Thousands of years ago, Britain 【小题1】(cover) by thick forests, where wolves, bears, many different 【小题2】 (type) of deer and wild cattle lived. There were less than four million people who lived in small villages 【小题3】 (protect) by wooden walls from the animals outside. But now the population of the UK has increased to sixty-five million. Three-quarters of Britain 【小题4】 (make)up of fields, towns or cities. Although 25 per cent of land is countryside, new methods of farming mean that there are 【小题5】 (few) birds and small animals living in fields than ever before. 【小题6】 (actual), some organizations and writers say that Britain needs to become more natural again. They suggest trees and plants 【小题7】 grew in the United Kingdom before towns and cities were built should be allowed to grow again. Even large wild animals should be helped to return and live wild. They call his "rewilding", But not everyone agrees. In the last twenty years, over one million trees which originally grew in Scotland 【小题8】 (plant). But wild animals? Some people ask 【小题9】 wolves will attack sheep or even humans. They are also angry that rewilding might mean an end to 【小题10】 (walk) in the hills which so many people enjoy.

Situated on the outskirts of Hangzhou in East China’s Zhejiang province, Xixi National Wetland Park is the first national wetland park in China. For the abundant ecological 【小题1】(resource), unaffected natural scenery and profound cultural accumulation here, it is the only natural wetland park integrating (融合) urban wetland, agricultural wetland 【小题2】 cultural wetland in one at home now.

When 【小题3】 (visit) the Xixi National Wetland Park on March 31, 2020, President Xi Jinping pointed out that the value of the wetlands lies in their 【小题4】 (origin) ecology, and that environmental protection should be prioritized in the wetlands.

Water is the soul of Xixi. With an area of 11. 5 square kilometres, the park 【小题5】(cover) by streams, ponds, lakes and swarms. This green watery world is also home to many birds and fishes. 【小题6】 trees growing in the shallows, the wetland is a natural system for providing clean water and producing oxygen, which 【小题7】 (make) it the “green lungs of Hangzhou” as well as 【小题8】 great platform for bird watching, scientific research and education.

In recent years, the wetland park has been 【小题9】(seientific) developed and has been playing vital role in the development of Hangzhou, a place aptly (恰当地)【小题10】(name) “Paradise on Earth”.

At the global wildlife trade meeting in Geneva, countries have decided to protect the endangered mako shark from trade. GENEVA made the proposal   【小题1】 more protections should be taken for both shortfin and longfin mako sharks and was adopted today after a 102-40 vote at the global wildlife trade summit. The vote still needs to be finalized at the full meeting at the end, when all appendix (附录) change proposals passed in committee are officially adopted.

The proposal, debated at this year’s CITES Conference, lists mako sharks under Appendix II, meaning that they can’t be traded 【小题2】 it can be shown that fishing wouldn’t threaten their chances for survival. Conservationists say this was the world’s last chance to prevent mako shark populations from collapsing.

【小题3】 (list) mako sharks on CITES Appendix II is great news for shark conservation. More than 50 of the 183 CITES members signed on as supporters of the proposal brought forth by Mexico. Nonetheless, conservationists feared that opposition from a few countries with fairly large mako fishing industries—primarily the United States, Canada, and Japan—【小题4】 tip the scale. Japan opposed the measure during the debates, and the United States announced afterward it 【小题5】 (vote) no.

In the past, the U.S. and others have supported listing other shark species under CITES, but not so in this case, 【小题6】 commercial interests. For a lot of these countries, they were happy to list shark species when it was ones they weren’t so heavily involved in fishing. Suddenly, when they’re being asked to be responsible, rather than asking other people to be responsible, they’re 【小题7】 (little) keen to take it on board.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which determines the conservation status of species claims that both species of mako sharks to be endangered, saying an   【小题8】 (estimate) 50 to 79 percent population decline over three generations, or about 75 years. They   【小题9】 (target) for their fins (鳍), used in shark fin soup—a dish in Asian countries, that’s often served at weddings as a sign of respect for guests. Their meat is more edible compared to 【小题10】 of other sharks, which is often acidic and is usually sold as a byproduct of the fin trade for “pennies on the dollar”.