IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2025 - Q2 Test 1 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2025 - Q2 Test 1 được lấy từ cuốn sách Forcast Test 2025 - Q2 với trải nghiệm thi IELTS trên máy và giải thích đáp án chi tiết bằng Linearthinking, kèm answer key và list từ vựng IELTS cần học trong bài đọc.
IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2025 - Q2 Test 1 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 1
Question 1 - 5
Complete the summary below
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
The thylacine was a dog-like which had a coat and was carnivorous. It was originally spread widely throughout the mainland of ,but started to disappear from that area around ago because of climate change.
In the end, thylacines were found only on the island of until the arrival of with their farming practices brought about a drastic reduction in thylacine numbers. The last one is thought to have died in Hobart Zoo in 1936.
Question 6 - 11
Match each statement with the correct person, A, B, C or D.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
List of Findings
A
Hans Naarding
B
Randolph Rose
C
David Pemberton
D
Nick Mooney
6
There is no longer any hope of finding a surviving Tasmanian tiger.
7
It would be preferable not to disturb any surviving Tasmanian tigers.
8
Many who claim to have seen Tasmanian tigers are not objective witnesses.
9
Expert estimates of numbers needed to ensure species survival may be inaccurate.
10
There is a great deal of international interest in Tasmanian tiger stories
11
Some fresh evidence provided by a visitor to Tasmania seems credible.
Question 12 - 13
Choose appropriate options A, B, C or D.
12
Hans Naarding's sighting of a Tasmanian tiger resulted in
A
the capture of the tiger
B
an extensive follow up
C
many other sightings
D
the death of tiger
13
The example of the coelacanth is used to show that
A
new animal species are still evolving
B
animals can possess surprising physical characteristics
C
species of sea animals can be saved from extinction
D
opinions regarding extinction of animal species can be mistaken
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 17
Which paragraph contains the following information?
14
The suggestion that the government should legislate to control invasive species of a corporate nature
15
Examples of the problems with the spread of specific invasive species in nature
16
A description of how invasive species in nature are different from other ones
17
Examples of companies that can be considered invasive species
Question 18 - 21
Complete the following sentences using the text for each gap
NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS
Japanese knotweed was used for decoration and as “Homogocene” is the word used by natural scientists to describe the we are living in. , plenty of money, and cost-cutting increase the strength of big supermarkets. The article suggests that allow economically invasive species to do what they want and eventually lead to monopolies.
Question 22 - 26
Do the following statements agree with the information given in <Reading Passage 1>?
Choose
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
22
The Nile perch was introduced to Lake Victoria as a source of food for local people.
23
Planning regulations have been ineffective against big supermarkets.
24
Supermarkets in Britain sell a limited range of products.
25
Chain stores only sell low-quality goods.
26
The writer is against the domination of big supermarkets.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 27 - 32
Which paragraph contains the following information?
27
A figure indicating the environmental impact of agricultural practices
28
An outline of two basic aims which food systems need to achieve
29
An illustration of a drop in the amount of basic foodstuffs being produced
30
A mention of a lack of public awareness of how food systems affect climate change
31
A mention of the two-way relationship between farming and climate change
32
A reference to how food systems need to vary according to region
Question 33 - 36
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
The public's perception of their contribution to climate change
People, especially in richer countries, are increasingly concerned about the impact of their personal on the environment. When thinking about how their lifestyles affect climate change, people tend to focus on the car they use or on the amount of that they consume. Not many people consider the environmental effects of what they eat, even though food systems are responsible for a large proportion of the being released. In fact, the impact of food systems exceeds the contribution to climate change of all throughout the world.
Question 37 - 40
Write the correct letters A-E.
Which TWO solutions to the problem of food waste does the writer mention?
Which TWO facts about food waste does the writer mention?
A
the countries In the world which waste most food
B
the percentage of food which is wasted by retailers
C
the total annual proportion of food wasted worldwide
D
the impact of food waste on global warming
E
the rate at which global food waste is increasing each year
Which TWO solutions to the problem of food waste does the writer mention?
A
selling products which have minor imperfections
B
limiting the range of perishable goods on offer in retail outlets
C
encouraging consumers to keep food for longer rather than discarding it
D
shifting food production to countries whose inhabitants are undernourished
E
increasing refrigeration facilities in poorer regions of the world
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
The Tasmanian Tiger
The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, was a carnivorous marsupial (a meat-eating mammal which carries its young in a pouch). It was given the name "tiger" because it had striped fur, and because it was ferocious. Between 24 million and 15 million years ago, many types of thylacine roamed across Australia, their powerful jaws playing a role in maintaining a balance in the ecosystems of their day. Some species were for sized, while others were barely the size of kittens.
