Rainforests: destruction gets worse: BBC News Review

We're supposed to be stopping rainforest destruction.

Actually, it's getting worse.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English. I'm Beth, and I'm Phil.

Make sure you watch to the end

to learn the vocabulary that you need to talk about this story.

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Now, the story.

More tropical rainforest was lost in 2022 than in 2021.

That's despite governments promising to stop destroying rainforests

just two years ago.

In fact, the opposite has happened.

A new study has shown that ten percent more rainforest was cleared

in 2022 than in the previous year.

  You've been looking at the headlines.

What's the vocabulary?

We have deforestation, pristine and pledge.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English.

Let's have a look at our first

headline. This is from the BBC.

Climate Change: Deforestation surges

despite pledges.

So this story is all about the loss of tropical rainforests.

And this is increasing - or surging. Now the word

we're looking at here is deforestation.

Yes. This is a great word because it tells us how English works.

The most important part is forest.

You can see that in the middle.

It's the bits around it that

give it a precise meaning. We've got 'de', which we can use to talk about removing things,

and we've got 'ation', which we can use to turn a verb into a noun. So,

deforestation is the process of removing forests.

And this is an example that we see a lot in academic

and scientific writing where we turn verbs into nouns to talk about processes

and this is called nominalisation.

Yes,

and there's quite a few that are to do with the climate.

So the process of places becoming deserts is called desertification.

The process of places becoming cities is called urbanisation.

And the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -

that's called decarbonisation.

Yes, and learning new words like this can be done through memorisation.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline

This is from the Guardian: Destruction of world's pristine rainforests

soared in 2022

despite Cop 26 pledge. Again

it's about the increase in destruction of rainforests.

It soared in 2022 -

that means increased very fast, but we are looking at the word pristine.

Yes, pristine means in his original, perfect condition.

Not ruined.

We're talking here about areas of rainforest.

They have not previously been damaged by humans and these are

what are now being destroyed.

And we often use the word pristine more generally.

You will see it in the expression in pristine condition.

This is used to describe something that is as good as new.

Yes, when you're selling something, you'll get a lot more money for it

if it's in pristine condition.

We could also use it to talk about the way things are looked after, so

museums might have lots of old objects that they keep in pristine condition.

That's right. OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

This is from Euronews: World forests continue to shrink

despite Cop 26 pledge, report says.

Now, this headline uses shrink to talk about rainforests getting smaller,

but we are going to focus on the noun pledge now.

Phil, isn't pledge a bit like a promise?

Yes, it is, and all of these headlines have referred back

to the pledges made at the Cop26 summit.

And a pledge is a formal promise. At the Cop summit, governments

promised to stop and even reverse deforestation by 2030

- something that now looks unlikely

according to all these articles.

And as you said pledge, is often used in formal or very serious contexts.

So politicians make pledges to voters in campaigns.

People make pledge loyalty to their country, in that case

it's a verb, and couples make pledges to each other when they get married.

Yeah, so it is not the same as a promise to buy your friend dinner

or to get somewhere on time.

It's a lot more serious than that.

OK, let's look at that again.

 

We've had deforestation - a loss of forests. Pristine - in its original condition,

not damaged. Pledge - a formal or

serious promise.

Now, if you found this interesting,

try this episode on

climate change and evolution.

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