VOA标准英语2014--Summit Pledges to Save the Oceans 全球海洋保护峰会承诺保护海洋

 

Summit Pledges to Save the Oceans 全球海洋保护峰会承诺保护海洋

The summit on protecting the world’s oceans ended Friday, with a call to tackle the major threats of climate change, overfishing, habitat loss and pollution. The Global Oceans Action Summit for Blue Growth and Food Security was held in The Hague.

A joint¹ initiative on ocean health was announced by the Netherlands -- the summit host country -- the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank and summit organizers.

Valerie Hickey of the World Bank said the summit was a success.

“I think this was the first time that over 600 people came together to align² agendas across the conservation and growth fields to discuss how can we actually commit to action to support broad-based blue growth, food security. This was about making sure that we can invest in the oceans in a way that alleviates³ poverty, that shares broad prosperity, while turning down the heat.”

Hickey, World Bank’s sector⁴ manager for agriculture and environmental services, said broad agreement was possible at the oceans summit -- unlike many summits on climate change.

“This was the Global Oceans Action Summit. This was not an inter-government where we were negotiating text. This was an opportunity for the over 80 ministers, leaders from the private sector and civil society to sit down together and make commitments to real action in real time. This was an opportunity to take our hats off – to not speak simply from government positions – to move beyond our positions and start talking about real commitments in real time,” she said.

She said that agreement was reached on a three part approach to protecting the oceans. The first would set-up partnerships⁵.

“We need to bring in the private sector. We need to increase our investments in small and medium size enterprises. Because at the end of the day it’s local communities – it’s family fishers – it’s small-scale fishers – who are going to drive broad-based blue growth in the ocean space. We also talked about governance. We talked about the fact that we need to accelerate action to make sure we can eliminate illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing,” said Hickey.

The third part of the strategy, she said, calls for financing from new places and new partners to support blue growth programs. Hickey says she’s confident these recommendations will move from commitment to action.

“Absolutely,” she said, “I can say personally that we, as the World Bank, are committed to following up on the actions that we promised to do after the summit. It includes helping⁶ countries to undertake natural capital accounting⁷ of their ocean resources so they can begin to realize real returns from their ocean assets in a sustainable way – in a broad-based way – that returns benefits to those local communities and small-scale fishers, who rely for food security for their livelihoods⁸ – for their income – on the oceans.”

Also commenting on the outcome of the oceans summit was Netherlands Agriculture Minister Sharon Dijksma, chair of the summit. She says, “The world community has shown courage and boldness to move ahead and take action on ocean health and food security.”

1 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

2 align   

vt.使成一线，结盟，调节；vi.成一线，结盟

参考例句：

• Align the ruler and the middle of the paper.使尺子与纸张的中部成一条直线。
• There are signs that the prime minister is aligning himself with the liberals.有迹象表明首相正在与自由党人结盟。

3 alleviates   

减轻，缓解，缓和( alleviate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Heat often alleviates pain. 热常常能减缓疼痛。
• A cold compress often alleviates pain. 冷敷常会减轻疼痛。

4 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

5 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句

6 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

7 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

8 livelihoods   

生计，谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者，他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小，他们的传统生计受到了威胁。