But when a period of climate change cooled Australia about 12 million years ago, the numbers of these ancient thylacines began to decline. By about 3 million years ego, only one species was left. About 4,000 years ago, these vanished completely from the Australian mainland, so that Tasmania, a large island to the south of Australia, was then the last remaining place where thylacines existed. They ruled the animal life of that island unchallenged until Europeans with sheep, dogs, and a great indifferent to native flora and fauna, seem to have brought about their extinction. In 1936, the last captive Tasmanian bush, but no definitive evidence has been found. Despite this, there are many who keep searching.
In 1981 Dutch-born zoologist Hans Naarding was in Tasmania conducting a survey of Latham's snipe, a species of endangered bird. One night he saw an animal in the light from the searchlight mounted on his vehicle. He described as about the size of a large dog, but with slightly sloping hindquarters and a fairly thick tail continuing straight on from its backbone. He said that it had 12 distinct stripes on its back, running down to the point where the tail began. He reported the sighting to the Director of Tasmania's National Parks. When the news broke, said Naarding. "I was besieged by television crews, including four or five from Japan, and others from the United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand and South America. Government and private search parties combed the region, but no further sightings were made. The tiger, as always, had escaped to its lair a place that many insist exists only in the imagination. Others disagree. There have been more than 4,000 claimed sightings of the animal since supposedly died out, and the average number of claims reported to the authorities each year is now 150. So is it out there? Even experts differ in opinion.
Randolph Rose, Associate Professor of Zoology at the University of Tasmania, says that he dreamed of seeing a thylacine, but is now convinced that his dream will go unfulfilled. The consensus among conservationists is that any animal with a population base of less than 1.000 headed for extinction within 60 years. Sixty years ago, "he says, "there was only one thylacine that we know of, and that was in Hobart Zoo. Take it from me, the tiger is gone. But Dr David Pemberton, curator of zoology at the Tasmanian Museum states that, despite scientific thinking that a relatively large number of animals required to sustain a population the Florida panther is down to a dozen or so animals, and, while it does have some inbreeding problems, is still ticking along. After all, animals can be notoriously elusive. The strange fish known as coelacanth, with its proto legs', was thought to have died out with the dinosaurs 700 million years ago until a specimen was dragged to the surface in a shark net off the coast of South Africa in 1938.
Wildlife biologist Nick Mooney has the unenviable task of investigating all so-called sightings of the tiger. It was Mooney who was first consulted in late February 2005 about the authenticity of new digital photographic images of a thylacine allegedly taken by a tourist. On the face value, Mooney says, this particular account of a sighting and the photographs submitted as proof amount to one of the most convincing cases for the species survival that he has seen. Many other sightings have been hoaxes, and many sincere seekers are victims of obsession. It is a blind optimism that something is, rather than a something isn't. "Mooney says." If something crosses the road, it's not a case of "I wonder what that was?" Rather, it is a case of That's a thylacine!"
However, Mooney treats sightings on face value. "I never try to embarrass people. he says.... but the fact that I don't pack the car immediately after they telephone can taken as ridicule. Obsessive characters get angry that someone in my position is not out there when they think the thylacine is there.
Hans Naarding, whose sighting of a striped animal two decades ago was the highlight of a lifetime of animal spotting, remains puzzled by the time and money people waste on tiger searches. He says resources would be better applied to saying another endangered animal, the Tasmanian devil, and helping declining migratory bird populations. Could the thylacine still be out there?' Sure, 'Naarding says "I know the vast south-west wilderness of Tasmania well. They could survive (But) if this is the case, it will not be long before they do disappear completely." Naarding believes that any discovery of surviving thylacines would be rather pointless'." How do you bring a species back from extinction? He asks "what could you do with it? If there are thylacines out there, they are better off right where they are.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
striped
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Gap Fill
Step 01: Read the question to understand (main idea + detail) + Predict Word Form + Meaning
Simplified: The thylacine was a dog-like which had a _______ coat and was carnivorous
Main idea: Mô tả đặc điểm của loài thylacine – có hình dáng giống chó, có bộ lông _____ và là động vật ăn thịt.
