The study ended in 2003, but they were unwilling to return home. 【小题1】 So they founded Equus Silvanin, a self-sustaining farm. Here they brought up two daughters while tending to 35 horses. They also kept pigs, chicken, geese and ducks, and grew a large variety of fruits and vegetables.

【小题2】 “Most of the local owners had little economic mind for the land and preferred to sell it, or its resources, to businessmen to make profits,” says Christoph. For the forests, and the animals living in them, the change was catastrophic. Vast areas of woodland, unchanged for thousands of years, were vanishing, eaten up by the biting teeth of power saws as illegal logging swept through the forest. 【小题3】 There were no animals because the undergrowth protecting them had been torn away, leaving a scarred, broken landscape.

“It broke my heart to see that someone could do this to such a beautiful place,” says Christoph. “If you care for nature and for the conservation of our environment, you cannot tolerate such scenes.” 【小题4】 Thus before Christmas 2009, Foundation Conservation Carpathia was born.

Barbara and Christoph networked tirelessly, tapping into all of their conservation friends and contacts. “We found that more and more people were becoming committed to the idea of forest conservation, says Christoph. It's a struggle to change the perceptions of people to their environment. They have had car tyres slashed, and once had their lives threatened by a man who illegally grazed his cattle on land that was off limits. 【小题5】

Rubbish of all kinds is piling up in landfill and polluting our rivers and oceans. A more recent addition to the list of things we discard is e-waste — electronic items that are broken and not recycled. A UN report claims the 50 million tonnes of e-waste produced every year will more than double to 110 million tonnes by 2050, making it the fastest growing waste stream in the world. Now ways are being found to give it a new life.

There’s a growing trend for repair events and clubs which could be part of a solution to the growing amount of electrical and electronic garbage. The BBC visited a Restart Project in London, which is one of the many found around the world. One of its volunteers, Francesco Calo said, “This project allows you to reduce waste, lengthen the life of objects, and it helps people who cannot afford to get rid of items that have developed a fault. ”

Electronics consist of materials like plastic, metals, chemicals and glass. As many electrical items contain valuable metals, another idea is e-waste mining. An experiment at the University of New South Wales includes extracting (提取) these materials from electronic items. It’s thought that doing this could be more profitable than traditional mining. With phones typically containing as many as 60 components, this could be part of the solution to our appetite for new technology.

These projects make total sense — collections of e-waste for recycling are not progressing or even decreasing according to Ruediger Kuehr of the United Nations University. And in countries where there are no recycling laws, much of it is got rid of. However, the European Union, for example, is trying to settle the problem by insisting business firms have to make appliances longer-lasting and have to supply spare parts for machines for up to 10 years.

Zhang Fan, 36, a movie visual effects designer who returned to Beijing from New Zealand for work last year, was surprised by the improvement to the city’s air quality. “I remember the smell in the air and the frequent smoggy days before I left in 2013, after getting a job offer from a film company in New Zealand, ” he said. Last year, a Chinese company offered Zhang a more promising position, so he returned, saying that he could find more opportunities in his line of work in Beijing than elsewhere. In addition to rapid economic development in the Chinese capital, he said the most impressive change is the local air quality. “People discussed air pollution a lot when I was in Beijing previously. Now, it seems that the topic has disappeared completely, as every day is good in terms of air quality,” Zhang said. “The sky in Beijing these days is so clear. ”

On Jan. 4, the municipal authorities in Beijing announced a comprehensive success in improving air quality, with the city’s annual average concentration of PM2. 5 in the air, falling to 33 micrograms per cubic meter, and ozone (臭氧) concentration dropping to 149 mcg per cu m last year.

Yu Jianhua, spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, said at a news conference, “This is a milestone for Beijing’s hard work in fighting air pollution and also means that the city has met its air quality target outlined in the 14th Five-Year Plan(2021-25) ahead of schedule. Beijing has demonstrated to the world over the past 20 years that a mega city with a rapidly increasing GDP, vehicle count, population and energy consumption can move forward to cut air pollution effectively. The PM2.5 reduction over the past few years has surpassed that of developed countries during the same period.

According to the Bureau, the city’s average concentration of PM2.5 dropped by 63 percent last year from 2013, an average annual reduction of about 8 percent. The city experienced 288 days of good air quality last year—up from 112 days in 2013—and just eight days of heavy air pollution. This achievement is clear to see and exciting, but it has not been easy work.