We are stealing nature from our children.
我们正从后代手中偷取大自然。
Now, when I say this, I don't mean that we are destroying nature that they will have wanted us to preserve, although that is unfortunately also the case.
我并不是在说我们在毁坏大自然，孩子们想让我们保护的大自然，尽管我们的确在毁坏大自然。
What I mean here is that we've started to define nature in a way that's so purist and so strict that under the definition we're creating for ourselves,
这里我所指的是，我们给自然下了一个纯粹又严格的定义。在这个我们自己的定义之下，
there won't be any nature left for our children when they're adults. But there's a fix for this. So let me explain.
当我们的孩子长大成人，他们的自然将会所剩无几。但这个问题有办法解决。让我来解释一下。
Right now, humans use half of the world to live, to grow their crops and their timber, to pasture their animals.
现在，人类正在把半个地球用于生活，种植农作物、木材和饲养牲畜。
If you added up all the human beings, we would weigh 10 times as much as all the wild mammals put together.
如果把所有人类加到一起，质量相当于所有野生哺乳动物的10倍。
We cut roads through the forest. We have added little plastic particles to the sand on ocean beaches.
我们从砍伐森林中建设道路。我们把塑料颗粒混在了海滩的沙粒中。
We've changed the chemistry of the soil with our artificial fertilizers.
我们用人造的化肥改变了泥土的化学性质。
And of course, we've changed the chemistry of the air.
当然我们也改变了空气的成分。
So when you take your next breath, you'll be breathing in 42 percent more carbon dioxide than if you were breathing in 1750.
所以，当你呼吸下一口空气时，你吸入的二氧化碳比1750年多42％。
So all of these changes, and many others, have come to be kind of lumped together under this rubric of the "Anthropocene."
所以，这些改变，和其他的一起，都集合在“人类世”的大标题下。
And this is a term that some geologists are suggesting we should give to our current epoch,
这是一个由地质学家们建议的术语，因为人类的影响无处不在，
given how pervasive human influence has been over it.
我们正所处的时代被叫做“人类世”。
Now, it's still just a proposed epoch, but I think it's a helpful way to think about the magnitude of human influence on the planet.
现在，它仍只是一个被建议使用的名词，但我认为这可以帮助人类思考自己对这个星球的所作所为。
So where does this put nature? What counts as nature in a world where everything is influenced by humans?
所以这对自然有什么影响？在这个遍布人类影响的世界，什么才算自然？
So 25 years ago, environmental writer Bill McKibben said that because nature was a thing apart from man
25年前，环境作家比尔·麦克基本认为，因为自然是人类之外的东西，
and because climate change meant that every centimeter of the Earth was altered by man, then nature was over.
以及因为气候变化意味着地球的每分每寸都被人类改写了，自然已经不存在了。
In fact, he called his book "The End of Nature."
其实他的书就叫《自然的终结》。
I disagree with this. I just disagree with this.
我不同意这观点。我就是不同意。
I disagree with this definition of nature, because, fundamentally, we are animals. Right?
我不同意这个对自然的定义，因为根本上我们人类是动物，对吧？
Like, we evolved on this planet in the context of all the other animals with which we share a planet,
我们在这个星球上进化，在这里，我们同所有动物、
and all the other plants, and all the other microbes.
所有植物、所有微生物共享这个星球。
And so I think that nature is not that which is untouched by humanity, man or woman.
并且我坚信，自然不应该是一个未被人类所碰触的地方。
I think that nature is anywhere where life thrives, anywhere where there are multiple species together,
我坚信，自然是一个有生命茂盛兴旺，有万物共同生长，
anywhere that's green and blue and thriving and filled with life and growing.
有绿色、蓝色，旺盛充盈着生命的一个不断生长的地方。
And under that definition, things look a little bit different.
在这个定义之下，事情变得有些不同。
Now, I understand that there are certain parts of this nature that speak to us in a special way.