Prediction: Từ cần điền là tính từ (adj) → mô tả đặc điểm của “coat” → nghĩa dự đoán: “có hoa văn”, “có màu sắc đặc biệt”.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khoá: “thylacine”, “dog-like”, “coat”, “carnivorous”
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên → Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1 - đoạn mô tả đặc điểm ngoại hình của thylacine.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌Trích dẫn: “It was given the name 'tiger' because it had striped fur, and because it was ferocious.” (đoạn 1)
Simplified: It was given the name “tiger” → because it had striped fur + because it was ferocious
Main idea: Thylacine được đặt tên là “tiger” vì bộ lông có sọc và tính hung dữ.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Thylacine được đặt tên là “tiger” vì bộ lông có sọc và khá hung dữ.
Trong câu hỏi: Thylacine có hình dáng giống chó, có bộ lông _____ và là động vật ăn thịt
→ Suy ra: “striped” là từ mô tả chính xác loại “coat” của thylacine.
A. Invasive species often triumph as a result of good intentions gone wrong. Take Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica), introduced to Britain by enthusiastic Victorian gardeners who thought it an ornamental delight that doubled as cattle feed. But from just a scrap of root no bigger than a pea it could grow through tarmac, pavements, and brick walls. A century later, its spread is considered such a threat that planting or dumping knotweed is a crime, knotweed is so hated because it suffocates other plants, replacing them with an unproductive, leafy monotony. Then there is the Nile perch (Lates niloticus), branded one of the world’s worst invaders by conservationists. It is a freshwater fish that can grow to huge proportions. Again, with good intentions, it was introduced in 1954 to Lake Victoria, straddling Tanzania. Kenya, and Uganda. Since then, it has helped push over 200 well-established local fish species to extinction. Like the Nile perch, the cane toad (Bufo marinus) eats almost anything it gets its mouth around. Introduced for pest control, it turned out to be noisy, fast spreading, and a greater pest itself.
B
As it is in nature, so it is in the economy. Big superstores and chain retailers were allowed to spread by planners, town councils, and governments in awe of big business. But then it started to go wrong. The chains became the economic equivalent of invasive species: hungry, indiscriminate, often antisocial and destructive. When no one was paying much attention, the superstores and cloned shops grew to dominate and suffocate the economic ecosystem. They passed through planning regulations as easily as knotweed pushes through tarmac, devoured smaller and independent retailers with as much reflection as the Nile perch cleansing Lake Victoria of competition. They were often introduced to provide a specific service but outgrew their habitats until their cash till song could be heard on every street corner, forecourt, round about, and out of town shopping centre. Neither in balance, nor even a boom bust cycle with other similar, local species of shop; they began permanently to displace them.
C
Natural scientists use a whole new term to describe the current epoch of comprehensive global human interference in ecosystems. Our time, they say, should be called the “Homogocene” to describe the way that distinctiveness and difference are being eroded. A combination of the creep of invasive species and habitats destroyed by development is driving a mass extinction. The World Conservation Union warns that such invasions are leading to the irretrievable loss of native biodiversity. Typical characteristics of an invasive species include the absence of predators, hardiness, and a generalist diet. Whatever the reason for their arrival and proliferation, invasive species tend to cause a disruption of the ecosystem that is catastrophic for native species.
D
The big, centralised logistical operations of the supermarkets are likewise driving the homogenisation of business, shopping, eating, farming, food, the landscape, the environment, and our daily lives. In the process, Britain is being sucked into a vortex of US-style, chain-store-led. clone retailing, both in towns and in soulless “big box” out-of-town shopping parks— what they call in the US, with its associated suburban sprawl, the “dead zone”. They are spreading in the way “invasive species” spread in nature, lacking checks and balances, killing off diversity and “native” (in other words, local) species. Tesco is not the only guilty party (think of McDonald’s. Starbucks, and Gap), but it is possibly the largest driving force. With around 2.000 stores in Britain, almost one third of the grocery market, and rapid international growth, city analysts believe the brand has the land and resources in place already to double its UK floor space. Can anything stop it?
E
Bear in mind those characteristics of an invasive species: the absence of predators (real commercial competition or effective regulators to hold them back); hardiness (the legions of corporate lawyers, financial leverage, and endless commercial cost cutting); and a generalist diet (supermarkets will sell virtually anything, and chain stores operate according to a low common denominator). If you want diversity in your world rather than one kind of plant in your garden, one kind of fish in your lake and only one type of venomous, croaking toad under your shed, then you have to manage for that outcome. When we garden, we hold back aggressive, opportunistic plants in order to keep space open for a celebration of variety and colour.
