阅读材料: In the United States, it had been common practice since the late 1960s not to suppress natural forest fires. The let it burn policy assumed that forest fires would burn themselves out quickly, without causing much damage. However, in the summer of 1988, forest fires in Yellowstone, the most famous national park in the country, burned for more than two months and spread over a huge area, encompassing more than 800,000 acres. Because of the large scale of the damage, many people called for replacing the let it burn policy with a policy of extinguishing forest fires as soon as they appeared. Three kinds of damage caused by the let it burn policy were emphasized by critics of the policy. 在美国,从1960年代末开始就非常普遍地对森林大火采取不扑灭的策略。这种随它燃烧的策略认为森林大火可以在不造成太多损失的情况下迅速燃烧完。然后,1988年发生在美国最出名的黄石国家公园的森林大火却整整燃烧了两个月,蔓延了80万英亩。鉴于这次造成的巨大损失,很多人主张取消随它燃烧的策略,转而开始全力扑灭森林大火的策略。评论家们提供了三个由随它燃烧策略造成的损害来支持自己的观点。 First, Yellowstone fires cause tremendous damage to the parks trees and other vegetation. When the fires finally died out, nearly one third of Yellowstones land had been scorched. Trees were charred and blackened from flames and smoke. Smaller plants were entirely incinerated. What had been a national treasure now seemed like a devastated wasteland. |