Prática de Shadowing: How China is Turning its Deserts Green - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo
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Beijing 2021.
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Hundreds of flights were cancelled as an apocalyptic orange haze swept the skies.
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This wasn't pollution, it was sand.
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It was a symptom, a consequence of decades of land collapse.
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But China is fighting back with an ambitious project spanning decades known as the Great Green Wall.
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This is the Gobi Desert region in northern China and this is their attempt at turning it green.
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And I say attempt because it's not all going to plan.
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In some areas, the project is failing.
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Trees are dying, soil is drying out and the land is collapsing again.
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But what makes this story so insane is that China isn't just planting a few trees.
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They're attempting one of the largest greening projects in human history.
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A project that began in 1978 and won't be finished until 2050.
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But how do you even fight a desert?
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How do you stop sand from swallowing farmland and cities?
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And how did one of the most ambitious environmental projects ever attempted start to go wrong?
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If China gets this right, it could become the blueprint for saving dry lands everywhere.
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But if they get it wrong, they don't just lose trees, they lose the land itself.
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To understand why China is doing this, you have to understand what desertification actually means.
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Deserts don't expand like people imagine.
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It's not like a line of sand slowly rolling forward.
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It starts with something much smaller.
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A patch of grassland gets overgrazed.
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A hillside gets farmed too hard.
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A drought hits or trees get cut for fuel.
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Once the vegetation disappears, the ground loses its armour.
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The roots of plants stitch the soil together, so when those roots vanish, the soil stops behaving like ground and starts behaving like dust.
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Then the wind arrives, and suddenly the land doesn't just dry out, it literally begins to leave.
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Then, when rain falls, it doesn't soak in.
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It hits hard ground, floods and then tears away even more soil.
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And once that cycle begins, it accelerates.
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Simply explained, that's how deserts formed, and in northern China, it became a national crisis.
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The Gobi Desert, stretching across northern China and southern Mongolia, sits right on the edge of major population and farming regions.
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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, huge dust storms repeatedly swept into northern China.
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And as you saw earlier, Beijing, a city with a population of about 22 million people,
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would literally disappear behind a wall of yellow sky.
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This wasn't weather, it was farmland disintegrating.
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If you're a government watching your land literally blow away, you don't have time to wait.
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And it's fair to say China's response was very ambitious.
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In 1978, China launched a project called the Free Northern Shelter Belt Program, but most people know it by its nickname, China's Great Green Wall.
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And it's genuinely one of the most ambitious environmental projects in human history.
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The goal was to build massive belts of trees and vegetation across northern China, covering the northeast, the northwest and the north central regions.
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It spans 13 provinces and it's planned to run until 2050.
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That's a 72 year plan, 7 years shorter than the average life expectancy in China.
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The theory behind it is quite simple.
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If you want to stop a desert, you don't fight sand, you fight wind.
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Because the wind is what turns land into dust.
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These shelter belts act like giant windbreaks.
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Long corridors of trees and shrubs that slow the wind near the ground, trap sand and protect farmland.
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Even a thin layer of vegetation can massively reduce erosion.
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So China planted, and planted, and planted.
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The estimates vary, but some reports say 50 billion trees have been planted, with others speculating that number could be as high as 100 billion.
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And for a while, it looked like the plan was working.
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China's forest cover increased significantly compared to the 20th century lows, and by Despite the modern era,
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China is often reported as being over 20% forested.
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So the project was a success then?
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Well, not exactly.
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Because a forest isn't just a row of trees, it's an ecosystem.
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Planting trees is easy, but planting the right trees in the right places without destroying the ecosystem underneath is much harder.
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And as you're about to find out, in some regions, China got this wrong, very wrong.
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wrong that a billion trees died.
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But first we need to discuss one of their successful transformations.
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The Lus Plateau is an example of one of the most incredible transformations on Earth.
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The region was once described as one of the most severely eroded landscapes on the planet and it's easy to see why.
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The Lus Plateau is made of Lusse, a fine powdery soil deposited over thousands of years by wind.
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It's extremely fertile, but only if it stays in place.
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Once vegetation is removed, Lusse erodes ridiculously fast.
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Over centuries, huge areas were cleared for farming and grazing, and the result was catastrophic.
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Rain ripped through the soil like a knife carving enormous canyons.
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And the soil didn't disappear, it ended up in China's rivers, especially the Yellow River.
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It became famous for carrying so much sediment that it actually turned a yellowy browny colour.
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People were trapped in a cycle, they needed to farm to survive, but farming destroyed the soil which made survival even harder.
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So China attempted to rebuild the system.
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They banned farming on the steepest slopes, They restricted grazing in key areas.
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They built terraces across hillsides,
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not for aesthetics, but because terraces slow rainwater down letting it soak into the ground instead of ripping the soil away.
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They built check dams to trap sediment.
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They weren't just stopping erosion, they were literally catching the land before it could escape.
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Slowly the landscape began to rebuild itself.
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Grass returned first, then shrubs, then trees.
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World Bank reporting
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and widely cited project summaries have described vegetation cover in the parts of the Luspe Plateau rising from around 17% to 34%.
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The improvement wasn't just environmental either, the social impact was huge.
