Ecological problems
Since ancient times Nature has served Man. being the source of his life. For thousands of years people lived in harmony with emvironment and it seemed to them that natural riches were unlimited. We have no right to blame our ancestors for their ecological ignorance: they wanted to survive. Even in the 19th century when the word "ecology" was born people continued to use nature as consumers, considering Man to be "lord and king" of nature and not the child. In the 20th century with the rapid growth of science and technology. human achievements in conquering nature became so great that man's economic activities began to produce an increasingly negative effect on the biosphere. Large cities with thousands of smoky industrial enterprises appear all over the world today. The by-products of their activity pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we grow grain and vegetables. Every year world industry pollutes the atmosphere with about 1000 million tons of dust and other harmful substances. Many cities suffer from smog. Vast forests are cut and burn in fire. Their disappearance upsets the oxygen balance. As a result some rare species of animals, birds, fish and plants disappear forever, a number of rivers and lakes dry up. The pollution of air and the world's ocean, destruction of the ozone layer is the result of man's careless interaction with nature, a sign of ecological crises. For example, fast food started in America just over 30 years ago. In those days, most of the meat for the burgers came from cattle farms in Central American countries like Costa Rica. The problem was and is that the land in those countries is not really good for beef farming. First, large areas of rainforest have to be burnt to provide land for cattle. After the burning of the trees, the soil loses its nutrients, and after a few years, it becomes useless for feeding cattle. Farmers can't use the land again so they have to go somewhere else to begin the destruction once more. In addition, trees can't grow again. Since the 1950s most of the rainforest of Central America has disappeared in this way and a large area in the Amazon forest in Brazil too. Why do governments sell their rainforests? Rainforests are found in poor. underdeveloped areas where the government doesn`t have money to look after them. For this reason, it has to sell the land - either to cattle farmers, or to businessmen who will open mines to extract valuable minerals like iron, copper and aluminium, or to timber merchants who cut down the trees and sell the valuable tropical wood. This causes enormous damage to the natural life of these areas. Many of the animals. which live there, such as the woolly spider monkey, are in danger of becoming extinct. And it's the same sad story for the native people of the rainforests. They have to leave their homes and a lot of them died because of Western diseases like flu. The result is the destruction of the rainforests. Now conservation groups are encouraging governments to plant more trees in areas of forest that have been destroyed. They are also calling for richer, more developed countries to cancel the debts of poor countries so that they won't need to sell their rainforests. The most horrible ecological disaster befell Belarus and its people in the result of the Chemobyl tragedy in April 1986. About 18 per cent of the territory of Belarus were polluted with radioactive substances. A great damage has been done to the republic's agriculture, forests and people's health. The consequences of this explosion at the atomic power station are tragic for the Belarusian nation. Environmental protection is an universal concern. That is why serious measures to create a system of ecological security should be taken. Some progress has been already made in this direction. As many as 159 countries - members of the UNO - have set up environmental protection agencies. Numerous conferences have been held by these agencies to discuss questions of ecologically poor regions including the Aral Sea, the South Urals, Kuzbass. Donbass, Semipalatinsk and Chernobyl. The international environmental research centre has been set up on Lake Baikal. The international organisation Greenpeace is also doing much to preserve the environment. This organisation has brought the plight of the natural world to the attention of caring people. Greenpeace began with a protest voyage into a nuclear test zone. The test was disrupted. Then Greenpeace sent its tiny inflatable boats to protect the whales. Today commercial whaling is banned. In the North Sea Greenpeace swimmers turned back dump ships carrying chemical wastes. New laws to protect the North Sea were promised. Peaceful direct action by Greenpeace has involved the power of public opinion, which in turn has forced changes in the law to protect wildlife and to stop the pollution of the natural world. But these are only the initial steps and they must be carried forward to protect nature, to save life on the planet not only for the sake of the present but also for the future generations.