原文標(biāo)題：
Conservation
The elephant in the room
What causes elephant poaching? Poor, badly governed people, mainly
動(dòng)物保護(hù)
被忽視的問題
偷獵大象的原因是什么？主要是因為貧窮和治理不善等人為因素

[Paragraph 1]
EVERY DAY, thousands of rangers patrol national parks and other protected areas in Africa.
非洲每天都有數(shù)千名護(hù)林員在國(guó)家公園和其他保護(hù)區(qū)巡邏。

Their job is fraught with danger, both from hostile humans armed with automatic weapons and from the unappreciative and potentially aggressive wildlife, armed with tusks, teeth and claws, which they are helping to preserve.
他們的工作充滿了危險(xiǎn)，既要面對(duì)手持自動(dòng)武器的壞人，也要面對(duì)野生動(dòng)物的獠牙、牙齒和爪子。護(hù)林員正在幫助保護(hù)這些動(dòng)物，而這些動(dòng)物不領(lǐng)情且具有潛在攻擊性。

But their work is important, not least because the data they collect are crucial to conservation planning.
但他們的工作很重要，特別是因?yàn)樗麄兪占臄?shù)據(jù)對(duì)保護(hù)計(jì)劃至關(guān)重要。

[Paragraph 2]
That is particularly true of data on poaching, which remains, in both senses of the word, an elephantine problem.
了解偷獵相關(guān)數(shù)據(jù)尤其重要，無(wú)論從何種意義上說，偷獵主要涉及大象問題。

Since 2006 African elephant populations have declined by around 30%. In 2021, according to Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE), a conservation programme, around 40% of elephant deaths were a result of poaching.
自2006年以來(lái)，非洲大象數(shù)量約下降了30%。2021，根據(jù)一項(xiàng)保護(hù)計(jì)劃的數(shù)據(jù)——非法獵殺大象監(jiān)測(cè)系統(tǒng)（MIKE），約有40%的大象死亡事件是由偷獵造成的。

[Paragraph 3]
The severity of elephant poaching varies from place to place.
各地偷獵大象的嚴(yán)重程度各不相同。

The MIKE data show a welcome fall in rates throughout the 2010s, but according to research published in 2020 by Scott Schlossberg of Elephants Without Borders, a charity, this can be attributed entirely to a decline in eastern Africa.
MIKE的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，在整個(gè)二十一世紀(jì) 一十年代，偷獵率都出現(xiàn)了可喜的下降，但根據(jù)慈善機(jī)構(gòu)“大象無(wú)國(guó)界組織”的斯科特·施洛斯伯格在2020年發(fā)表的研究，這完全可以歸因于東非偷獵率的下降。

[Paragraph 4]
Elsewhere, there is great variation in the pressure on pachyderms.
在其他地方，大象的生存壓力差異很大。

Some parks, like Garamba in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are badly hit—with more than 90% of the carcasses found by rangers being victims of poachers.
一些國(guó)家公園受到重創(chuàng)（如剛果民主共和國(guó)的加蘭巴）--護(hù)林員發(fā)現(xiàn)90%以上的大象尸體是由偷獵造成的。

In others, like Chobe, in Botswana, less than 10% of dead elephants discovered have been killed illegally.
在其他國(guó)家公園（如博茨瓦納的喬貝）里發(fā)現(xiàn)的大象尸體中，只有不到10%是被非法獵殺的。

[Paragraph 5]
To untangle the factors influencing poaching, Timothy Kuiper of the University of Cape Town, Eleanor Milner-Gulland at Oxford, and a team of collaborators have analysed data collected for MIKE by rangers from 64 sites in 30 African countries over the course of 19 years.
為了弄清楚影響偷獵的因素，開普敦大學(xué)的蒂莫西·庫(kù)伊珀、牛津大學(xué)的埃莉諾·米爾納·古蘭德及一些合作者分析了MIKE的數(shù)據(jù)，這些數(shù)據(jù)由護(hù)林員收集，時(shí)間跨度19年，包括30個(gè)非洲國(guó)家64個(gè)地點(diǎn)。

