issue83 [Jet小组]第十三次作业

x6xUID: 2180130

TOPIC: ISSUE83 - "Government should preserve publicly owned wilderness areas in their natural state, even though these areas are often extremely remote and thus accessible to only a few people."
WORDS: 667          TIME: 00:60:00          DATE: 2008-2-28 23:24:47

A recent survey developed by National Geography indicates that the quantity of preserved nature areas around the world has dropped from 700 to less than 500 in the past five years(2002-2007). Though most of those wilderness areas are free from the accessibilities of common people, they are usually the heavens of wild animals and plants. Therefore, I agree with the opinion that public owned wilderness areas should be preserved by government.

On one hand, on the aspect of nature, thousands of wild animals and plants live in the wilderness areas. To illustrate, I want to take Amazon area in the South America as an example. It is the largest rain forest in the world, which supplies the earth more than 35% of all oxygen. At the same time, there exist valuable animals and rare plants, most of which cannot be found in any other place. However, since the climate is much too wet there, few people make a living on the wide area. In fact, most people in Brazil prefer to live along the coast. At first glance, those forest seem have nothing with common citizens, so it is not strange that many people argue why the government spend such a large amount of money to preserve and maintain that so-called Lung of Earth. For scientists and policy makers, they judge problems in a higher lever. Considering stable and continuable development of the whole world, we have no excuses to refuse to save wild areas. If Amazon was found disappearing by astronauts, millions of valueless genes will be lost and above one thirds of oxygen we enjoy today will never be offered. Therefore, it's far from wise to give up preserving wilderness areas.

On the other hand, on the aspect of culture, such wild areas are often the source of new findings of histories, customs and religions. For instance, there exist countless mini islands on the Pacific Ocean. Among them, most are accessible to only a few people; what's more, on some islands, such as Easter Island of Chile famous for the name Navel of Earth, no foot prints have ever been left before 1990. Nonetheless, through aeronautic photographing, a gargantuan scale of stone sculptures were found. Live expressions of those Gods, strange range of the arts and huge size of the stones attracted archaeologists, anthropologists and historians. It follows that a groups of experts supported by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural) first launch on that island on October 17th, 1999. Through tough exploration and long-lasting research, the secret of those amazing stone sculptures was discovered in the year of 1994, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prizes. It dates back to 2000 BC when the sea lever was much lower and aborigines in America waded across fords to reach the island. Later, a lot of culture and histories were uncovered. Whereas, behind the glaring and glorying discovery, the efforts the government of Chile made was often ignored. Before 1990, in case of stealing sculptures, Chile government had set it as a special preserved area and arranged police cruising it termly for more than 15 years, when the government bore a large pressure from the whole society. For it was a wasteland and difficult to be exploited for tourism, common people thought it was meaningless to waste much money on preserving the island. Luckily but consequentially, time and history provides the strongest and most powerful support to Chile government. Without the guard, the sculptures may be stolen and thus the valuable cultural secrets will be covered with dusts for ever.

Admittedly, many wilderness areas being preserved or still requiring preservations are often extremely remote and thus accessible to only a few people. In fact, we could judge a act just according its direct benefit. Piercing the scratches, we can discover excessive aspects of benefits brought by those preservations.

In conclusion, for the effects on the aspects of nature and culture, I strongly agree with the opinion that public owned wilderness areas should be preserved by government.