(27)：最友善的砍伐--热带森林管理与经营

（27）：最友善的砍伐--热带森林管理与经营 沪江英语 | chenjilong 上一期 下一期 TEXT 27

The kindest cut

最友善的砍伐（陈继龙 编译）

May 25th 2006 From The Economist print edition

DEPRESSING reports about how quickly the world's tropical forests are being f________① are commonplace. But depressing reports about the state of the trees that are still standing are much rarer. In fact, a new study from the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), an offshoot of the United Nations, claims to be the first exhaustive survey of tropical-forest management ever undertaken. （1）Its findings, although grim, do contain a kernel of hope.

有关全球热带森林遭到乱砍滥伐、令人痛心的报道极为常见，但是痛陈现存林木状况的报道却少之又少。事实上，联合国分支机构——国际热带木材组织（ITTO）新近开展的一项

[1]

研究，据称是首次对热带森林管理现状进行深入调查。其发现虽然令人沮丧，但从中我们还是看到了一线希望。

The ITTO examined “permanent forest estate”, meaning land that the governments of its 33 members have formally set aside for forests, and is therefore subject to some form of regulation or protection. The category includes both national parks and timber concessions, in both public and p________② hands. It covers 814m hectares, and accounts for roughly two-thirds of the world's tropical forests. ITTO调查的对象是“永久性森林地产”，也就是被ITTO所属33个成员国政府正式划作森林地域，从而受到某种形式的管理或保护的土地。它涉及国家森林公园和木材的特许经营，包括国营和私营。地产总面积达8.14亿公顷，约占全球热带森林面积的三分之二。

The concept is important, explains Duncan Poore, one of the authors of the report, because it is not always possible, or desirable, to protect every last grove against encroaching[2] farms or homes. Instead, governments should c__________③ on maintaining the forests that are the most commercially and scientifically valuable. Yet the ITTO's researchers found that only 15% of the permanent forest estate has a management plan, and less than 5% of it is sustainably managed. That still amounts to an area the size of Germany, the report notes, and represents a dramatic improvement since 1988, when an earlier and less extensive survey found that only one country in the tropics—Trinidad and Tobago—had any well-run forests at all. But （2）relative to the area of forest that has disappeared over the same period, the well-managed area is negligible.

此项研究报告的作者之一邓肯?玻尔解释说，这一概念意义重大，因为我们不可能，也不值得对每一片濒临消失的小树林都一直进行保护以避免其被农田或住宅侵占。相反，政府

应当集中精力养护好那些最具有商业和科学价值的森林。可是ITTO的研究人员却发现，在“永久性森林地产”中，仅15％有着相应的管理方案，而能坚持贯彻执行这一方案的只有5％。报告中提到，整个地产所涵盖的区域相当于一个德国的大小，自从1988年以来已经得到了极大改善。当年一项粗略的早期调查发现，热带地区国家中只有特立尼达和多巴哥对森林管理较为完善。但是，相对于同期已然消亡的森林而言，这片管理得当的森林是微不足道的。

The crux[3] is bad government. Poor countries do not always have good forestry laws. （3）Even when they do, they rarely have the capacity to enforce them. It is no coincidence that M__________④, the country with the highest proportion of prudently managed forest in the study, is also one of the richest. Countries with the worst run forests, meanwhile, are war-torn places such as Congo and Cambodia.

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