现在，我深知自然中某些部分会用一种特殊的语言和我们对话。
Places like Yellowstone, or the Mongolian steppe, or the Great Barrier Reef or the Serengeti.
有很多地方，就象黄石公园、蒙古大草原、大堡礁，还有塞伦盖蒂。
Places that we think of as kind of Edenic representations of a nature before we screwed everything up.
这些好似伊甸园一样的地方，那个还没有被我们摧毁一切的自然。
And in a way, they are less impacted by our day to day activities.
而且它们较少受到我们一天一天的活动的影响。
Many of these places have no roads or few roads, so on, like such.
很多地方几乎没有道路之类的，等等。
But ultimately, even these Edens are deeply influenced by humans.
但最后，这些伊甸园还是被人类深深影响。
Now, let's just take North America, for example, since that's where we're meeting.
现在，既然我们就处在北美，那就让我们用北美举个例子。
So between about 15,000 years ago when people first came here,
在15000年前，当人们第一次来到这片土地时，
they started a process of interacting with the nature that led to the extinction of a big slew of large-bodied animals,
他们开始和自然进行互动。这导致了大量大型动物的灭绝，
from the mastodon to the giant ground sloth, saber-toothed cats, all of these cool animals that unfortunately are no longer with us.
从乳齿象到地懒、剑齿虎，这些动物都不幸地灭绝了。
And when those animals went extinct, you know, the ecosystems didn't stand still.
当这些动物走向灭绝，生态系统就不能一如既往地运行。
Massive ripple effects changed grasslands into forests, changed the composition of forest from one tree to another.
涟漪效应使草原变成了森林，使丛林的树从一种变成了另一种。
So even in these Edens, even in these perfect-looking places that seem to remind us of a past before humans,
甚至那些伊甸园，那些绮丽之地也深受影响。这似乎让我们想起了一段人类出现之前的历史，
we're essentially looking at a humanized landscape.
我们其实是在看一个人类化的风景。
Not just these prehistoric humans, but historical humans, indigenous people all the way up until the moment when the first colonizers showed up.
不止这些史前人类，还有历史上的人和原著人民，一直追溯到第一个殖民者到来的那一刻。
And the case is the same for the other continents as well.
并且这些情况对其他大陆也是一样的。
Humans have just been involved in nature in a very influential way for a very long time.
长久以来，人类已在自然之中进行了富有影响力的进化。
Now, just recently, someone told me, "Oh, but there are still wild places."
就在刚刚，有个人对我说：“啊，其实还有原生态的地方啊。”
And I said, "Where? Where? I want to go." And he said, "The Amazon."
我说：“哪里啊？在哪？我想去。”他说：“亚马逊。”
And I was like, Oh, the Amazon. I was just there. It's awesome.
我说：哦，亚马逊，我就在那。这很不错。
National Geographic sent me to Manú National Park, which is in the Peruvian Amazon,
国家地理派遣我去的马努国家公园就在祕鲁亚马逊，
but it's a big chunk of rainforest, uncleared, no roads, protected as a national park, one of the most, in fact, biodiverse parks in the world.
那是一大片雨林，很模糊，没有公路，作为一个国家公园被保护，实际上，这里受保护的物种堪称世界之最。
And when I got in there with my canoe, what did I find, but people. People have been living there for hundreds and thousands of years.
当我撑着我的小舟来到这里，我发现的，只有人。人们来到这片雨林有上百或上千年了。
People live there, and they don't just float over the jungle.
住在这的人，他们不只乘舟穿越丛林。
They have a meaningful relationship with the landscape.
他们同这地方有寓意悠远的关系。
They hunt. They grow crops. They domesticate crops.
他们打猎。他们种植农作物。他们培育农作物。
They use the natural resources to build their houses, to thatch their houses.
他们用自然资源做自己的房屋，用茅草盖屋顶。
They even make pets out of animals that we consider to be wild animals.
他们甚至把我们眼中认为的野生动物当作宠物。
These people are there and they're interacting with the environment in a way that's really meaningful and that you can see in the environment.
