VOA常速英语2007-Elephants, Humans Face Off Over Limited Resource

By Nick Wadhams
Nairobi
31 October 2007

At a Nairobi-based orphanage¹ for baby elephants, the animals are seen as lovable beasts in desperate need of protection. But across Kenya, adult elephants are better known as overgrown garden pests that trample² and terrified. As Nick Wadhams reports from Nairobi, the elephant is at the center of a bitter competition over land and resources.

"This one half his ear is gone. Somebody cut off the ears, we don't know for what reason, we just found her bleeding. This one has a sore ear. That was caused by sunburn. But it will heal? Yeah, it will heal," said a guide. 

At the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage outside Nairobi, American tourists dote over a clutch of baby elephants, no more than a few feet high, who nuzzle them and look for affection. A ranger³ named Julius answers their questions and assures them the elephants will be OK.

These tourists have adopted the elephants under a program that funds the orphanage, which raises abandoned elephants and then releases them into the wild when they are old enough

Daphne Sheldrick runs the orphanage. She says elephants are peaceful animals, loving and friendly, who have been brutally⁴ slaughtered⁵ for years, particularly in two of Kenya's biggest parks, Tsavo East and West.

"One has to understand that elephants by nature are very peaceful animals. You never see animals attacking any other species with whom they exist peacefully in a natural situation," said Sheldrick. "With elephants you reap what you sow and they've been severely⁶ persecuted⁷ by humans because of the ivory trade. I mean the population in Tsavo went from 45,000 to 6,000 in three decades of absolute holocaust⁸ of poaching."

But that notion isn't shared by everyone in Kenya, especially people who farm the kind of foods that elephants enjoy, such as bananas and corn. Elephants are capable of consuming several hundred pounds of food and at least 30 gallons of water a day.

Even when they passed here they will just push and the bananas will fall, they have stripped everything.

Stephen Nteetu, a Masai landowner south of Nairobi, walks walks through an orchard⁹ he had planted with banana and maize¹⁰. It now lies in ruins just days after elephants swept through and devoured¹¹ it.

"All this place it was finished by the elephants. From home up to here, stripped for only two days so I have to start another new irrigation and planting and I have to pay a person to dig for me, to water, and definitely during one night it will be stripped all over, so it is a very deep loss," said Nteetu.

That anger is being aired in a national debate this year, as Kenya conducts a new review of its wildlife policy, unchanged since the 1970s. The policy failed to take into account a booming human population that has encroached on the country's national parks and erected¹² towns in the middle of wildlife migration¹³ routes.

Aside from elephants and rhinoceros¹⁴, wildlife numbers are down. The country is waiting for a new land-use policy that could bring order to what has been the chaotic¹⁵ subdivision and sale of thousands of acres of wildlife habitat for tea cultivation¹⁶, flower farms, and scattered¹⁷ plots.

David Western, a conservationist and the former chief of Kenya's Wildlife Service says conflict between humans and wildlife, and particularly elephants, is on the rise, sparking a backlash.

"The conflict by everyone's reckoning has gotten worse. The bushmeat trade has run wider and deeper, which is an expression that people don't have any other value for wildlife," said Western. "The number of people certainly confronting conflict with elephants is very much still on the increase. I think the sentiment of many landowners is, unless we have some value over wildlife, we're going to call in poachers and get rid of it."

At the same time, the law has stripped people of the right to kill problem animals themselves, and punishment for doing so can include prison time. Yet if an elephant, a lion or a buffalo¹⁸ kills a person, the victim's relatives receive just 30,000 Kenyan shillings, about $400, if they get anything at all. There is no compensation for destruction of livestock¹⁹ or crops.

That has made some increasingly angry.

Yusuf Ole Petenya, the secretary of the Shompole Community Trust, says the fate of people has been ignored as conservation groups and activists²⁰ push to highlight the plight²¹ of animals across the region including elephants.

"If one elephant is killed they will quickly take a photo of that, put it on their Web site and say we have a huge crisis, this is only one, this is only the tip of the iceberg²², we have many of them being killed," said Petenya. "But what about, why don't you take a picture equally of a guy who's been killed by a buffalo, or by an elephant, or take 10 cows killed by one lion, carcasses, and say this guy has been reduced to a pauper²³?"

That's not likely to happen anytime soon. Tourism, a leading engine of the Kenyan economy, is booming. It comprises more than 20 percent of the government's annual income. For now, it seems that when it comes to the battle for resources, attention and publicity²⁴, the animals win.

1 orphanage   

n.孤儿院

参考例句：

• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage.他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。
• They gave the proceeds of the sale to the orphanage.他们把销售的收入给了这家孤儿院。

2 trample   

vt.踩，践踏；无视，伤害，侵犯

参考例句：

• Don't trample on the grass. 勿踏草地。
• Don't trample on the flowers when you play in the garden. 在花园里玩耍时,不要踩坏花。

3 ranger   

n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员

参考例句：

• He was the head ranger of the national park.他曾是国家公园的首席看守员。
• He loved working as a ranger.他喜欢做护林人。

4 brutally   

adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地

参考例句：

• The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
• A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。

5 slaughtered   

v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The invading army slaughtered a lot of people. 侵略军杀了许多人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Hundreds of innocent civilians were cruelly slaughtered. 数百名无辜平民遭残杀。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

7 persecuted   

（尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人

参考例句：

• Throughout history, people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. 人们因宗教信仰而受迫害的情况贯穿了整个历史。
• Members of these sects are ruthlessly persecuted and suppressed. 这些教派的成员遭到了残酷的迫害和镇压。

8 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

9 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

10 maize   

n.玉米

参考例句：

• There's a field planted with maize behind the house.房子后面有一块玉米地。
• We can grow sorghum or maize on this plot.这块地可以种高粱或玉米。

11 devoured   

吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光

参考例句：

• She devoured everything she could lay her hands on: books, magazines and newspapers. 无论是书、杂志，还是报纸，只要能弄得到，她都看得津津有味。
• The lions devoured a zebra in a short time. 狮子一会儿就吃掉了一匹斑马。

12 ERECTED   

adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立

参考例句：

• A monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral. 在圣保罗大教堂为他修了一座纪念碑。
• A monument was erected to the memory of that great scientist. 树立了一块纪念碑纪念那位伟大的科学家。

13 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

14 rhinoceros   

n.犀牛

参考例句：

• The rhinoceros has one horn on its nose.犀牛鼻子上有一个角。
• The body of the rhinoceros likes a cattle and the head likes a triangle.犀牛的形体像牛，头呈三角形。

15 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

16 cultivation   

n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成

参考例句：

• The cultivation in good taste is our main objective.培养高雅情趣是我们的主要目标。
• The land is not fertile enough to repay cultivation.这块土地不够肥沃，不值得耕种。

17 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

18 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。

19 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。

20 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

22 iceberg   

n.冰山，流冰，冷冰冰的人

参考例句：

• The ship hit an iceberg and went under.船撞上一座冰山而沉没了。
• The glacier calved a large iceberg.冰河崩解而形成一个大冰山。

23 pauper   

n.贫民，被救济者，穷人

参考例句：

• You lived like a pauper when you had plenty of money.你有大把钱的时候，也活得像个乞丐。
• If you work conscientiously you'll only die a pauper.你按部就班地干，做到老也是穷死。

24 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。