剑桥雅思17Test3Passage2阅读原文翻译 palm oil 棕榈油
剑桥雅思17阅读第三套题目第二篇文章的主题为棕榈油。作者介绍了这种产品在当今世界的广泛应用，棕榈树种植园面积的快速增长，这一变化对环境的负面影响，看待问题的另一角度，以及相应的解决方案等。下面是具体每一段的翻译。
点击查看这篇雅思阅读中出现的常考词汇与对应的答案解析：
雅思阅读真题词汇 剑桥雅思17 Test 3 Passage 2 棕榈油
剑桥雅思17Test3Passage2阅读答案解析 Palm oil 棕榈油
剑桥雅思17 Test3 Passage2阅读原文翻译
A部分
Palm oil is an edible oil derived from the fruit of the African oil palm tree, and is currently the most consumed vegetable oil in the world. It’s almost certainly in the soap we wash with in the morning, the sandwich we have for lunch, and the biscuits we snack on during the day. Why is palm oil so attractive for manufacturers? Primarily because its unique properties – such as remaining solid at room temperature – make it an ideal ingredient for long-term preservation, allowing many packaged foods on supermarket shelves to have ‘best before’ dates of months, even years, into the future.
棕榈油是从非洲油棕榈树果实中提炼出的一种可食用油，也是目前世界上消耗量最大的植物油。它几乎必然存在于我们早上清洗所使用的肥皂中，午餐所吃的三明治里，以及一天之中当做零食吃的饼干里。为什么棕榈油对生产商具有如此大的吸引力？主要原因在于它独特的属性 – 比如室温条件下为固态 – 十分利于长期保存，让那些超市货架上包装好的食物可以拥有数月、甚至数年的保质期。
B部分
Many farmers have seized the opportunity to maximise the planting of oil palm trees. Between 1990 and 2012, the global land area devoted to growing oil palm trees grew from 6 to 17 million hectares, now accounting for around ten percent of total cropland in the entire world. From a mere two million tonnes of palm oil being produced annually globally 50 years ago, there are now around 60 million tonnes produced every single year, a figure looking likely to double or even triple by the middle of the century.
许多农民都抓住这个机会尽可能多的种植油棕榈树。在1990年和2012年间，全球用于种植油棕榈树的土地面积从600万公顷增长到1700万公顷，如今大约占到全球耕地面积的百分之十。50年前，全球棕榈油的年产量还只有200万吨，如今每年的产量已经达到6000万吨左右。这一数字到本世纪中叶时还可能有两倍甚至三倍的增长。
C部分
However, there are multiple reasons why conservationists cite the rapid spread of oil palm plantations as a major concern. There are countless news stories of deforestation, habitat destruction and dwindling species populations, all as a direct result of land clearing to establish oil palm tree monoculture on an industrial scale, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia. Endangered species – most famously the Sumatran orangutan, but also rhinos, elephants, tigers, and numerous other fauna – have suffered from the unstoppable spread of oil palm plantations.
然而，多重原因使得环保主义者对油棕榈树种植园的快速扩张感到担心。有关森林砍伐，栖息地破坏，以及物种数量下降的新闻报道层出不穷。这些都是清理土地用于工业规模种植油棕榈树这一单一植物的直接后果。这点在马来西亚和印度尼西亚尤为明显。濒危物种 – 其中最知名的就是苏门答腊猩猩，但也包括河马、大象、狮子和众多其他动物 – 饱受油棕榈树种植园不停扩张的痛苦。
D部分
‘Palm oil is surely one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity,’ declares Dr Farnon Ellwood of the University of the West of England, Bristol. ‘Palm oil is replacing rainforest, and rainforest is where all the species are. That’s a problem.’ This has led to some radical questions among environmentalists, such as whether consumers should try to boycott palm oil entirely.
布里斯托西英格兰大学的Farnon Ellwood博士认为：“棕榈油当然是全球生物多样性最大的威胁之一。棕榈油正在取代热带雨林，而雨林是所有物种的栖身之处。这正是问题所在”。这在环保主义者之间引发激烈的争论，例如消费者是否应该彻底抵制棕榈油。
Meanwhile Bhavani Shankar, Professor at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, argues, ‘It’s easy to say that palm oil is the enemy and we should be against it. It makes for a more dramatic story, and it’s very intuitive. But given the complexity of the argument, I think a much more nuanced story is closer to the truth.’
与此同时，伦敦东方与非洲研究学院的Bhavani Shankar认为：“嘴上说说棕榈油是敌人，我们应该抵制它十分容易。这样故事更有戏剧性，而且非常直观。但考虑到这场争论的复杂性，我认为一个更加细致入微的故事才更接近真相”。
E部分
One response to the boycott movement has been the argument for the vital role palm oil plays in lifting many millions of people in the developing world out of poverty. Is it desirable to have palm oil boycotted, replaced, eliminated from the global supply chain, given how many this article is from laokaoya website low-income people in developing countries depend on it for their livelihoods? How best to strike a utilitarian balance between these competing factors has become a serious bone of contention.
