2024届外刊阅读天天练 综合训练十二

高考英语外刊阅读天天练 综合训练十二 Loggers Devour Canadian Forests That Help Fight Climate Change 【The New York Times(January 4, 2024)】 Canada has long promoted itself globally as a model for protecting one of the country's most vital natural resources: the world's largest swath of boreal forest, which is crucial to fighting climate change. But a new study using nearly half a century of data from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec reveals that harvesting trees has inflicted severe damage on the boreal forest that will be difficult to reverse. Researchers led by a group from Griffith University in Australia found that since 1976 logging in the two provinces has caused the removal of 35.4 million acres of boreal forest, an area roughly the size of New York State. While nearly 56 million acres of well-established trees at least a century old remain in the region, logging has shattered this forest, leaving behind a patchwork of isolated stands of trees that has created a landscape less able to support wildlife. And it has made the land more susceptible to wildfire. Under Canada's forestry standards, logging companies can clear vast areas of all trees and vegetation and are required to replant the land or demonstrate that the forest will naturally regenerate. But, scientists say, without the thick bark of older trees, younger trees are more vulnerable to wildfire, and logging companies typically replant species more suitable for the timber industry rather than those resistant to fire. “The Canadian government claims to have managed the forest according to the principles of sustainable forest management," said Brendan Mackey, the study's lead author, “but its notion of sustainability is really tied to maintaining and maximizing wood production and ensuring the regeneration of commercially desirable trees. That has a lot of implications for biodiversity." Peter Wood, a lecturer on forest resources management at the University of British Columbia, who was not involved in the study, call