Exercises

I. Answer the following questions:

1. What animal is a symbol for wildlife conservation?

2. What are the main reasons of animals extinction?

3. Why is the environment becoming smaller?

4. Who is called "a poacher"?

5. What happens because of illegal hunting?

6. What is the way to save wild animals?

II. Find in the text the English equivalents for the expressions below:

– природная среда обитания

– изменить природное равновесие

– живые существа

– убивать ради наживы

– редкое животное

– обеспечивать пищу другим животным

– дикие животные

– влажные тропические леса

– охраняемые животные

– браконьерство

III. Complete the following sentences using the given words:

conservation, poachers, profit, cut down, protected, rare, danger, habitat.

1. Panda is one of the … animals on our planet.

2. People … the trees every year and destroy animals’... .

3. A lot of animals are in … because man hunts them.

4. Some hunters kill animals for … .

5. Such hunters are called … .

6. … is the only way to save wild animals.

7. Rare animals are called … .

Environmental problems on the kola peninsula

Vocabulary

contamination	загрязнение
precipitation	осадок
consequences	последствия
spent nuclear fuel	отработанное ядерное топливо
retired	зд.: списанные
solid	твердый
liquid radioactive waste	жидкие радиоактивные отходы
nuclear submarines	атомные подводные лодки
icebreakers	ледоколы
Kola Nuclear Power Plant	Кольская атомная электростанция
Northern Fleet	Северный флот
Murmansk Shipping Company	Мурманское морское пароходство

The Kola Peninsula is considered to be a region with an extremely dangerous environmental situation, which threatens the human health. There are a lot of environmental problems here: pollution, massive deforestation, ozone depletion, acid rains, endangered species, radioactive contamination.

There are about 200 acting plants in the region and they emit 700,000 tons of harmful substances into the atmosphere. The main air polluters are two giants of metallurgy – "Severonikel" and "Pechenganikel". The consequences of their activity are plants mutation, acid precipitation, nature destruction.

The radioactive contamination problem takes the first place among other environmental problems. In the Northern Fleet today there are less than 40 nuclear submarines in active service and some 71 retired submarines still containing their spent nuclear fuel. The total amount of fuel is around 100 tons.

Murmansk Shipping Company currently operates six nuclear icebreakers and one nuclear powered container ship. In addition radioactive waste comes from regular operations.

At the Kola Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) there are four nuclear reactors currently in operation. Solid and liquid radioactive waste are stored at the Kola NPP in addition to some 1,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel.

The spent nuclear fuel at Andreyeva Bay and Gremikha as well as the fuel that remains inside the reactors on board retired nuclear submarines or aboard various storage vessels, must be properly secured and moves to a new, environmentally safe storage.