对抵制运动的一种回应为，棕榈油在帮助发展中国家数百万人口脱离贫困方面发挥着至关重要的作用。考虑到发展中国家如此多的低收入人群以此为生，对棕榈油进行抵制、替换、甚至从全球供应链中将其剔除出去是否可取呢？如何在众多互相冲突的因素中达成最佳平衡已经成为争论焦点。
F部分
Even the deforestation argument isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Oil palm plantations produce at least four and potentially up to ten times more oil per hectare than soybean, rapeseed, sunflower or other competing oils. That immensely high yield – which is predominantly what makes it so profitable – is potentially also an ecological benefit. If ten times more palm oil can be produced from a patch of land than any competing oil, then ten times more land would need to be cleared in order to produce the same volume of oil from that competitor.
即便是砍伐森林这种观点也不像它看起来那么简单。相比于大豆、油菜籽、向日葵或者其他油料作物，每公顷油棕榈种植园的产油量是它们的至少四倍，甚至可能是十倍。这种极高的产量 – 这也正是其利润如此丰厚的主要原因 – 可能有益于生态系统。如果一块土地上产出的棕榈油数量比其他油料作物多10倍，那么利用其他油料作物生产相同数量的食用油就意味着需要清理10倍的土地。
As for the question of carbon emissions, the issue really depends on what oil palm trees are replacing. Crops vary in the degree to which they sequester carbon – in other words, the amount of carbon they capture from the atmosphere and store within the plant. The more carbon a plant sequesters, the more it reduces the effect of climate change. As Shankar explains: ‘[Palm oil production] actually sequesters more carbon in some ways than other alternatives. […] Of course, if you’re cutting down virgin forest it’s terrible – that’s what’s happening in Indonesia and Malaysia, it’s been allowed to get out of hand. But if it’s replacing rice, for example, it might actually sequester more carbon.’
至于碳排放的问题，这实际上取决于油棕榈树所取代的究竟是什么。农作物在碳隔离方面的程度各有不同 – 换句话说，即它们从大气中所捕捉并贮藏在植株内的碳的数量。一种植物文章来自老烤鸭雅思所隔离的碳越多，它对减少气候变化影响的贡献也就越大。正如Shankar所阐述的那样：“从某种方式上来讲，棕榈油的生产实际上比其他替代方案隔离更多的碳。当然，如果你砍伐的是原始森林，那肯定糟透了 – 这也是印度尼西亚和马拉西亚正在发生的事情，事态被允许脱离控制。但如果它取代的是，比如说，水稻，那么它实际上隔离了更多的碳”。
G部分
The industry is now regulated by a group called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), consisting of palm growers, retailers, product manufacturers, and other interested parties. Over the past decade or so, an agreement has gradually been reached regarding standards that producers of palm oil have to meet in order for their product to be regarded as officially ‘sustainable’. The RSPO insists upon no virgin forest clearing, transparency and regular assessment of carbon stocks, among other criteria. Only once these requirements are fully satisfied is the oil allowed to be sold as certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO). Recent figures show that the RSPO now certifies around 12 million tonnes of palm oil annually, equivalent to roughly 21 percent of the world’s total palm oil production.
该行业目前受到一个叫做“可持续棕榈油圆桌会议”的组织的管控。它包括棕榈树种植者，零售商，生产商，以及其他利益团体。在过去十年左右的时间里，人们逐渐在棕榈油生产商应该满足什么标准才能使其产品被官方认证为“可持续”上达成一致。RSPO坚持的原则包括：不准砍伐原始森林，生产透明，以及定期评估碳储量。一旦这些要求得以满足，油品就可以作为官方认证的可持续棕榈油销售。最近的数据表示，RSPO如今每年认证1200万吨左右的棕榈油，大约相当于全世界棕榈油总产量的21%。
H部分
There is even hope that oil palm plantations might not need to be such sterile monocultures, or ‘green deserts’, as Ellwood describes them. New research at Ellwood’s lab hints at one plant which might make all the difference. The bird’s nest fern (Asplenium nidus) grows on trees in an epiphytic fashion (meaning it’s dependent on the tree only for support, not for nutrients), and is native to many tropical regions, where as a keystone species it performs a vital ecological role. Ellwood believes that reintroducing the bird’s nest fern into oil palm plantations could potentially allow these areas to recover their biodiversity, providing a home for all manner of species, from fungi and bacteria, to invertebrates such as insects, amphibians, reptiles and even mammals.
甚至有这样子的期望，油棕榈树种植园可能并不需要如此单一栽培，或者成为如Ellwood所说的“绿色荒漠”。Ellwood实验室一项新的研究表明，有一种植物可能带来翻天覆地的变化。鸟巢蕨以一种附生的方式生长在树上（它仅仅依赖树的支撑，而不需要养分），是许多热带地区土生土长的品种。它作为关键物种，在生态系统中扮演着至关重要的角色。Ellwood相信，将鸟巢蕨重新引入油棕榈树种植园中可能会让这些区域恢复其生物多样性，为各种各样的物种提供栖息地，从真菌和细菌，到诸如昆虫这样的无脊椎动物，两栖动物，爬行动物，甚至哺乳动物等。
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