To save a woodpecker
为了救一只啄木鸟
May 11th 2006 | CLARENDON, ARKANSAS
From The Economist print edition
THE ivory-billed woodpecker is not large, as birds go. It is about the size of a crow, but FLASHier. Its claim to fame[1] is that, though it had been thought extinct since 1944, a lone kayaker spotted it about two years ago, flying around among the cypress trees in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. And （1）that sighting may prove the death-blow[2] to a $319m irrigation project in the Arkansas corner of the Delta.
象牙喙啄木鸟与普通的鸟一样，体形不是很大，跟乌鸦差不多，但羽色较亮。1944年以来人们一直以为它已经灭绝，但大约两年前，一个划着小船的独行客在凯奇河国家野生物保护区的柏树林中发现一只啄木鸟正在四处飞翔，因此，这种鸟就出了名。而且，这一发现可能致使阿肯色三角洲地区一项耗资3.19亿美元的灌溉工程搁浅。
The Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project seemed, at first, a fine idea. The Grand Prairie is the fourth-largest rice-bowl in the world, with 363,000 acres under paddies. But it is running out of water, with farmers driving wells deeper and deeper into the underlying aquifer[3]. The new project, dreamed up around a decade ago, would tap excess water from the White river when it floods and pump it, at the rate of about one billion gallons a day, to storage tanks on around 1,000 rice farms.
此项北美大草原地区示范工程一开始似乎是个好主意。大草原是世界上第四大稻米产地，拥有36.3万亩稻田。但是那里水资源正日趋枯竭，农民的井越挖越深，已经到了地下蓄水层。大概十年前人们就梦想有这样一项新的工程，能在怀特河发生洪灾时对上涨的河水进行引流，并以每天10亿加仑的流量将其抽入大约1000个水稻农场的蓄水池中。
Unfortunately, it would also divert water from the region's huge, swampy wildlife refuges, home to black bears and alligators and the pallid sturgeon. Tiny swamp towns like Clarendon and Brinkley, which are heavily black and almost destitute[4], rely on nature tourism for the little economic activity they have. In Brinkley, （2）the barber offers an “ivorybill” haircut that makes you look like one.
可不幸的是，这一工程同样会排走当地野生物保护区庞大的沼泽地里（黑熊、鳄鱼和白鲟鱼栖息处）的水。像克拉林顿和布林克利这样的沼泽小城都是黑黢黢的，穷得叮当响。靠着自然旅游业，它们的经济方才一息尚存。在布林克利，理发师会剪一种“象牙喙”发型，让每个人看上去都毫无二致。（译者按：此句中的“one”到底指代什么呢？是“one ivory-billed woodpecker”还是“the same one”，或者是别的？匪夷所思！）
The project has some powerful local backers. They include Blanche Lincoln, the state's senior senator, who GREw up on a rice farm in Helena, and Dale Bumpers, a former four-term senator and governor of Arkansas. Mr Bumpers, long an icon of the environmental movement and prominent in the efforts to establish the refuges, now believes the water project is important for national security in food and trade, and that it will not damage the forests he has worked to protect.
该工程得到了当地一些有权有势的人的支持，这些人包括，在海伦娜一个水稻农场长大的州参议院资深议员布兰彻•林肯和阿肯色州第四任参议院议员兼州长戴勒•邦姆珀斯。邦姆珀斯先生一直以来都是环境保护运动的领军人物，为建立野生物保护区做出过卓越贡献，如今他认为，这项灌溉工程对国家食品与贸易安全而言具有重要意义，并不会破坏他曾经致力于保护的森林。
（3）Opponents worry that the project, apart from its environmental risks, will overwhelm the innovative water conservation methods that rice-farmers are already using, and give the biggest water users an unfair advantage. They also object that it means using subsidised pumps to provide subsidised water for a crop that doesn't pay. Rice is one of the most heavily assisted crops in America; rice payments cost taxpayers almost $10 billion between 1995 and 2004, and rich farmers round Stuttgart in Arkansas County (an efficient and politically shrewd group) took in $21.2m in subsidies in 2004 alone.
反对人士担心，工程不但会给环境造成诸多威胁，而且将导致稻农可能放弃现已采用的储水改良方法，最终受益的将是那些用水大户，这是不公平的。他们还反对说，这一工程意味着，政府对抽水灌溉农作物提供了补贴，可用水人却不需缴任何费用。水稻是美国重点扶持的农作物之一，1995年至2004年间纳税人为购买大米支付了将近100亿美元，阿肯色县斯图加特（一个高效的、有着精明政治头脑的集体）附近的富裕农户，仅从2004年一年的政府补贴中就赚得2120万美元。
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1．sb’s/sth’s claim to fame
a place or person’s claim to fame is the reason why they are famous—often used humorously to mention something that is not very important （某地或某人）出名的原因（诙谐用语，形容一些无足轻重的事物）
如：My main claim to fame is that I once shook Elvis’s hand. 跟Elvis握手让我出了名。
2．death blow
an action or event that makes something fail or end [= death knell]: （令某事失败或终止的）行动或事件
如：His decision to leave the show has delivered a death blow to the series.
3．aquifer n.蓄水层
4．destitute adj.
1）having no money, no food, no home, etc. 一无所有
如：The floods left many people destitute.洪水让许多人缺衣少食，无家可归。
2）be destitute of sth.一点也没有……
如：a man who is destitute of mercy 毫无同情心的人
