Words in the News Wednesday 03 April 2002 Vocabulary from the news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
Bleak outlook for the world's forests Summary: An American-based environmental research group says that untouched forest areas are disappearing faster than was previously thought.
This report from Tim Hirsch.
This alarming picture emerges from a two-year programme to map more than half of the world's remaining forests. The Washington-based environmental think tank the World Resources Institute found that many areas thought to consist of intact forests are in fact criss-crossed by roads, logging and mining activities.
Some of the biggest concerns are for Russian forests, still the largest in the world, but where only a quarter remain undisturbed. The report says without decisive action, intact forest landscapes could disappear from whole regions within a few years.
There's also alarm at the rate of deforestation in Indonesia. It's thought to have doubled in just two years, accelerated by illegal logging and corruption. Four years ago the same team estimated that around forty per cent of undisturbed forests would disappear within two decades if the rate of destruction continued as it was. They now believe that was an underestimate.
