TED演讲：改变荒漠现状,扭转气候变化(7)

 　　Today, we have young women like this one teaching villages in Africa how to put their animals together into larger herds¹, plan their grazing to mimic² nature,  今天，我们有像这样的年轻女性在非洲的村庄里传授技术，如何把他们的动物集合成一大群，如何安排计划达到模拟大自然的效果，

　　and where we have them hold their animals overnight -- we run them in a predator-friendly manner,  在哪里让他们的动物过夜——我们用一种对捕食者友好的方法，

　　because we have a lot of lands, and so on -- and where they do this and hold them overnight to prepare the crop fields,  因为我们有很多土地，它们在哪里模拟大自然，在哪里过夜，

　　we are getting very great increases in crop yield as well. 我们就在哪里准备庄稼地，我们的庄稼收成也会很好。

　　Let's look at some results. This is land close to land that we manage in Zimbabwe.  看看这些结果。这块地靠近我们在津巴布韦的土地。

　　It has just come through four months of very good rains it got that year, and it's going into the long dry season.  刚刚过了四个月的雨水充沛的季节，即将进入漫长的旱季。

　　But as you can see, all of that rain, almost of all it, has evaporated from the soil surface.  可是你们也会看到，几乎所有的雨水，从土壤表面蒸发掉了。

　　Their river is dry despite the rain just having ended, ok? 尽管雨停了，河还是干的，

　　And we have 150,000 people on almost permanent food aid.  我们有15万人口几乎长期依靠食物援助。

　　Now let's go to our land nearby on the same day, with the same rainfall, and look at that.  看看同一天我们的土地，同样的雨量，看吧。

　　Our river is flowing and healthy and clean. It's fine.  我们的河水流淌，健康而干净。很好的。

　　The production of grass, shrubs³, trees, wildlife, everything is now more productive,  草、灌木、树木、野生动物等的一切都很高产，

　　and we have virtually no fear of dry years.  我们一点都不怕干旱年头。

　　And we did that by increasing the cattle and goats 400 percent,  这样做是通过增加了400%的牛和羊，

　　planning the grazing to mimic nature and integrate them with all the elephants, buffalo⁴, giraffe and other animals that we have.  有计划的放牧，模拟大自然的过程，跟大象、水牛、长颈鹿以及其它的动物融合一体。

　　But before we began, our land looked like that.  但在我们开始前，我们的土地是这个样子。

　　This site was bare and eroding⁵ for over 30 years regardless of what rain we got. Okay?  这块地裸露和侵蚀了30多年，不管下多少雨。

　　Watch the marked tree and see the change as we use livestock⁶ to mimic nature.  看看这棵做了标记的树，看看我们用牲畜去模仿自然后的变化。

　　This was another site where it had been bare and eroding,  这是另一块地，这里也曾裸露和侵蚀，

　　and at the base of the marked small tree, we had lost over 30 centimeters of soil.  在这棵做了标记的小树底下，我们流失了30厘米的土壤。

　　Okay? And again, watch the change just using livestock to mimic nature.  对吧？再看一下这个变化，只是使用牲畜去模仿自然。

　　And there are fallen trees in there now, because the better land is now attracting elephants, etc.  这里有些倒下的树，因为土地变好更吸引大象。

　　This land in Mexico was in terrible condition,  在墨西哥的这块土地情形很糟，

　　and I've had to mark the hill because the change is so profound. 我在这个小山上做了标记，因为变化太大了。

1 herds   

兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众

参考例句：

• Regularly at daybreak they drive their herds to the pasture. 每天天一亮他们就把牲畜赶到草场上去。
• There we saw herds of cows grazing on the pasture. 我们在那里看到一群群的牛在草地上吃草。

2 mimic   

v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人

参考例句：

• A parrot can mimic a person's voice.鹦鹉能学人的声音。
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another.他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

3 shrubs   

灌木( shrub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
• These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。

4 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

5 eroding   

侵蚀，腐蚀( erode的现在分词 )； 逐渐毁坏，削弱，损害

参考例句：

• The coast is slowly eroding. 海岸正慢慢地被侵蚀。
• Another new development is eroding the age-old stereotype of the male warrior. 另一个新现象是，久已形成的男人皆武士的形象正逐渐消失。

6 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。