枪口下的生物多样性

THERE was a time when conservation meant keeping people away from nature. America’s system of national parks, a model for similar set-ups around the world, was based on the idea of limiting human presence to passing visits, rather than permanent habitation.

自然保护区曾经意味着将人类与自然界隔离开。美国的国家公园就是分布于世界各地类似的系统中的典范，其理念就是在保护区内人类只是游客，而不能成为永久居民。

In recent years this way of doing things has come under suspicion. To fence off large areas of parkland is often impractical and can also be immoral—in that it leads to local people being booted out. These days, the consensus among conservationists is to try to manage nature with humans in situ. But there are still “involuntary parks”, to borrow a phrase from the writer and futurist Bruce Sterling, that serve to illustrate just how spectacularly well nature can do when humans are removed from the equation.

然而近些年来，这种方式受到了怀疑。要将大片的公园区用栅栏隔开常常不切实际，而且也不道德——这将导致当地人被逐出家园。目前，生态环境保护者们一致的意见是应该在保护区内居民仍然留住原处的条件下设法进行生态环境的保护。“无意中形成的公园”是作家、未来派学者布鲁斯•斯特林发明的一个术语，现存的这样一类“公园”向我们展示，一旦完全没有了人类的打搅，大自然将绘出多么神奇的一幅画卷。

Some such “parks” are accidents of settlement, or its absence. Nature is preserved in those rare places that people just have not got round to overrunning—for example the Foja Mountains in western New Guinea, an area of rainforest that teems with an astonishingly rich variety of plants and animals. Others are accidents of conflict: places from which people have fled and where the fauna and flora have thrived as a result.

在这类“公园”中有些是由于偶尔在某些地区无人居住而形成。在一些罕见的地区，人类没有四处扩散他们的活动范围，自然状态因而得以保存。例如新几内亚岛西部的福贾山地区就是一处这样的“公园”，这里是一片雨林区，动植物种类之多令人吃惊。另外一些这类“公园”则是由于人类的冲突而巧合出现。在这些地区，人类逃走了，结果一个动植物的王国形成了。

The demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea is a good example. Over the past six decades this narrow and dangerous strip of land running 248km (155 miles) across the Korean peninsula has become a de facto nature reserve. As agriculture and industrialisation have moved ahead elsewhere, the thousand-square-kilometre DMZ, uninhabited and heavily mined, has been a refuge for two endangered birds: the white-naped and the red-crowned crane. It also contains Asiatic black bears, egrets and, according to some, an extremely rare subspecies of the Siberian tiger. The biggest threat to all this biodiversity is probably peace. There are already calls for the DMZ to be turned into a park in the event of reunification.

在南、北朝鲜间的非军事区（DMZ）就是一个很好的例子。这条横跨朝鲜半岛，长达248公里（155英里）的狭窄而危险的地带在过去60年里实际上成了一个自然保护区。当其它地区都在大兴农业与推进工业化的时候，这块无人居住、满布地雷的数千平方公里的非军事区倒成了两种濒危鸟类的避难所。这两种鸟分别时是白枕鹤和丹顶鹤。在这片区域内还有亚洲黑熊、白鹭。据说这里还栖息着西伯利亚虎的某个极稀有亚种。对这里的各类生物而言最大的威胁可能就是和平了。已经有人在呼吁一旦南北朝鲜获得统一，应该将这片非军事区变成一处自然公园。更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

The Chagos Islands of the Indian Ocean are a military zone, too. The locals were forcibly removed by the British government, starting in the late 1960s, to make way for an American base on Diego Garcia, the archipelago’s main island. The Chagos Islands are thought to be home to some of the world’s healthiest coral reefs and the waters around them rank among the most pristine in the world. The Chagos Conservation Trust, a conservation group, would like to set up a reserve. The displaced islanders, however, plan to return one day, and if they do they will want to start fishing and building hotels and even an airport. Only military dominion keeps such activity at bay.

印度洋上的查戈斯群岛也是一个军事禁区，迪戈加西亚岛是这个群岛的主岛。上世纪60年代后期，英国政府强迫当地居民迁离这个群岛，为迪戈加西亚岛上建美军基地让道。查戈斯群岛拥有世界上发育最为良好的珊瑚礁，其周围的海水也位居地球上原生态保持最好的水域之一。查戈斯保护信托基金会是一个自然保护组织，计划把查戈斯群岛变成一个自然保护区。然而被迫迁离的岛民正谋划着某一天重返故土。如果他们的计划得以实现，他们将重新开始捕鱼作业，建筑旅馆，甚至还有可能建设一个机场。只有军事禁区内无法进行这些活动。

A little to the west of the Chagos, the Scotsman recently reported, the sea off Kenya’s northern coast currently has a profusion of fish because Somali pirates are keeping out all the big foreign fishing boats. Since the collapse of Somalia’s government in 1991, this part of the world has reportedly been plagued by illegal fishing. Now, goes the story, such boats are too afraid to enter the area because of the pirates.

《苏格兰人报》最近报道，查戈斯群岛以西一点的地方，肯尼亚北部海岸的外海现在鱼类充沛，其原因是索马里的海盗使所有外国的大型远洋捕鱼船都远离这里。1991年索马里政府倒台后，据报道这片海域非法捕鱼活动非常猖獗。而现在，同样是在这片海区，由于畏惧海盗这些船只完全不见了踪影。

The illegal dumping in the region of barrels of radioactive waste from European hospitals and factories, which has also been reported, has probably been similarly deterred, if it was taking place. This, though, is unlikely to bother the fish either way. Perhaps the most famous of the Earth’s involuntary parks is the evacuated area around Chernobyl, in Ukraine, where the burgeoning wildlife has been little affected by the risks of radiation.

过去曾有报道，一些船只在这片海域非法大量倾倒来自欧洲一些医院和工厂的放射性垃圾。而现在出于同样的原因，这些活动也都消失了。其时，倾倒这些放射物可能对鱼类的活动不会有任何影响。在地球上“无意中形成的公园”中最著名的可能要数位于乌克兰切尔诺贝利周围的撤离区，在这里迅速恢复的野生动物群落丝毫没有受到放射性的伤害。

Military conflict and the preparations that surround it are not, in themselves, good for the environment: far from it. Animals big enough to be eaten, or with body parts that can be sold for a profit, are well advised to stay out of war zones. It is depopulation that matters. Armed conflict and its knock-on effects simply happen to be one of the few forces on the planet that can cause quick and thorough depopulation. These areas struggle to survive when peace arrives. The nasty truth is that the likelihood of random and violent death is the cheapest form of conservation yet invented.

战争及战争准备活动本身不可能对环境产生什么益处，带来的只能是相反的结果。凡是大一点的可以作为人类食物的动物，或者是身体某一部分可以被出售卖钱的动物，建议你们最好还是远离战区。而战争引起了某个地区人口数量的锐减或消失才给当地环境带来了益处。事实已经告诉我们，战争及其影响是这个星球上少数几种能够造成局部地区人口迅速减少或灭绝的力量之一。一旦和平到来，这些地区的生态环境又将面临严峻考验。虽然令人不快，但事实上像战争这类带来随机和惨烈死亡的活动，却是制造自然保护区最廉价的方式。