人们在那里和环境共生互动。你可以从环境中清楚看到这其中深刻的意义。
Now, I was with an anthropologist on this trip, and he told me,
当时我和一位人类学家相伴而行，
as we were floating down the river, he said, "There are no demographic voids in the Amazon."
当我们正在漂度河流时，他说：“在亚马逊没有人口空隙。”
This statement has really stuck with me, because what it means is that the whole Amazon is like this.
这个说法着实让我很困惑，因为这意味着整个亚马逊就是这个样子。
There's people everywhere. And many other tropical forests are the same, and not just tropical forests.
人类无处不在。并且其它热带雨林也是这样的，并且不止是热带雨林。
People have influenced ecosystems in the past, and they continue to influence them in the present, even in places where they're harder to notice.
人们在过去影响过生态系统，现在仍在影响，即使在他们很难注意到的地方，影响依旧还在。
So, if all of the definitions of nature that we might want to use that involve it being untouched by humanity or not having people in it,
所有我们要使用的对自然的定义，包括那条：未被人类触及之地、没有人类的地方，
if all of those actually give us a result where we don't have any nature, then maybe they're the wrong definitions.
所有这些明确地给了我们一个结论，自然已不复存在。但这些可能是错误的定义。
Maybe we should define it by the presence of multiple species, by the presence of a thriving life.
或许我们应该用多物种的存在、用兴旺生命的存在，定义自然。
Now, if we do it that way, what do we get? Well, it's this kind of miracle.
现在，如果我们这样想，我们可以得到什么？这有点像个奇迹。
All of a sudden, there's nature all around us.
忽然间，我们被自然环绕。
All of a sudden, we see this Monarch caterpillar munching on this plant, and we realize that there it is, and it's in this empty lot in Chattanooga.
忽然间，我们可以看见黑脉金斑蝶幼虫大口大口吃着叶片，并且我们意识到它在哪，在查塔努加的一片空地。
And look at this empty lot. I mean, there's, like, probably, a dozen, minimum, plant species growing there,
看看这空地。我是说，或许最少，这有十几种植物，
supporting all kinds of insect life, and this is a completely unmanaged space, a completely wild space.
支撑着各种各样昆虫的生活，这是一个完全自由的、完全野生的地方。
This is a kind of wild nature right under our nose, that we don't even notice.
这是一种就在我们鼻子底下的自然原始之地，而我们从没注意过。
And there's an interesting little paradox, too.
这儿还有个有趣的悖论。
So this nature, this kind of wild, untended part of our urban, peri-urban, suburban agricultural existence that flies under the radar,
那么这种大自然，这种出现在我们的城市、郊区、农场，荒芜、无人管理的大自然，无人在意的地方，
it's arguably more wild than a national park, because national parks are very carefully managed in the 21st century.
可以说是一个比国家公园更野生的环境，因为在21世纪国家公园被人类细心的管理着。
Crater Lake in southern Oregon, which is my closest national park, is a beautiful example of a landscape that seems to be coming out of the past.
离我最近的俄勒冈州南部的火山口湖国家公园是个美好的例子，风景就像从过去延续下来似的。
But they're managing it carefully. One of the issues they have now is white bark pine die-off.
但人们细心地管理着那里。他们现在正面临着一大问题，高山白皮松都枯了。
White bark pine is a beautiful, charismatic -- I'll say it's a charismatic megaflora that grows up at high altitude
高山白皮松美丽而富有魅力，我说它是一种富有魅力的大型植物群，生长在高海拔地带，
and it's got all these problems right now with disease.
现在枯死的原因是染上疾病。
There's a blister rust that was introduced, bark beetle.
包括白皮松色锈病的出现，还有树皮甲虫。

So to deal with this, the park service has been planting rust-resistant white bark pine seedlings in the park,
为了解决这个问题，公园管理局开始在公园种植抗锈病的白皮松幼苗，
even in areas that they are otherwise managing as wilderness.
他们甚至种在野地。
And they're also putting out beetle repellent in key areas as I saw last time I went hiking there.
