考研翻译解析

考研翻译解析

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作者：

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日期：

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One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of

the land community have no economic value. Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community and, if its

stability depends on its integrity, they are entitled to continuance.

When one of these noneconomic categories is threatened and, if we happen to love it, we invent excuses to

give

it

economic

importance.

At

the

beginning

of

the

century

songbirds

were

supposed

to

be

disappearing.(46)Scientists

jumped

to

the

rescue

with some

distinctly

shaky

evidence

to

the

effect

that

insects

would eat us up if birds failed to control them. The evidence had to be economic in order to be valid.

It is painful to read these roundabout accounts today. We have no land ethic yet,

(47) but we have at least

drawn nearer

the

point

of

admitting

that

birds

should

continue

as

a

matter

of

intrinsic

right,

regardless

of

the

presence or absence of economic advantage to us.

A

parallel

situation

exists

in

respect

of predatory

mammals

and

fish-eating

birds. (48)

Time

was

when

biologists

somewhat

overworked

the

evidence

that

these creatures

preserve

the

health

of

game

by

killing

the

physically weak, or that they prey only on “worthless” species.

Here again, the evidence had to be economic in

order to be valid. It is only in recent years that we hear the more honest argument that predators are members of

the community, and that no special interest

has the right to exterminate them for the sake of a benefit, real or

fancied, to itself.

Some species of tree have been“read out of the party” by economics

-minded foresters because they

grow

too slowly, or have too low a sale value to pay as timber crops.(49) In Europe, where forestry is ecologically more

advanced, the noncommercial tree species are recognized as members of native forest community, to be preserved

as such, within reason. Moreover, some have been found to have a valuable function in building up soil fertility.

The interdependence of

the forest and its constituent tree species, ground flora, and fauna is taken for granted.

To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. (50) It

tends to ignore , and thus eventually to eliminate,

many elements in

the land community that

lack commercial

value,but

that

are essential

to its

healthy

functioning. It

assumes,

falsely,

that

the

economic

parts

of

the

biotic

clock will function without the uneconomic parts.

文章分析：

本文节选自美国生态学家

Aldo Leopold

的著作《沙郡年纪》

（

A Sand Country Almanac

）中的“土地伦

理”部分。作 者认为，完全基于经济动机和利己主义的环保体系是极不可取的。本文语言优美，句子形式

多样，主要考察的知识点包括：固定结构、各类从句、从句并列、被动语态、根据上下文选择此意。