More than 30 years ago, Jadav Payeng started planting trees on a barren sandbar (贫瘠的沙洲) near his birthplace in India’s Assam region. That day, the then-16-year-old noticed many snakes washed up on the sandbar after a flood. They were dying due to heat exposure at a rapid rate. “How can I help them?” Then he had an idea: Trees can provide shade for them!
Jadav lives on an island, Majuli, which is in the middle of the Brahmaputra River. It begins at the base of the Himalayas, at the meeting of a fan of rivers that drain (流走) snowmelt. At one time, villages upstream had redirected the river, creating more forceful currents around the island and carrying away the soil, thus damaging the natural habitats of its wildlife. As a consequence, much of the island became barren sand, and an entire community was at risk of being displaced.
Jadav also noticed that nobody was doing anything about it besides watching their part of the world disappear. So, he started to put his idea into action — every day, one or two or three at a time. He took notes of how they grew, harvested their seeds, grew saplings (树苗) in his hut and planted before going off to work.
Now that once-barren sandbar is a 1,360-acre forest, home to many animals: deer, Bengal tigers, Indian rhinoceros and even a group of 100 elephants that visit every year. There are now native grasses that have taken root in the shade and varieties of native trees grown from seeds that have washed ashore. But most importantly, the island that is also home to a few hundred people is holding its own against the bad weather. Standing beside one of the first trees he planted 30 years ago, Jadav tells us: “It’s a little thing, something anyone can do.”
【小题1】What was Jadav’s original aim to plant trees?| A．To save the snakes from heat exposure. | B．To protect the snakes from extinction. |
| C．To produce materials to stop flooding. | D．To use the leaves to create more shades. |
| A．Villagers’ ignorance of ecology. | B．Villagers’ redirecting the river. |
| C．The extreme weather conditions. | D．Loss of wildlife’s natural habitats. |
| A．Frank and learned. | B．Subjective yet reliable. |
| C．Determined and careful. | D．Smart but hot-tempered. |
| A．What the forest means to the wildlife. | B．How ecology benefits the human kind. |
| C．How Jadav feels about his simple deeds. | D．What difference Jadav’s efforts have made. |