They correlated these with potentially relevant factors, both natural and human, and have published their findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
他們將數(shù)據(jù)與潛在的相關(guān)因素（如自然因素和人為因素）聯(lián)系起來(lái)，并在《皇家學(xué)會(huì)學(xué)報(bào)》上發(fā)表了他們的研究結(jié)果。

[Paragraph 6]
Natural variables such as habitat type, they discovered, make little difference. Human ones predominate.
他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，棲息地類型等自然因素幾乎沒有變化。人為因素占了主導(dǎo)。

Unsurprisingly, but nevertheless pertinently, low household wealth, poor health, poor law enforcement and poor national governance all contributed to higher rates of poaching. So did the price of ivory.
意料之中但中肯地說，家庭財(cái)富低、健康狀況差、執(zhí)法不力和國(guó)家治理不力等這些因素都導(dǎo)致了偷獵率的上升。象牙的價(jià)格也是因素之一。

[Paragraph 7]
There was one unexpected result, though—the impact of armed conflict. For there did not seem to be much.
但有一個(gè)意料之外的結(jié)論--即武裝沖突的影響。因?yàn)檫@個(gè)因素不太多。

What impact there was, was a consequence of a few special cases in DRC, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, rather than a general rule about young men with guns behaving badly.
是剛果民主共和國(guó)、中非共和國(guó)和埃塞俄比亞發(fā)生的一些特殊案件產(chǎn)生了影響，而不是持槍青年行為不端總規(guī)則產(chǎn)生了影響。

[Paragraph 8]
One factor that was unquantifiable, and therefore untestable, according to Dr Kuiper, was local political will to preserve wildlife.
庫(kù)伊珀博士說，有一個(gè)無(wú)法量化也無(wú)法驗(yàn)證的因素，那就是當(dāng)?shù)乇Ｗo(hù)野生動(dòng)物的政治意愿。

But this study does nevertheless confirm observations made elsewhere, that the best form of conservation is a prosperous population.
但這項(xiàng)研究確實(shí)證實(shí)了其他地方的觀察結(jié)果，即大象數(shù)量繁多說明保護(hù)野生動(dòng)物的政治意愿強(qiáng)。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語(yǔ)詞匯量438左右）
原文出自：2023年1月14日《The Economist》Science & technology版塊。

精讀筆記來(lái)源于：自由英語(yǔ)之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene

本文編輯校對(duì): Irene
僅供個(gè)人英語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)交流使用。

【補(bǔ)充資料】（來(lái)自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）
影響當(dāng)?shù)乇I獵率的兩個(gè)變因， 其中之一是貧窮，以嬰兒死亡率為評(píng)估標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。 另一項(xiàng)變因則是貪腐。特別有意思的一點(diǎn)，是貧窮和貪腐兩者跟當(dāng)?shù)乇I獵狀況的相關(guān)程度，甚至大于執(zhí)法狀況。

【重點(diǎn)句子】（3 個(gè)）
That is particularly true of data on poaching, which remains, in both senses of the word, an elephantine problem.
了解偷獵相關(guān)數(shù)據(jù)尤其重要，無(wú)論從何種意義上說，偷獵主要涉及大象問題。

Elsewhere, there is great variation in the pressure on pachyderms.
在其他地方，大象的生存壓力差異很大。

Unsurprisingly, but nevertheless pertinently, low household wealth, poor health, poor law enforcement and poor national governance all contributed to higher rates of poaching. So did the price of ivory.
意料之中但中肯地說，家庭財(cái)富低、健康狀況差、執(zhí)法不力和國(guó)家治理不力等這些因素都導(dǎo)致了偷獵率的上升。象牙的價(jià)格也是因素之一。