我在上次登山时看到，他们在一些关键地区喷洒杀虫剂。
And this kind of thing is really much more common than you would think.
这种事情比你想象的要平常得多。
National parks are heavily managed. The wildlife is kept to a certain population size and structure.
国家公园是被严格监管的。野生动物的族类和数量也受严格限制。
Fires are suppressed. Fires are started. Non-native species are removed. Native species are reintroduced.
野火要扑灭。又要起火控管森林。外来物种被移走，并且重新引入本土物种。
And in fact, I took a look, and Banff National Park is doing all of the things I just listed:
事实上，我看了看，班芙国家公园也做了这些事情。
suppressing fire, having fire, radio-collaring wolves, reintroducing bison.
灭火、起火，把狼带上无线追踪项圈，再引入野牛。
It takes a lot of work to make these places look untouched.
要花很多功夫才能使这些地方看似野生自然。
And in a further irony, these places that we love the most are the places that we love a little too hard, sometimes.
更讽刺的是，我们最喜欢的这些地方，有时候是我们爱得太过头的地方。
A lot of us like to go there, and because we're managing them to be stable in the face of a changing planet,
很多人爱去那里，只因我们在不断变化的地球，试图让这些地方保持稳定，
they often are becoming more fragile over time.
使这些环境变得越来越脆弱。
Which means that they're the absolute worst places to take your children on vacation, because you can't do anything there.
这代表着那里将变成带你的孩子去度假最糟糕的地方，因为你什么都不能做。
You can't climb the trees. You can't fish the fish.
你不可以爬树。你不可以钓鱼。
You can't make a campfire out in the middle of nowhere. You can't take home the pinecones.
你不可以在渺无人烟处点燃营火。你不可以带松果回家。
There are so many rules and restrictions that from a child's point of view, this is, like, the worst nature ever.
规则和限制数不胜数，而从孩子们的角度来看，这是最最糟糕的“自然”。
Because children don't want to hike through a beautiful landscape for five hours and then look at a beautiful view.
因为孩子们才不想长途跋涉五小时翻过一道山岭，然后一览景色。
That's maybe what we want to do as adults, but what kids want to do is hunker down in one spot and just tinker with it,
那大概是大人想做的事，但小孩子只想在随意一处席地而坐，搞东搞西，
just work with it, just pick it up, build a house, build a fort, do something like that.
胡乱拼堆，捡个东西，搭栋房子，建个堡垒，诸如此类。
Additionally, these sort of Edenic places are often distant from where people live.
另外，那些像伊甸园的地方，通常也离我们住的地方很远。
And they're expensive to get to. They're hard to visit.
去那些地方花费很高，也并不容易。
So this means that they're only available to the elites, and that's a real problem.
所以唯有精英才可以去那些地方，这是问题的症结所在。
The Nature Conservancy did a survey of young people, and they asked them, how often do you spend time outdoors?
美国自然保育协会对年轻人做了一项调查，采访的人问到：“你们有多久会去一次户外？”
And only two out of five spent time outdoors at least once a week.
只有五分之二的人至少一周一次去户外。
The other three out of five were just staying inside.
其余的都只待在室内。
And when they asked them why, what are the barriers to going outside, the response of 61 percent was, "There are no natural areas near my home."
当调查人员问及为什么，是什么阻碍他们出去的时候，61%的人回答：“我家附近没有自然景观。”
And this is crazy. This is just patently false.
这真不可思议！这绝对是大错特错的！
I mean, 71 percent of people in the US live within a 10-minute walk of a city park.
在美国，71%的人住所徒步十分钟内都能到市区公园。
And I'm sure the figures are similar in other countries.
我相信这样的比例在其他国家也差不多。
And that doesn't even count your back garden, the urban creek, the empty lot.
而且这还不计你房子的后花园、都市人造河川、空地。
Everybody lives near nature. Every kid lives near nature. We've just somehow forgotten how to see it.
