2019年翻译资格考试三级笔译练习题：沙漠化

Old people in Widou Thiengoly say they can remember when there were so many trees that you couldn’t see the sky. Now, miles of reddish-brown sand surround this village in northwestern Senegal, dotted with occasional bushes and trees. Dried animal dung is scattered everywhere, but hardly any dried grass is.

辛格利(Thiengoly)的老人们说，他们记得过去这里树木繁多，遮天蔽日。而现在，在这个塞内加尔西北部小村庄周围，红褐色的沙漠延绵数英里。村里零星长着几株灌木和树木，四处散落着干燥的动物粪便，而干草却难觅踪影。

Overgrazing and climate change are the major causes of the Sahara’s advance, said Gilles Boetsch, an anthropologist who directs a team of French scientists working with Senegalese researchers in the region.“The local Peul people are herders, often nomadic. But the pressure of the herds on the land has become too great,”Mr. Boetsch said in an interview. “The vegetation can’t regenerate itself.”

人类学家吉勒斯•伯伊士(Gilles Boetsch)说，撒哈拉沙漠情况恶化加速，主要原因是过度放牧和气候变化。伯伊士先生正带领一个法国科学家小组与塞内加尔研究人员在这一地区共同开展研究工作。在接受采访时，他说：“当地的佩尔人(Peul)是牧民，常常过着游牧生活。由于牲畜给土地造成巨大的压力，植被无法自行恢复。”

Since 2008, however, Senegal has been fighting back against the encroaching desert. Each year it has planted some two million seedling trees along a 545-kilometer, or 340-mile, ribbon of land that is the country’s segment of a major pan-African regeneration project, the Great Green Wall.First proposed in 2005, the program links Senegal and 10 other Saharan states in an alliance to plant a 15 kilometer-wide,

7,100-kilometer-long green belt to fend off the desert.While many countries have still to start on their sections of the barrier, Senegal has taken the lead, with the creation of a National Agency for the Great Green Wall.

然而，自2008年以来，塞内加尔一直在与沙漠侵蚀斗争。该国每年在一条长达545公里(约340英里)的地带种植约200万株树苗，这是该国在绿色长城项目中承担的任务。此项目是于2005年首次提出的一项庞大的泛非洲生态恢复计划。塞内加尔与其他10个撒哈拉国家将共同行动，建造15公里宽、7100公里长的绿化带，用于抵御沙漠侵蚀。许多国家还尚未启动种植所承担的绿化带时，塞内加尔已率先行动，设立了落实绿色长城项目的国家机构。

“This semi-arid region is becoming less and less habitable. We want to make it possible for people to continue to live here,”Col. Pap Sarr, the agency’s technical director, said in an interview here. Colonel Sarr has forged working alliances between Senegalese researchers and the French team headed by Mr. Boetsch, in fields as varied as soil microbiology, ecology, medicine and anthropology.“In Senegal we hope to experiment with different ways of doing things that will benefit the other countries as they become more active,”the colonel said.Each year since 2008, from May to June, about 400 people are employed in eight nurseries, choosing and overseeing germination of seeds and tending the seedlings until they are ready for planting. In August, 1,000 people are mobilized to plant out rows of seedlings, about 2 million plants, allowing them a full two months of the rainy season to take root before the long, dry season sets in.