F
Like it or not (and it is something about which most policy makers and economists are in deep denial), weakly regulated markets give free rein to economic invasive species and hence tend towards monopoly. This is the great modern economic irony. Advocates of free markets argue against checks and balances to counter the power of big business, but in doing so ultimately destroy the possibility of markets that could meaningfully be called free, or, rather, “open”. They resist anti-monopoly regulation in the name of providing consumer choice, and in the process they ultimately destroy it. In some important ways, we are returning to an earlier phase of corporatism. Henry Ford told customers they could have any colour of car, as long as it was black. The scale and seriousness of Tesco’s ambition mean that, before long, unless we recognise what is happening and have regulators up to the job, one day we will be able to shop anywhere we like, as long as it is Tesco.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2
14
F
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Information
📌 Dạng Matching Information chúng ta nên làm cuối cùng, sau khi đã làm các dạng câu hỏi khác nhé DOLBIES, bởi vì lúc này mình đã đọc và hiểu nội dung của bài rồi, cộng thêm nghệ thuật Specify của Linearthinking → sẽ nhanh chóng tìm được vị trí đáp án hơn!!
-------
Step 01: Read the question to predict
Hiểu câu hỏi: The suggestion that the government should legislate to control invasive species of a corporate nature
Specify & Predict: Tìm đoạn văn chứa thông tin về việc cần có luật lệ để hạn chế sự bành trướng của các tập đoàn lớn (loài xâm lấn kinh tế), ví dụ: kiểm soát thị trường, ngăn chặn độc quyền...
-------
Step 02: Khoanh vùng đoạn văn
🔍 Từ khóa: “suggestion", "government", "legislate", "control", "invasive species", "corporate nature"
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, có thể khoanh vùng được đoạn F vì có nhắc đến "economic invasive species" (loài xâm lấn về kinh tế - tương ứng với "invasive species of a corporate nature"); và cần "have regulators up to the job" (có những cơ quan chức năng/ cơ quan quản lý đủ năng lực làm việc - tương ứng với "legislate to control").
→ Đoạn F có meaning trùng khớp (tăng cường kiểm soát của cơ quan quản lý).
A. Did you know that what's on your plate plays a larger role in contributing to climate change than the car you drive? Many people, especially in wealthier countries, are becoming worried about how much their individual carbon footprint is contributing to climate change. However, when they consider these issues, they'll usually think about what vehicle they drive and how much electricity they use in their home, but not so much about farming machinery, processed meals or food waste. Few consider the impacts of the food they eat, despite the fact that worldwide food systems account for roughly one quarter of all manmade emission of greenhouse gases. That's more than the entire global transportation sector.
B
B.
The most immediate threat from climate change for most of the global population will be at the dinner table, as our ability to grow critical staple crops is being affected by the global warming we've already experienced. Between 1980 and 2008, for instance, wheat yields fell by 5.5% and maize yields by 3.8% due to rising temperatures. Climate change threatens the food security of millions of poor people around the world. And yet what we see is that while food and agriculture are massively impacted by climate change, they are also, simultaneously, major contributors to it. What all of this tells us is that our food systems, as currently structured, are facing major challenges.
C
So what are food systems? Everything from seed and soil, to the supermarket to the plate to the landfill site. Food systems include the growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption and disposal of food and food-related items. While farming alone accounts for 10-12% of global greenhouse gas emissions, when we look at entire food systems the contributions to climate change more than double. A recent report published by the not-for-profit organisation Meridian Institute lays out the many factors throughout food systems that spell trouble for the climate, and also explains why a broad systems-wide perspective is necessary for implementing effective changes.
D
Consider the impact of deforestation as forests are cleared for the purpose of making land available for other uses. Worldwide, 80% of deforestation is carried out to create farmland, with potentially serious consequences for climate change. The world's forests are massive carbon sinks, vital natural 'reservoirs' which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. So is soil, which locks away - or 'sequesters' - two to three times as much carbon as there is present in the atmosphere. However, there are ways to produce food without adding to climate change. Environmentally responsible farming can help restore ecosystem functions by producing crops and livestock in productive ways that sequester carbon and preserve forests.