每个人都住在自然旁边。每个小孩都住在自然旁边。我们只是不知为何对那些自然之景视而不见。
We've spent too much time watching David Attenborough documentaries where the nature is really sexy...
我们花太多时间看大卫·爱登堡的纪录片，觉得片中的大自然十分诱人。
and we've forgotten how to see the nature that is literally right outside our door, the nature of the street tree.
但是我们却忘了看看门外的大自然，街边树木的自然之景。
So here's an example: Philadelphia. There's this cool elevated railway that you can see from the ground, that's been abandoned.
举一个例子：费城。这条架高的铁道很酷，但已经被弃置了。
Now, this may sound like the beginning of the High Line story in Manhattan, and it's very similar,
这听来像曼哈顿城高线公园故事的开端，二者十分相似，
except they haven't developed this into a park yet, although they're working on it.
尽管前者还没发展成公园，但是他们正计划着。
So for now, it's still this little sort of secret wilderness in the heart of Philadelphia,
迄今为止，那里仍是个位于费城中心地带秘密的野外之景，
and if you know where the hole is in the chain-link fence,
如果你知道铁丝网的破洞在哪里，
you can scramble up to the top and you can find this completely wild meadow just floating above the city of Philadelphia.
你可以爬上顶部，然后找到这片悬浮在费城之上的荒草地。
Every single one of these plants grew from a seed that planted itself there.
每一棵植物都由种子长成，在这里自行繁殖。
This is completely autonomous, self-willed nature. And it's right in the middle of the city.
这是一个完全自然繁衍的地方。而它恰在这城市的中心。
And they've sent people up there to do sort of biosurveys, and there are over 50 plant species up there.
他们上去做过一些生物调査，那里有超过五十种植物。
And it's not just plants. This is an ecosystem, a functioning ecosystem.
而且并不只是植物。它是一个生态系统，一个正在运作的生态系统。
It's creating soil. It's sequestering carbon.
它创造土壤。行碳封存。
There's pollination going on. I mean, this is really an ecosystem.
有生物在授粉。这才是一个真正的生态系统。
So scientists have started calling ecosystems like these "novel ecosystems,"
科学家把这样的地方称为新型生态系统，
because they're often dominated by non-native species, and because they're just super weird.
因为非本土生物占系统的大部分，并且极为奇特。
They're just unlike anything we've ever seen before. For so long, we dismissed all these novel ecosystems as trash.
它们和我们原来所见的事物都不一样。长久以来，我们把这些新型生态系统当作垃圾一般搁置一旁。
We're talking about regrown agricultural fields, timber plantations that are not being managed on a day-to-day basis,
我们在谈论自然复育的耕地，或者不用日日照看的木材厂，
second-growth forests generally, the entire East Coast, where after agriculture moved west, the forest sprung up.
可以说整片东岸的次生林就是这样，在农业西移后，森林重新生长。
And of course, pretty much all of Hawaii, where novel ecosystems are the norm, where exotic species totally dominate.
当然，夏威夷也差不多如此，新型生态系统很常见，完全被外来物种占领。
This forest here has Queensland maple, it has sword ferns from Southeast Asia.
这片森林有昆士兰枫树，东南亚的剑蕨。
You can make your own novel ecosystem, too. It's really simple. You just stop mowing your lawn.
你也可以创造自己的新型生态系统。非常简单。别再修剪你的草坪就行了。
Ilkka Hanski was an ecologist in Finland, and he did this experiment himself.
芬兰生物学家伊尔卡·汉斯基做了一个实验。
He just stopped mowing his lawn, and after a few years, he had some grad students come,
他停止修剪自家的草坪，几年后，他带了几个研究生，
and they did sort of a bio-blitz of his backyard, and they found 375 plant species, including two endangered species.
在他的后园做生物多样性速查，他们找到了375种植物，包括两个濒危绝种品种。
So when you're up there on that future High Line of Philadelphia,
所以当你爬上未来的费城高线公园，
surrounded by this wildness, surrounded by this diversity, this abundance, this vibrance,
被这片荒地包围，被这片多样性、繁茂、生机勃勃包围时，
you can look over the side and you can see a local playground for a local school, and that's what it looks like.
