精品解析：新疆乌鲁木齐市第101中学2023-2024学年高二上学期1月期末英语试题

乌鲁木齐市第101中学 2023-2024学年 高二上学期期末考试 英语试题 总分120分 考试时间120分钟 第一部分：阅读（共两节，满分50分） 阅读理解（共37.5分） A Ah, earth’s oceans. They are beautiful, inspiring and life-sustaining. They are also, as you’re probably quite aware, more or less screwed. In the Seychelles, for example, human activities and climate change have left corals bleached. Over fishing has caused fish stocks to drop. Biodiversity is in danger. Some form of protection is needed, obviously. When marine areas are strategically protected, the entire ecosystems can bounce back. What exactly does smart ocean conservation look like? I want to share with you a brilliant idea from The Nature Conservancy (TNC). They’ve realized debt held by island and coastal nations is the key to achieving their conservation goals. TNC’s idea is to restructure this debt to generate the funds and political will to protect corals and fisheries. This is how the work gets done. Step one: negotiate the deal. A coastal nation commits to protect at least 30% of its ocean areas. In exchange, TNC brings investors, public funders and international development organizations to the table to restructure a portion of the nation’s debt, leading to lower interest rates and longer repayment periods. Step two: create a marine plan. TNC works with marine scientists, government leaders and local stakeholders to create a detailed conservation plan that integrates the needs of the ocean with the needs of the people. Step three: activate for longevity. TNC establishes an independently operated conservation trust fund. The savings from the debt restructure goes into it to support new marine protected areas. The trust guarantees the government is responsible. Could this plan work? It already has. In 2016, TNC helped create a national conservation plan in the Seychelles by restructuring $22 million of the government’s debt. And in exchange, the government agreed to protect 30% of its marine areas. Today, the Seychelles is on track to protect 400,000 square kil