Cambridge IELTS 12 · Test 3 Reading (NgocBach)

Flying tortoises

An airborne reintroduction programme has helped conservationists take significant steps to protect the endangered Galapagos tortoise. A. Forests of spiny cacti cover much of the uneven lava plains that separate the interior of the Galapagos island of Isabela from the Pacific Ocean. With its five distinct volcanoes, the island resembles a lunar landscape. Only the thick vegetation at the skirt of the often cloud-covered peak of Sierra Negra offers respite from the barren terrain below. This inhospitable environment is home to the giant Galapagos tortoise. Some time after the Galapagos’s birth, around five million years ago, the islands were colonised by one or more tortoises from mainland South America. As these ancestral tortoises settled on the individual islands, the different populations adapted to their unique environments, giving rise to at least 14 different subspecies. Island life agreed with them. In the absence of significant predators, they grew to become the largest and longest-living tortoises on the planet, weighing more than 400 kilograms, occasionally exceeding 1,8 metres in length and living for more than a century. B. Before human arrival, the archipelago's tortoises numbered in the hundreds of thousands. From the 17th century onwards, pirates took a few on board for food, but the arrival of whaling ships in the 1790s saw this exploitation grow exponentially. Relatively immobile and capable of surviving for months without food or water, the tortoises were taken on board these ships to act as food supplies during long ocean passages. Sometimes, their bodies were processed into high- grade oil. In total, an estimated 200,000 animals were taken from the archipelago before the 20th century. This historical exploitation was then exacerbated when settlers came to the islands. They hunted the tortoises and destroyed their habitat to clear land for agriculture. They also introduced alien species - ranging from cattle, pigs, goats, rats and dogs to plants and ants - that either prey on the eggs and young tortoises or damage or destroy their habitat. C. Today, only 11 of the original subspecies survive and of these, several are highly endangered. In 1989, work began on a tortoise-breeding centre just outside the town of Puerto Villamil on Isabela, dedicated to protecting the island’s tortoise populations. The centre’s captive-breeding programme proved to be extremely successful, and it eventually had to deal with an overpopulation problem. D. The problem was also a pressing one. Captive-bred tortoises can’t be reintroduced into the wild until they’re at least five years old and weigh at least 4,5 kilograms, at which point their size and weight - and their hardened shells - are sufficient to protect them from predators. But if people wait too long after that point, the tortoises eventually become too large to transport. E. For years, repatriation efforts were carried out in small numbers, with the tortoises carried on the backs of men over weeks of long, treacherous hikes along narrow trails. But in November 2010, the environmentalist and Galapagos National Park liaison officer Godfrey Merlin, a visiting private motor yacht captain and a helicopter pilot gathered around a table in a small cafe in Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz to work out more ambitious reintroduction . The aim was to use a helicopter to move 300 of the breeding centre’s tortoises to various locations close to Sierra Negra. F. This unprecedented effort was made possible by the owners of the 67-metre yacht White Cloud, who provided the Galapagos National Park with free use of their helicopter and its experienced pilot, as well as the logistical support of the yacht, its captain and crew. Originally an air ambulance, the yacht’s helicopter has a rear double door and a large internal space that’s well suited for cargo, so a custom crate was designed to hold up to 33 tortoises with a total weight of about 150 kilograms. This weight, together with that of the fuel, pilot and four crew, approached the helicopter’s maximum payload, and there were times when it was clearly right on the edge of the helicopter’s capabilities. During a period of three days, a group of volunteers from the breeding centre worked around the clock to prepare the young tortoises for transport. Meanwhile, park wardens, dropped off ahead of time in remote locations, cleared landing sites within the thick brush, cacti and lava rocks. G. Upon their release, the juvenile tortoises quickly spread out over their ancestral territory, investigating their new surroundings and feeding on the vegetation. Eventually, one tiny tortoise came across a fully grown giant who had been lumbering around the island for around a hundred years . The two stood side by side, a powerful symbol of the regeneration of an ancient species.

