In the early 19th century in response to increasing industrialization which had

begun to cause large scale damage or destruction to natural environments in

western Europe and North America. ___(2)___. It was designated by the United

States Congress in 1872. The term "national park", however, was first used for

the Royal National Park established in New South Wales, Australia, in 1879.

The concept of national parks then spread to Canada and New Zealand.

___(3)___. Similar parks were created in Japan, Mexico, the former Soviet

Union, Britain and France.

(iii) In addition to the original purposes of landscape conservation and

public recreation many parks have been established to protect endangered

species of animals or plants and to promote scientific research. They may

therefore be seen as nature reserves, a term which refers to a variety of areas in

which rare animals, plants, or whole environments are protected and studied.

Hunting and other disruptive activities are limited or banned and public access is

often strictly controlled or even forbidden. ____(4)____.

(iv) Many national parks and nature reserves are affected by a conflict

between the needs of conservation and recreation. Visitors may unintentionally

destroy the landscapes or interfere with the flora and fauna that the parks were

created to protect. ___(5)____. Designated trails or roads have been created, as

In several African national parks, and guided tours made compulsory, as in some

national parks in India.

(v) The designation of national parks and nature reserves can also conflict

with other possible uses for the land and resources, especially in the relatively

remote, sparsely populated, and politically unimportant areas which tend to be

most suitable for conservation. Some conservation areas may be threatened by

commercial exploitation of their minerals or trees. ____(6)___.

(vi) The conservation of such areas of natural beauty, cultural heritage, or

scientific interest is especially problematic in developing countries where, in

contrast to those industrialized nations which were the first to establish national

parks and nature reserves, governments and pressure groups often find that

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proposals to impose limits on further development are too costly or

unpopular.__(7)____.

Did You Get It?

I. Answer the following questions.

1. When and why did the concept of creating national parks and nature

reserves develop?

2. Where and when was the first national park in the world created? What

is its name?

3. Where did the first national park in Europe appear?

4. What criteria are used when selecting an area as a national park or a

nature reserve?

5. What is a nature reserve?

6. What activities are banned in a nature reserve?

7. What activities can be permitted in a national park?

8. What conflict do many national parks and nature reserve face?

9. Why is the conservation issue problematic in the developing countries?

10. Name all the national parks mentioned in the text.

II. Say whether the following statements true or false. Correct the

false ones. Use the following phrases to express your agreement or

disagreement.

a) According to the text, all animals, plants, or whole environments are

protected and studied in a reserve.

b) Hunting is limited or banned in the reserves.

c) Sometimes reserves can be situated within national parks.

d) Visitors may intentionally destroy the landscapes or interfere with the

flora and fauna of the parks.

e) According to the text, the relatively remote, sparsely populated, and

politically unimportant areas tend to be most suitable for conservation.

f) Developing countries were the first to establish national parks and

nature reserves.

g) National parks and nature reserves in developing countries are

supported and sponsored by governments and pressure groups.

III. Put these words and phrases in the right order to form sentences.

a) may be, nature reserves, national parks, inside, situated.

b) in developing countries, is, of natural areas, problematic, the

conservation, especially.

c) unintentionally, may, of, visitors, destroy, the landscapes, the national

park.

d) parks, for, facilities, recreation, national, provide, public.

IV. Complete the following statements according to the information to

the text.

a) Many parks have been established with the purposes of

_____________.

b) National parks and nature reserves are areas selected by

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_______________.

c) The term "national park" was first used for _____________.

d) Yellowstone National Park is situated in ____________.

e) Public access to the reserves is _____________.

f) Mining, electricity generation, and other large scale activities can be

permitted, if they are _________.