E
Or consider food waste. Not just the scraps that we throw away, but throughout the entire food system. Every year, a staggering 30-40% of the food produced in the world is never eaten. Some never gets harvested, some spoils before it reaches consumers, and a lot is tossed away by supermarkets, restaurants and at home. For the sake of comparing emissions, if food waste were a country in its own right, it would be the world's third largest contributor to global warming, after only China and the United States. This says nothing of the gross injustice of wasting so much food while so many in the world go hungry. In the developing world, improving infrastructure along the food chain - including cold storage - would prevent much good food being lost. In the developed world, retailers can prevent large amounts of waste by finding outlets for slightly flawed or blemished goods, and consumers can limit waste by buying food in amounts they actually want and need.
F
The complex, dynamic and widely diverse forms of the world's many food systems yield some wildly divergent outcomes in terms of nutrition, health, and environmental and climate impacts. Just as there's no universal crop that grows everywhere, there's no 'one size fits all' model food system to implement across the world. It is critical that we start to better examine what works in some systems and what must be improved in others, in order to produce more just and sustainable outcomes around the world. It's time to look beyond farming and agriculture and to see the whole picture, to create systems that cause less harm to the climate and are more resilient to the impacts we're already suffering from global warming. Food is a fundamental human need and to eat is a basic human right. Our food systems must deliver that need, without worsening the impacts of climate change.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
27
C
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Information
📌 Dạng Matching Information chúng ta nên làm cuối cùng, sau khi đã làm các dạng câu hỏi khác nhé DOLBIES, bởi vì lúc này mình đã đọc và hiểu nội dung của bài rồi, cộng thêm nghệ thuật Specify của Linearthinking → sẽ nhanh chóng tìm được vị trí đáp án hơn!!
-------
Step 01: Read the question to predict
Hiểu câu hỏi: A figure indicating the environmental impact of agricultural practices
Specify & Predict: Tìm đoạn văn chứa số liệu (phần trăm, tỷ lệ,...) liên quan đến việc nông nghiệp gây hại thế nào đến môi trường, ví dụ: lượng khí thải CO2, tỷ lệ phần trăm khí nhà kính từ việc trồng trọt...
-------
Step 02: Khoanh vùng đoạn văn
🔍 Từ khóa: “figure", "environmental impact", "agricultural practices"
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, có thể khoanh vùng được đoạn C vì có xuất hiện các cụm như:
"farming alone accounts for 10-12%" (riêng việc canh tác nông nghiệp chiếm 10-12% - một con số cụ thể);
"global greenhouse gas emissions" (lượng phát thải khí nhà kính toàn cầu - tác động môi trường).
→ Đoạn cung cấp số liệu cụ thể (10–12%) thể hiện rõ tác động môi trường của nông nghiệp.
The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, was a carnivorous marsupial (a meat-eating mammal which carries its young in a pouch). It was given the name "tiger" because it had striped fur, and because it was ferocious. Between 24 million and 15 million years ago, many types of thylacine roamed across Australia, their powerful jaws playing a role in maintaining a balance in the ecosystems of their day. Some species were for sized, while others were barely the size of kittens.
But when a period of climate change cooled Australia about 12 million years ago, the numbers of these ancient thylacines began to decline. By about 3 million years ego, only one species was left. About 4,000 years ago, these vanished completely from the Australian mainland, so that Tasmania, a large island to the south of Australia, was then the last remaining place where thylacines existed. They ruled the animal life of that island unchallenged until Europeans with sheep, dogs, and a great indifferent to native flora and fauna, seem to have brought about their extinction. In 1936, the last captive Tasmanian bush, but no definitive evidence has been found. Despite this, there are many who keep searching.
In 1981 Dutch-born zoologist Hans Naarding was in Tasmania conducting a survey of Latham's snipe, a species of endangered bird. One night he saw an animal in the light from the searchlight mounted on his vehicle. He described as about the size of a large dog, but with slightly sloping hindquarters and a fairly thick tail continuing straight on from its backbone. He said that it had 12 distinct stripes on its back, running down to the point where the tail began. He reported the sighting to the Director of Tasmania's National Parks. When the news broke, said Naarding. "I was besieged by television crews, including four or five from Japan, and others from the United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand and South America. Government and private search parties combed the region, but no further sightings were made. The tiger, as always, had escaped to its lair a place that many insist exists only in the imagination. Others disagree. There have been more than 4,000 claimed sightings of the animal since supposedly died out, and the average number of claims reported to the authorities each year is now 150. So is it out there? Even experts differ in opinion.
