IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 12

Biodiversity, the variety of life at all levels from genes to ecosystems, is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) estimates that approximately one million plant and animal species are currently threatened with extinction, many within decades. Global wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69 percent since 1970, according to the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Index. This biodiversity crisis threatens not only the intrinsic value of nature but the ecosystem services upon which human civilisation depends, including pollination, water purification, carbon sequestration, and flood protection.

Protected areas remain the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in December 2022, established the target of protecting 30 percent of the world's land and ocean areas by 2030, commonly known as the "30 by 30" target. As of 2023, approximately 17 percent of land and 8 percent of ocean areas are formally protected. However, the effectiveness of protection varies enormously: many protected areas exist only on paper, lacking adequate funding, staffing, or enforcement to prevent illegal logging, poaching, or encroachment.

Community-based conservation has emerged as a powerful complement to formal protected areas. Indigenous peoples and local communities manage or hold tenure over approximately 25 percent of the world's land surface, including many areas of high biodiversity significance. Research published in Nature Sustainability found that indigenous-managed lands in the Brazilian Amazon had deforestation rates 75 percent lower than surrounding non-indigenous areas. Recognising and supporting indigenous land rights is increasingly viewed not only as a matter of social justice but as one of the most cost-effective conservation strategies available.

Ex-situ conservation, the preservation of species outside their natural habitats, provides a critical safety net for species facing imminent extinction. Seed banks, such as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, store genetic material from crop varieties and wild plant species. Captive breeding programmes have brought species including the California condor, the Arabian oryx, and the black-footed ferret back from the brink of extinction. Cryopreservation of genetic material offers the possibility of preserving biodiversity even when populations decline below viable levels, though the technology for recovering full organisms from frozen samples remains limited for most species.

The economics of biodiversity conservation present both challenges and opportunities. Global biodiversity financing currently amounts to approximately $130 billion annually, far short of the estimated $700 billion needed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Innovative financing mechanisms, including biodiversity credits (analogous to carbon credits), debt-for-nature swaps, and payment for ecosystem services schemes, are being developed to close this funding gap. The growing recognition that biodiversity loss poses material financial risks to businesses and investors is driving integration of nature-related considerations into corporate reporting and financial regulation.

Approximately 7,000 languages are currently spoken worldwide, but linguists estimate that one language dies every two weeks. By the end of this century, it is projected that between 50 and 90 percent of the world's languages will have fallen silent. The forces driving language extinction include globalisation, urbanisation, government policies favouring dominant languages in education and administration, and the overwhelming cultural influence of major languages, particularly English, Mandarin, and Spanish, through media and the internet.

The loss of a language represents far more than the disappearance of a communication system. Each language encodes unique knowledge about the natural world, accumulated over generations of observation. The Yupik languages of the Arctic, for example, contain dozens of terms for different types of sea ice, reflecting environmental knowledge critical for survival in polar conditions. Aboriginal Australian languages embed sophisticated navigational and ecological information in their grammatical structures. When these languages disappear, this specialised knowledge is often lost irretrievably.

Language revitalisation efforts have achieved notable successes. Hebrew was effectively revived as a spoken language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries after centuries of use primarily in religious and literary contexts, demonstrating that language death can be reversed under favourable conditions. The Maori language in New Zealand has experienced a partial revival through immersion schooling programmes known as kohanga reo (language nests), while Welsh has strengthened significantly following decades of government support for Welsh-medium education and media. Technology is increasingly contributing to preservation efforts, with smartphone apps, social media, and AI-powered transcription tools making it easier for small communities to document and teach their languages.

Autonomous vehicles represent one of the most anticipated and disruptive technologies of the twenty-first century. The Society of Automotive Engineers defines six levels of driving automation, from Level 0 (no automation) to Level 5 (full automation in all conditions). As of 2024, most commercially available vehicles operate at Level 2, providing features such as adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance that require continuous human supervision. Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, operates a limited Level 4 robotaxi service in Phoenix, Arizona, while several Chinese companies including Baidu's Apollo Go offer similar services in designated urban zones.

The technical challenges of achieving full autonomy remain formidable. While autonomous vehicles perform well in structured, well-mapped environments with clear road markings and predictable traffic patterns, they struggle with edge cases: unusual situations that fall outside their training data. Construction zones, extreme weather conditions, ambiguous human gestures, and the unpredictable behaviour of pedestrians, cyclists, and animals all present difficulties. The tragic death of a pedestrian struck by an Uber test vehicle in Tempe, Arizona, in 2018 highlighted the potentially fatal consequences of these limitations.

The economic implications of widespread autonomous vehicle adoption would be profound. The trucking industry, which employs approximately 3.5 million drivers in the United States alone, faces significant disruption. Taxi and ride-hailing drivers, delivery workers, and bus operators would similarly be affected. However, autonomous vehicles could also generate substantial economic benefits: an estimated 94 percent of traffic accidents are caused by human error, and autonomous technology could potentially prevent the majority of the approximately 1.35 million road deaths that occur globally each year. The McKinsey Global Institute has estimated that autonomous vehicles could generate $300 to $400 billion in annual economic value by 2035.