Words, Words, Words…

I. Match up and explain the meaning.

• nature • tours

• national • areas

• guided • heritage

• electricity • species

• developing • conservation

• fragile • reserve

• public • generation

• endangered • park

• cultural • countries

• landscape • recreation

II. Find in the text words and word combinations which mean the

following.

a. An adjective meaning “easily broken or damaged” (para iv);

b. a noun meaning “a piece of land set aside for wild animals, plants, etc”

(para i);

c. a verb meaning “ to forbid” (para iii);

d. an adjective meaning “costing a lot of money” (para vi);

e. a verb meaning “to watch how something is changing or progressing

over a period of time” (para iii);

f. an adjective meaning “not common, scarce” (para iii);

g. a verb meaning “to appoint, to lebel” (para ii).

III. Match up the words with their definitions.

a) pioneering • the preservation and protection of the

environment and the natural things in it;

b) flora • way of spending free time

c) sparsely populated • a group of people that actively tries to

influence public opinion and

government action;

d) large scale • all the plants of a particular place,

country, or period;

e) conservation • introducing new ways of doing things,

which others later follow;

f) recreation • populated in a scattered way;

g) pressure group • happening over a very wide area or

involving a lot of people or things.

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IV. Fill in the gaps with the words from the table.

The National Parks in the United States differ from the National Forests.

The National Parks are set aside for ___(1)__ meaning that their __(2)___ are

not to be used: trees will not be cut, hunting is not allowed. Within the National

Parks there are no private __(3)___, people do not live there except for the

people who manage the NP. ___(4)_______, the National Forests in the USA

are set aside for __(5)____. Within the National Forest visitors are allowed to

hunt, to make fires, to cut down trees and to mine ___(6)__. The National Park

System in the United States contains 80 million acres of land, whereas the

National Forest System contains well over 170 million __(7)__ of land.

Our National Parks and National Forests are also used for ___(8)___.

Many tourists visit them each year. So many tourists, in fact, that the National

Parks are in _(9)___ of "being loved to death". Yellowstone NP has over 12

million visitors per year, and certain sections of the park had to be closed down

because of the __(10)___of those people on the park. The National Forests are

used for backpacking, __(11)____, fishing, and camping. A wide range of

outdoor recreation activities is provided by different recreation facilities: hiking

trails, horseback riding trails, campgrounds, picnic grounds, visitor centers,

lodging and food facilities, etc.

It is very important to ___(12)___ the preservation of nature with using

natural areas for recreation and never forget that "we do not inherit our world

from our forefathers, we borrow it from our children".

• resources • recreation • conservation • on the other hand

• threat • preservation • impact • hunting

• balance • residences • minerals • acres

Time to Talk

Make a presentation (12-15 sentences) of a national park or a reserve.

Find information about some national park or reserve either in

Russia or overseas and share it with your group mates.

UNIT VIII TIME TO REVISE

I. You are going to read a text about environmental change.

Read the introductory paragraph below and fill in the gaps with words

from the box.

• resources • destruction • ecology

• environment • habitats

We have come to the end of a millennium of violent ___(1)____ of the

world around us.

While human creativity and technology have developed, we have steadily

been destroying the _____(2)___ of the planet on which we live. The sad fact is

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that every day the diversity of life on Earth gets poorer because of our overuse

of ____(3)____ and our ignorance for the riches of nature. Ecologically, our

natural ____ (4) ____ provide services without which life on the planet would

become impossible. When we tamper with the ____(5)____, it is not only nature

which suffers. Our own way of life is under threat.

Read the next part of the text. Then use the phrases from the box

below to fill in the gaps.

• acid rain • gases • ozone layer

• changes in climate • greenhouse effect • toxic wastes

• fossil fuels • pollution • leach

Since the industrial revolution, man has burn ever larger quantities of

___(6)_____, first coal and then oil, with the result that the composition of the

atmosphere has started to change. Burning these fuels produces

_____(7)_____ such as carbon dioxide, which act in the atmosphere like glass in

a greenhouse and trap the heat of the sun - this is known as the ___(8)_____.

The overall global temperature has already begun to rise. Global warming leads

to extreme ____(9)____, with more frequent floods, droughts and heat waves.

No person, animal, bug or bird will be unaffected. In addition to greenhouse

gases, industrial processes produce poisonous substances which can be