australia has lost almost half its native forest since British colonialists arrived, and much of what remains is degraded. For a time, it seemed that the clear-cutting might come to an end: in the early 2000s several state governments passed bills to reduce deforestation.But in the past decade these have been wound back in every state. Queensland’s land clearance has more than doubled since conservatives loosened its forestry law in 2013, allowing farmers to “thin” trees by up to 75% without a permit. Neighbouring New South Wales recently enacted a similar rule.
Conservationists blame powerful agricultural lobbies. These retort that controls on land clearance push up food prices and cost jobs. Family farmers lament that trees obstruct the big machinery needed to keep their land productive. They know that empty fields are worth perhaps five times more than those peppered with vegetation. In 2014 a landowner in New South Wales murdered an environment officer who was investigating illegal bulldozing. (Authorities in the state are examining at least 300 cases of illegal tree-clearing.)
retort: to reply to something in a quick and often angry way
vegetation: plants in general: plants that cover a particular area
果然为了钱，哪个国家都一样哎，就牺牲环境砍伐树林来使土地更加的肥沃，创造更好的利润！ 别人一反对砍伐森林，部分利益受损的人就跳出来说，不让砍的话就食物肉类价格全部都会提高，更多人会失去工作... （传说中的当婊子立牌坊？）
Yet clearing land eventually hurts farmers too because, without trees, soil erodes and grows saltier.Deforestation releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, spurring global warming, and reduces regional rainfall. Perhaps 45m animals were killed in Queensland’s bushland bulldozing between 2015 and 2016. Loss of habitat has brought many species, including the koala, to the brink of extinction. The Great Barrier Reef, which is already suffering from climate change, is also harmed by the extra sediment washed into the ocean, which can prevent coral from photosynthesising.
Permissive forestry laws seem especially odd given the billions of dollars the government spends planting trees, fighting climate change and conserving native species. In 2016 Queensland’s minority Labor government tried to pass a bill to strengthen controls on land clearance once again. It was defeated by a hair. But Labor, which won a state election late last year, has promised to reintroduce the legislation. This time, it holds a majority.
sediment: material that sinks to the bottom of a liquid
过度砍伐森林，最终这些农名也会自食恶果：没有了树，地质变的糟糕而且盐度会上升，同时还会造成温室效应，全球变暖，雨水减少等
总结： 不要再说中国的环境问题了（那么多人要养），看看澳大利亚富成那个样子还在过度砍伐呢
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Results
Lexile®Measure: 1100L - 1200L
Mean Sentence Length: 14.88
Mean Log Word Frequency: 3.06
Word Count: 491
这篇文章的最后部分蓝思值是在1100-1200L， 是经济学人里算简单的了，适合大一大二的学生看。
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