Collins Big Cat — WONDERFUL WILDERNESS: Band 15/Emerald

Wonderful Wilderness

Wonderful Wilderness WONDERFUL WILDERNESS

What is a wilderness? Why do we need to preserve it and how do we go about doing so?

This book takes a look at these important questions and focuses on National Parks from Yellowstone in the US, to the Lake District in the UK and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Browse the complete Collins catalogue at

www.collins.co.uk

An information book

ISBN 978-0-00-820885-1

9 780008 208851 www.collins.co.uk/collinsbigcat

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Collins Big Cat Inform is a large range of topical non-ďŹ ction to support the curriculum.

Gill Arbuthnott 15/05/2017 12:59

What is a wilderness?

A wilderness is an area of land that hasn’t been significantly changed by humans. Wildernesses are the last really wild places on Earth.

Until recent times, people only affected quite small areas of the planet, and most of the earth was wilderness.

The wilderness was something to be afraid of, full of wild sts animals that could kill you, fores forests where you could become hopelessly lost, and icy mountains where you could fall to your death.

Amazon rainforest

Snowdonia

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As human populations expanded nded and cities grew bigger, wild areas began to shrink.

They also became busier, as people started to use wildernesses as places to enjoy themselves – for instance, going walking and climbing for pleasure.

Sahara desert

o st tarted Many poets and painters also started to use the landscape to inspire their work. People began to realise that wilderness areas needed protection.

Wild Fact In the Middle Ages, English kings started to pass laws protecting wild areas, but only to make sure they could use them for hunting.

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Threats to wilderness Unfortunately, most of the threats to wilderness areas come from human activities.

Logging destroys large areas of tropical rainforest, and large areas of forest are cleared in some places so that oil palm trees can bee grown ad d. as a cash crop instead. ed d Their oil is widely used n for cooking, and can also be turned into fuel for vehicles. logging in the Amazon rainforest

palm oil plantation

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Why should we preserve wildernesses?

Wildernesses have taken millions of years to develop, and the plants and animals that live there have become highly adapted. Many can’t live anywhere else.

For instance, orangutans are only found in the rainforests

Rafflesia arnoldii

of Borneo and Sumatra, and Rafflesia arnoldii – the largest flower on Earth – is only found in the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia and Malaysia.

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If we lose wilderness areas, there are fewer places for plants and animals to live and less for the animals to eat, so fewer types of plant and animal survive. e wild It’s also important that the relatives of the plants we depend on for food still survive in the wild, so that they can be used to improve the crops we grow. e The wilderness can also be a potential source of manyy

Madagascar periwinkle

new medicines. Importantt cancer treatments have been developed from

the Madagas Madagascar periwinkle plant and the Pacific yew tree.

An lastly, getting out And in wild places has into been shown to be good for people’s mental and physical health.

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