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🎁 中英文稿：
By the end of the century, the United Nations reckons the population of Africa could hit 4.3 billion people—four times today's numbers. It's the fastest-growing spot on the planet, which inevitably means growing pains: “We're seeing a real rush , almost a feeding frenzy of foreign mining investment, and in some cases, land grabs." Bill Laurance, an ecologist at James Cook University in Australia.
截止到本世紀末，聯合國估計非洲人口將達到43億——是當今數量的4倍。這是地球上人口增速最快的地區，而不可避免，這意味著增長煩惱：“在這裡我們看到人口激增，同時外國礦業投資瘋狂增長，在一些區域出現了土地爭奪的現象。”Bill Laurance，講述了這番言論，他是澳大利亞詹姆斯庫克大學的生態學家。
"We're living in the most active era of infrastructure and road expansion in human history. We're projected to see 25 million kilometers of new paved roads on the planet by the middle of the century, which is enough to go around the world more than 600 times." Thirty-three of those roads—spanning 53,000 kilometers—are already planned in Africa. So Laurance and his colleagues examined the pros and cons of the new projects. They measured potential benefits, like more agricultural opportunities, and weighed those gains against environmental impacts.
“我們生活在人類歷史上基礎設施以及道路擴展最活躍的時代。在本世紀中葉，估計我們將看到地球上將會鋪設25百萬千米的新公路。這個長度足夠繞地球600多圈。 ”其中有33條道路——長達5.3萬千米——已經計劃在非洲鋪設。所以Laurance和同事們調查了新項目的利弊。並估量了這些項目可能會帶來的益處，例如增加農業機遇，同時，他們也衡量了這些成果對於環境的影響。
The research team determined that the planned roads and railways would slice through more than 400 protected areas. And if you include a 25-kilometer buffer zone on each side of the road—where Laurance says new hunting, poaching, farming, logging and mining are bound to pop up—the tally of violated protected areas rises to more than 2,000. The researchers do endorse five of the 33 roads as promising—good for humans, not so bad for the environment. And they identify the six worst planned roads, which they say probably should not be built at all. The study is in the journal Current Biology.
研究團隊認為，計劃修建的道路和鐵路將會穿越400多個保護區。如果將道路兩側的25千米的緩衝區囊括在內——Laurance稱緩衝區新的狩獵、非法狩獵、耕作、伐木以及採礦一定如春筍般出現——而受到損害的保護區的數量已經超過2000多個。研究人員同意，33條公路中，有5條的確是非常有前途的——對人類有益處，同時也不會破壞環境。而其中規劃最糟糕的6條道路，研究人員認為根本就不應該修建。該研究結果發表在《當代生物學》雜誌上。
Laurance says we've seen the effects of rampant road-building before: "Two-thirds of the world's forest elephants have been wiped out in the last decade. And this has actually been linked pretty clearly with the expansion of the road network in the Congo already." And the first paved road through the Amazon, finished in the early 70s, is now a 400-kilometer-wide gash through the rainforest. Considering all the attention carbon emissions are getting in Paris right now, it might be worth remembering where one-sixth of the world's emissions come from: deforestation.
Laurance稱我們已經見過大肆進行公路建設所帶來的影響：“過去十年，世界上2/3的森林大象已經滅絕。這與剛果地區公路網擴張有著明顯的關係。”穿越亞馬遜第一條公路，在70世紀早期完工，現在這條公路是一條橫跨亞馬遜雨林的寬達400千米的裂縫。想想在巴黎舉辦的聯合國氣候變化大會上，碳排放吸引了所有人的注意，人們可能應該記住世界上1/6的溫室氣體排放來自於：森林砍伐。
