Fill the gaps using these key words from the text:
cattle
deforestation
logging
rancher
urgent
enormous
satellite
slaughterhouse
1. ____________ means ‘very, very big’.
2. A ____________ is a farmer on a large farm in the Americas.
3. Animals are killed for their meat in a ____________.
4. If something is ____________, it is very, very important.
5. Cows which farmers keep for their meat or milk are called ____________ .
6. ____________ is removing all the trees from large areas of land.
7. ____________ is cutting down some trees for their wood.
8. A ____________ is an object that travels high above the Earth and sends back pictures and other
information.
Look in the text and find this information as quickly as possible:
1. How much of the Amazon rainforest was lost last year?
2. What is CIFOR?
3. What percentage of Brazil’s exported beef do the EU countries buy?
4. What percentage does the US buy?
5. How many cattle were there in the Amazon region in 2002?
6. How much will the Brazilian government spend to save the rainforest?
Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2004
Taken from the News
section in
www.onestopenglish.com
Demand for beef
speeds
destruction of
Amazon forest
An international report says
that last year was a very bad
year for the Amazon
rainforest in Brazil. Satellite
photographs show that
almost 26,000 sq km of the
world’s largest forest was
lost, 40% more than the year
before. The Centre for
International Forestry
Research (CIFOR) says that
this year’s loss could be
even greater.
The main reason for the loss
of forest, or deforestation, is
that farmers are cutting down
trees so that they can
produce grasslands for their
cows. Brazil exports a lot of
beef to Europe and Brazilian
beef is very popular in
Europe because there is no
mad cow disease in Brazil.
The CIFOR report says that
EU countries now buy almost
40% of Brazil's 578,000
tonnes of exported beef.
Egypt, Russia and Saudi
Arabia import 35%. The US
takes only 8%.
"Beef exports are the main
reason for the damage to the
forest, as cattle ranchers are
destroying the rainforests,"
said David Kaimowitz, the
director general of CIFOR.
He said that logging is not a
direct cause of deforestation.
The number of cattle in the
Amazon region increased by
more than 100% to 57 million
between 1990 and 2002, the
report says. "[In that time]
the percentage of Europe's
meat imports coming from
Brazil increased from 40% to
74%.”
The Americans say that soya
farming for the European
market causes deforestation.
The CIFOR report does not
agree with this "Soyabean
farming in the Amazon
region is increasing but it
only causes a small
percentage of total
deforestation," it says.
The report says that
enormous ranching
operations are now
controlling the beef export
market. "In the 1970s and
1980s small ranchers
produced most of the beef in
the Amazon region. They
sold it to local
slaughterhouses. Now large
commercial ranchers are
producing the beef and
selling it to European
supermarkets.”
Last month the Brazilian
government said it was going
to spend $133 million to help
to save the rainforest. This is
a very positive step. Without
urgent action to save the
rainforest, a huge area of
forest will disappear during
the next 18 months. CIFOR
says that the Brazilian
government must stop
ranchers using government
land, stop building roads in
the forest, and give money to
people to keep land as
forest.
John Vidal
The Guardian Weekly, page 3
Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2004
Taken from the News
section in
www.onestopenglish.com
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