UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DO MARANHÃO – UEMA

CENTRO DE CIÊNCIAS TECNOLÓGICAS

CURSO DE FORMAÇÃO DE OFICIAIS – CFO BM
PROFESSORA: Me. Laura Virgínia Tinoco Farias
DISCIPLINA: INGLÊS INSTRUMENTAL

Reading activity
Considering the Reading strategies, answer the questions below

We're asking the wrong questions about conservation

James Watson - The Guardian, Monday 29 July 2013

When looking at the best way to protect

wildlife from the growing climate change crisis,
conservation scientists usually ignore the most
significant impact on fauna and flora: the
changes that global warming causes in the
behaviour of humans and resultant effects on
the living world and natural processes. Those
effects are already causing many of the climate-
related ecological changes that we are seeing
across the globe.
For example, the opening up of the Arctic for
oil and gas because of sea-ice reduction directly impacts polar biodiversity. Expansion of agricultural activities
due to changes in rainfall in the mountains of Africa's Albertine Rift and the valleys of the Congo Basin now
put gorilla habitat at risk there.
Elsewhere, the construction of ineffective seawalls in Papua New Guinea to slow down the impact of sea-
level rise has caused the complete destruction of some of the most biodiverse coral reefs in the world.
Increasing temperatures across the Tibetan plateau also contribute to a change in the balance between
indigenous herders and wildlife.
The list is endless but it is not all negative. For example, in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala,
efforts by local communities to control a growing number of wildfire incidents are having a positive impact
on vulnerable populations of threatened species like jaguar.
However, some people could say that in their work on climate change, conservation scientists have forgotten
a basic concept of our field: that conservation is fundamentally about people.
A look at the literature shows that in 2013, more than 6,500 papers related to climate change have been
published in conservation journals. The majority of them examine how and where future changes in
temperature and rainfall can make species more vulnerable.
It’s true that direct threats to species are often less difficult to identify, quantify and predict, but indirect
threats can often be much more significant and permanent. This is also true with climate change. For
example, the risk for a national park to become the best place to grow food can be the most relevant threat
to species there.
The wrong direction of conservation science in terms of climate change is not because of not enough data or
no time to do relevant research. It is more basic than that. We're asking the wrong questions.
Understanding the ecology of species and possible responses to climate change is helpful, but understanding
how humans are going to be affected by climate and what impact this will cause on those species is much
more important.
As a conservationist who has spent his career looking at climate change impacts, I have stopped worrying
about how species are going to respond and begun focusing on how human adaptations will affect those
species. It is clear to me that this is what our immediate priority should be.
Failure to predict human adaptations to climate change brings us to a future of emergency responses that are
completely inadequate to the needs for this century. With greater attention to this subject, we can focus on
conservation resources and work more effectively and efficiently with what many of us believe to be the
greatest global challenge of our time.

Adapted from: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/29/conservation-climate-change-species

Read the article, and do the activities below:

a) Using your own words, explain the meaning of the title.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

b) The author presents two points of view. Which are they? Explain in your own words.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

c) How does the author defend his point of view? Mention at least one argument that he uses for this
purpose.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

d) What is the situation of wildlife protection in our country? Explain.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________