Randolph Rose, Associate Professor of Zoology at the University of Tasmania, says that he dreamed of seeing a thylacine, but is now convinced that his dream will go unfulfilled. The consensus among conservationists is that any animal with a population base of less than 1.000 headed for extinction within 60 years. Sixty years ago, "he says, "there was only one thylacine that we know of, and that was in Hobart Zoo. Take it from me, the tiger is gone. But Dr David Pemberton, curator of zoology at the Tasmanian Museum states that, despite scientific thinking that a relatively large number of animals required to sustain a population the Florida panther is down to a dozen or so animals, and, while it does have some inbreeding problems, is still ticking along. After all, animals can be notoriously elusive. The strange fish known as coelacanth, with its proto legs', was thought to have died out with the dinosaurs 700 million years ago until a specimen was dragged to the surface in a shark net off the coast of South Africa in 1938.
Wildlife biologist Nick Mooney has the unenviable task of investigating all so-called sightings of the tiger. It was Mooney who was first consulted in late February 2005 about the authenticity of new digital photographic images of a thylacine allegedly taken by a tourist. On the face value, Mooney says, this particular account of a sighting and the photographs submitted as proof amount to one of the most convincing cases for the species survival that he has seen. Many other sightings have been hoaxes, and many sincere seekers are victims of obsession. It is a blind optimism that something is, rather than a something isn't. "Mooney says." If something crosses the road, it's not a case of "I wonder what that was?" Rather, it is a case of That's a thylacine!"
However, Mooney treats sightings on face value. "I never try to embarrass people. he says.... but the fact that I don't pack the car immediately after they telephone can taken as ridicule. Obsessive characters get angry that someone in my position is not out there when they think the thylacine is there.
Hans Naarding, whose sighting of a striped animal two decades ago was the highlight of a lifetime of animal spotting, remains puzzled by the time and money people waste on tiger searches. He says resources would be better applied to saying another endangered animal, the Tasmanian devil, and helping declining migratory bird populations. Could the thylacine still be out there?' Sure, 'Naarding says "I know the vast south-west wilderness of Tasmania well. They could survive (But) if this is the case, it will not be long before they do disappear completely." Naarding believes that any discovery of surviving thylacines would be rather pointless'." How do you bring a species back from extinction? He asks "what could you do with it? If there are thylacines out there, they are better off right where they are.
because it had striped fur
because it was ferocious
B. As it is in nature, so it is in the economy. Big superstores and chain retailers were allowed to spread by planners, town councils, and governments in awe of big business. But then it started to go wrong. The chains became the economic equivalent of invasive species: hungry, indiscriminate, often antisocial and destructive. When no one was paying much attention, the superstores and cloned shops grew to dominate and suffocate the economic ecosystem. They passed through planning regulations as easily as knotweed pushes through tarmac, devoured smaller and independent retailers with as much reflection as the Nile perch cleansing Lake Victoria of competition. They were often introduced to provide a specific service but outgrew their habitats until their cash till song could be heard on every street corner, forecourt, round about, and out of town shopping centre. Neither in balance, nor even a boom bust cycle with other similar, local species of shop; they began permanently to displace them.
C. Natural scientists use a whole new term to describe the current epoch of comprehensive global human interference in ecosystems. Our time, they say, should be called the “Homogocene” to describe the way that distinctiveness and difference are being eroded. A combination of the creep of invasive species and habitats destroyed by development is driving a mass extinction. The World Conservation Union warns that such invasions are leading to the irretrievable loss of native biodiversity. Typical characteristics of an invasive species include the absence of predators, hardiness, and a generalist diet. Whatever the reason for their arrival and proliferation, invasive species tend to cause a disruption of the ecosystem that is catastrophic for native species.
D. The big, centralised logistical operations of the supermarkets are likewise driving the homogenisation of business, shopping, eating, farming, food, the landscape, the environment, and our daily lives. In the process, Britain is being sucked into a vortex of US-style, chain-store-led. clone retailing, both in towns and in soulless “big box” out-of-town shopping parks— what they call in the US, with its associated suburban sprawl, the “dead zone”. They are spreading in the way “invasive species” spread in nature, lacking checks and balances, killing off diversity and “native” (in other words, local) species. Tesco is not the only guilty party (think of McDonald’s. Starbucks, and Gap), but it is possibly the largest driving force. With around 2.000 stores in Britain, almost one third of the grocery market, and rapid international growth, city analysts believe the brand has the land and resources in place already to double its UK floor space. Can anything stop it?