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17th century: small numbers taken onto ships used by _____

1790s: very large numbers taken onto whaling ships, kept for ______

1790s: very large numbers taken onto whaling ships, also used to produce _____

Hunted by ____ on islands

Habitat destruction: by various _____ not native to the islands

which also fed on baby tortoises and tortoises’ _____

The Intersection of Health Sciences and Geography

A. While many diseases that affect humans have been eradicated due to improvements in vaccinations and the availability of healthcare, there are still areas around the world where certain health issues are more prevalent. In a world that is far more globalised than ever before, people come into contact with one another through travel and living closer and closer to each other. As a result, super-viruses and other infections resistant to antibiotics are becoming more and more common. B. Geography can often play a very large role in the health concerns of certain populations. For instance, depending on where you live, you will not have the same health concerns as someone who lives in a different geographical region. Perhaps one of the most obvious examples of this idea is malaria-prone areas, which are usually tropical regions that foster a warm and damp environment in which the mosquitos that can give people this disease can grow. Malaria is much less of a problem in high-altitude deserts, for instance. C. In some countries, geographical factors influence the health and well-being of the population in very obvious ways. In many large cities, the wind is not strong enough to clear the air of the massive amounts of smog and pollution that cause asthma, lung problems, eyesight issues and more in the people who live there. Part of the problem is, of course, the massive number of cars being driven, in addition to factories that run on coal power. The rapid industrialisation of some countries in recent years has also led to the cutting down of forests to allow for the expansion of big cities, which makes it even harder to fight the pollution with the fresh air that is produced by plants. D. It is in situations like these that the field of health geography comes into its own. It is an increasingly important area of study in a world where diseases like polio are re-emerging, respiratory diseases continue to spread, and malaria-prone areas are still fighting to find a better cure. Health geography is the combination of, on the one hand, knowledge regarding geography and methods used to analyse and interpret geographical information, and on the other, the study of health, diseases and healthcare practices around the world. The aim of this hybrid science is to create solutions for common geography-based health problems. While people will always be prone to illness, the study of how geography affects our health could lead to the eradication of certain illnesses, and the prevention of others in the future. By understanding why and how we get sick, we can change the way we treat illness and disease specific to certain geographical locations. E. The geography of disease and ill health analyses the frequency with which certain diseases appear in different parts of the world, and overlays the data with the geography of the region, to see if there could be a correlation between the two. Health geographers also study factors that could make certain individuals or a population more likely to be taken ill with a specific health concern or disease, as compared with the population of another area. Health geographers in this field are usually trained as healthcare workers, and have an understanding of basic epidemiology as it relates to the spread of diseases among the population. F. Researchers study the interactions between humans and their environment that could lead to illness (such as asthma in places with high levels of pollution) and work to create a clear way of categorising illnesses, diseases and epidemics into local and global scales. Health geographers can map the spread of illnesses and attempt to identify the reasons behind an increase or decrease in illnesses, as they work to find a way to halt the further spread or re-emergence of diseases in vulnerable populations. G. The second subcategory of health geography is the geography of healthcare provision. This group studies the availability (or lack thereof) of healthcare resources to individuals and populations around the world. In both developed and developing nations there is often a very large discrepancy between the options available to people in different social classes, income brackets, and levels of education. Individuals working in the area of the geography of healthcare provision attempt to assess the levels of healthcare in the area (for instance, it may be very difficult for people to get medical attention because there is a mountain between their village and the nearest hospital). These researchers are on the frontline of making recommendations regarding policy to international organisations, local government bodies and others. H. The field of health geography is often overlooked, but it constitutes a huge area of need in the fields of geography and healthcare. If we can understand how geography affects our health no matter where in the world we are located, we can better treat disease, prevent illness, and keep people safe and well.

An acceptance that not all diseases can be totally eliminated

Examples of physical conditions caused by human behavior

A reference to classifying diseases on the basis of how far they extend geographically

Reasons why the level of access to healthcare can vary within a country