你可以从旁向下看，你会看到一个学校的游乐场，就是照片上那个样子。
These children have, that -- You know, under my definition, there's a lot of the planet that counts as nature,
那些孩子有...你知道，在我的观念下，这片星球上有很多地方可以算是大自然，
but this would be one of the few places that wouldn't count as nature.
但这是少数几个不能被算进去的地方。
There's nothing there except humans, no other plants, no other animals.
那里除了人什么也没有，没有植物，没有其他动物。
And what I really wanted to do was just, like, throw a ladder over the side and get all these kids to come up with me into this cool meadow.
而我最想做的，就是扔一把梯子下去，让所有孩子上来和我享受这片草地。
In a way, I feel like this is the choice that faces us.
我感到这是我们要面对的抉择。
If we dismiss these new natures as not acceptable or trashy or no good, we might as well just pave them over.
如果我们不接受新型自然，视它们作垃圾或没用的东西，我们可能会铺上水泥把它们盖掉。
And in a world where everything is changing, we need to be very careful about how we define nature.
在这个不断改变的世界，我们要小心去定义自然。
In order not to steal it from our children, we have to do two things.
为了避免从我们的后代手中夺走自然，我们要做两件事。
First, we cannot define nature as that which is untouched. This never made any sense anyway.
第一，我们不可定义自然为未经接触的事物。因为这从来都不合理。
Nature has not been untouched for thousands of years.
自然被人类亲密地接触了数千年。
And it excludes most of the nature that most people can visit and have a relationship with, including only nature that children cannot touch.
而且这个定义排除了大部分人能去、且和人类建立了关系的自然，却包含了小孩不能接触的自然。
Which brings me to the second thing that we have to do, which is that we have to let children touch nature, because that which is untouched is unloved.
因此我们要做的第二件事，就是让我们的孩子接触大自然，因为没有接触即没有爱。
We face some pretty grim environmental challenges on this planet. Climate change is among them.
在这个地球上，此刻我们面临着很严苛的环境挑战。气候变化是其中之一。
There's others too: habitat loss is my favorite thing to freak out about in the middle of the night.
还有其他的：比如失去栖息地，我最爱用这个在深夜吓人。
But in order to solve them, we need people -- smart, dedicated people -- who care about nature.
但是为了解决这些问题，我们需要人--聪明、投入的人，真正在意自然的人。
And the only way we're going to raise up a generation of people who care about nature is by letting them touch nature.
而唯一能教育下一代关心大自然的方法，就是让他们接触自然。
I have a Fort Theory of Ecology, Fort Theory of Conservation.
我有一个生态堡垒理论，保育生物堡垒论。
Every ecologist I know, every conservation biologist I know, every conservation professional I know, built forts when they were kids.
我认识的生学态家，保育生物学家，保育专家，小时候都会砌堡垒。
If we have a generation that doesn't know how to build a fort, we'll have a generation that doesn't know how to care about nature.
如果我们有一代人不懂砌堡垒，我们将会有一代不懂关心大自然的人。
And I don't want to be the one to tell this kid, who is on a special program
我不想告诉这个孩子，他在一个特殊的项目中：
that takes Philadelphia kids from poor neighborhoods and takes them to city parks,
将费城孩子从贫乏的地区带到市中心花园，
I don't want to be the one to tell him that the flower he's holding is a non-native invasive weed that he should throw away as trash.
我不想告诉他，现在他攥着的花是一个外侵物种，有强大的繁殖能力的杂草，他应该把它当垃圾扔掉。
I think I would much rather learn from this boy that no matter where this plant comes from,
我认为我们应该从他身上学习，无论这株植物从何处而来，
it is beautiful, and it deserves to be touched and appreciated. Thank you.
它是美丽的，它值得被接触和欣赏。谢谢。