E. Bear in mind those characteristics of an invasive species: the absence of predators (real commercial competition or effective regulators to hold them back); hardiness (the legions of corporate lawyers, financial leverage, and endless commercial cost cutting); and a generalist diet (supermarkets will sell virtually anything, and chain stores operate according to a low common denominator). If you want diversity in your world rather than one kind of plant in your garden, one kind of fish in your lake and only one type of venomous, croaking toad under your shed, then you have to manage for that outcome. When we garden, we hold back aggressive, opportunistic plants in order to keep space open for a celebration of variety and colour.
F. Like it or not (and it is something about which most policy makers and economists are in deep denial), weakly regulated markets give free rein to economic invasive species and hence tend towards monopoly. This is the great modern economic irony. Advocates of free markets argue against checks and balances to counter the power of big business, but in doing so ultimately destroy the possibility of markets that could meaningfully be called free, or, rather, “open”. They resist anti-monopoly regulation in the name of providing consumer choice, and in the process they ultimately destroy it. In some important ways, we are returning to an earlier phase of corporatism. Henry Ford told customers they could have any colour of car, as long as it was black. The scale and seriousness of Tesco’s ambition mean that, before long, unless we recognise what is happening and have regulators up to the job, one day we will be able to shop anywhere we like, as long as it is Tesco.
The most immediate threat from climate change for most of the global population will be at the dinner table, as our ability to grow critical staple crops is being affected by the global warming we've already experienced. Between 1980 and 2008, for instance, wheat yields fell by 5.5% and maize yields by 3.8% due to rising temperatures. Climate change threatens the food security of millions of poor people around the world. And yet what we see is that while food and agriculture are massively impacted by climate change, they are also, simultaneously, major contributors to it. What all of this tells us is that our food systems, as currently structured, are facing major challenges.
C. So what are food systems? Everything from seed and soil, to the supermarket to the plate to the landfill site. Food systems include the growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption and disposal of food and food-related items. While farming alone accounts for 10-12% of global greenhouse gas emissions, when we look at entire food systems the contributions to climate change more than double. A recent report published by the not-for-profit organisation Meridian Institute lays out the many factors throughout food systems that spell trouble for the climate, and also explains why a broad systems-wide perspective is necessary for implementing effective changes.
D. Consider the impact of deforestation as forests are cleared for the purpose of making land available for other uses. Worldwide, 80% of deforestation is carried out to create farmland, with potentially serious consequences for climate change. The world's forests are massive carbon sinks, vital natural 'reservoirs' which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. So is soil, which locks away - or 'sequesters' - two to three times as much carbon as there is present in the atmosphere. However, there are ways to produce food without adding to climate change. Environmentally responsible farming can help restore ecosystem functions by producing crops and livestock in productive ways that sequester carbon and preserve forests.
E. Or consider food waste. Not just the scraps that we throw away, but throughout the entire food system. Every year, a staggering 30-40% of the food produced in the world is never eaten. Some never gets harvested, some spoils before it reaches consumers, and a lot is tossed away by supermarkets, restaurants and at home. For the sake of comparing emissions, if food waste were a country in its own right, it would be the world's third largest contributor to global warming, after only China and the United States. This says nothing of the gross injustice of wasting so much food while so many in the world go hungry. In the developing world, improving infrastructure along the food chain - including cold storage - would prevent much good food being lost. In the developed world, retailers can prevent large amounts of waste by finding outlets for slightly flawed or blemished goods, and consumers can limit waste by buying food in amounts they actually want and need.
F. The complex, dynamic and widely diverse forms of the world's many food systems yield some wildly divergent outcomes in terms of nutrition, health, and environmental and climate impacts. Just as there's no universal crop that grows everywhere, there's no 'one size fits all' model food system to implement across the world. It is critical that we start to better examine what works in some systems and what must be improved in others, in order to produce more just and sustainable outcomes around the world. It's time to look beyond farming and agriculture and to see the whole picture, to create systems that cause less harm to the climate and are more resilient to the impacts we're already suffering from global warming. Food is a fundamental human need and to eat is a basic human right. Our food systems must deliver that need, without worsening the impacts of climate change.
