Reading. 3.Read the text and say if you agree with the author

3. Read the text and say if you agree with the author.

Conservation and Recycling

Conservation and recycling are all about what humans can do to reduce our impact on the environment.

Conservation is important for protecting nature and culture. Conservation measures protect species by maintaining their habitats and protecting them from poachers and over-hunting/over-harvesting. There are several reasons why it’s important to conserve species and natural habitats:

ss) Protecting endangered species.

Many species are now endangered, often due to hunting and destruction of their habitats. They need to be protected to stop them becoming extinct.

tt) Protecting the human food supply.

Overfishing is greatly reduced fish stocks in the sea. Conservation measures (e.g. quotas on how many fish can be caught) encourage the survival and growth of fish stocks. This protects the food supply for future generations.

uu) Maintaining biodiversity.

Conservation measures in a woodland habitat may include:

25. Coppicing- this is an ancient form of woodland management. It involves cutting trees down to just above ground level. The stumps sprout straight, new stems which can be regularly harvested.

26. Reforestation- where forests have been cut down in the past, they can be replanted to recreate the habitat that has been lost.

27. Replacement planting – this is when new trees are planted at the same rate that others are cut down. So the total number of trees remains the same.

Recycling conserves our natural resources. If materials aren’t recycled they get thrown away as waste. This means that:

- There is more waste, so more land has to be used for landfill sites (waste dumps). Some waste is toxic (poisonous). So this also means more polluted land.

- More materials have to be manufactured or extracted to make new products (rather than recycling existing ones)- using up more of the Earth’s resources and more energy.

Recycling uses up less of the Earth’s natural resources. Recycling processes usually use less energy and create less pollution than manufacturing or extracting materials from scratch. Recyclable materials include metals, paper, plastics and glass.

There are some problems with recycling. First, recycling still uses energy, e.g. for collecting, sorting, cleaning and processing waste. Second, some waste materials can be difficult and time-consuming to sort out, e.g. different types of plastic have to be separated from each other before they can be recycled. Finally, in some cases, the quality of recycled materials isn’t as good as new materials, e.g. recycled paper.

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