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Figures often cited estimate 2.5 million people have been lifted out of poverty through the combined ecological and economic transformation.
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The restoration didn't finish with stopping erosion, it also changed what the land could be used for.
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Because today, in parts of northern China, you can now see huge solar farms built on areas that used to be barren and collapsing.
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Land that once blew away in dust storms is now stable enough to generate electricity.
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This project showed that planting trees alone isn't enough, you have to fix the physics of the land.
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A lesson which unfortunately China skipped in some places.
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A mistake which nearly ruined everything.
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Here's the problem.
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If you want a desert to look green quickly, you don't plant a complex ecosystem.
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You plant monocultures, one species, straight lines and fast growing trees.
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They look impressive and they grow fast, making it feel like you're winning.
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However, monocultures are fragile.
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If one disease hits, the entire forest is vulnerable.
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In the year 2000, massive poplar plantations in northern China suffered devastating losses due to disease and pests,
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with some reports claiming losses on the scale of hundreds of millions to over a billion trees.
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That's not a setback, that's a collapse.
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But disease wasn't even the biggest problem.
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The biggest problem was water.
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Many of the areas being planted were never meant to hold dense forests, they were dry lands.
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So when you plant thirsty trees into dry soil, you essentially drain the land.
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Native grasses die, the roots vanish, the soil becomes loose again, and you know by now what happens next.
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In other words, planting trees didn't stop the desert, it made the land even weaker.
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That's why over time China began changing strategy towards something much smarter.
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The final part of this story is so important because it's not just about China, but the future of our planet.
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China realised the goal isn't to destroy the desert, the goal is to stop living land, grasslands, farms and villages from collapsing into dust.
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So instead of focusing on trees, they focused on shrubs, hardy grasses and native drought resistant species.
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One of the simplest methods they used is also one of the smartest, straw checkerboards.
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You literally lay straw in a grid across sand dunes.
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The wind hits the straw, slows down and drops sand.
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The dune stabilises, the shrubs can survive, the grasses return and the soil begins forming again.
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Then, and only then, do trees have a chance.
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It's simple really.
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Slow the wind, catch the sand, hold moisture, and build life from the ground up.
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And that's how parts of China's desert regions have become greener over time.
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China's project proves that the earth isn't fixed.
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Landscapes aren't permanent.
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We assume deserts are forever, but deserts expand and retreat.
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Grasslands collapse and rebuild, and humans are actively shaping in which direction those systems go,
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which is equally hopeful, but also terrifying.
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Because if we can reverse land collapse at this scale, we can also cause it.
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And our future depends on which one we choose.
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If you've enjoyed this video, I'd really appreciate it if you could hit the subscribe button.
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And I'm sure you'll enjoy one of these other two videos on screen now.
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Vocabulário e dicas de fala para esta lição
Esta aula de conversação de nível B2 usa o vídeo “How China is Turning its Deserts Green”. As palavras que mais se repetem: China, trees, land, desert, soil. Este vídeo tem 125 frases e 1543 palavras para praticar shadowing. A fala dura 10:51. O falante mantém um ritmo estável de cerca de 142 palavras por minuto, confortável para o shadowing. Apenas 77% das palavras estão entre as 3.000 mais comuns do inglês, por isso o vocabulário é exigente.
Vocabulário principal deste vídeo
As 15 palavras mais avançadas do vídeo, com pronúncia e significado:
| Palavra | Pronúncia | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| collapse verbo | /kəˈlæps/ | desabar, ruir |
| vegetation substantivo | /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/ | vegetação |
| shrub substantivo | /ˈʃɹʌb/ | arbusto, moita |
| ambitious adjetivo | /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/ | ambicioso |
| grassland substantivo | pradaria | |
| erosion substantivo | /ɪˈɹəʊʒən/ | erosão |
| ecosystem substantivo | /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/ | ecossistema |
| rebuild verbo | /ɹiːˈbɪld/ | reconstruir |
| straw substantivo | /stɹɔ/ | palha |
| disappear verbo | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | desaparecer, sumir |
| dune substantivo | /djuːn/ | duna |
| erode verbo | /ɪˈɹəʊd/ | erodir |
| graze verbo | /ɡɹeɪz/ | dar de pastar |
| hillside substantivo | /ˈhɪlˌsaɪd/ | encosta, ladeira |
| monoculture substantivo | /ˈmɒnəˌkʌlt͡ʃə(ɹ)/ | monocultura |
Phrasal verbs que você vai ouvir
| Palavra | Significado |
|---|---|
| slow down verbo | desacelerar |
Gramática neste vídeo
As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:
| Estrutura | No vídeo |
|---|---|
| Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem faz | were cancelled · won't be finished · have been planted |
| Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agora | have been planted · have described · have been lifted |
Pronúncia para ficar de olho
O falante usa 30 contrações e formas reduzidas, como don't, isn't, wasn't. Diga-as na forma curta, do jeito que você ouve.
- Os sons de “th”: aesthetics /ɛsˈθɛt.ɪks/, thirsty /ˈθɝs.ti/, northeast /noːˈθɪjst/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, northwest /nɔɹθˈwɛst/
- Os sons de “sh” e “zh”: vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, shrub /ˈʃɹʌb/, ambitious /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/, erosion /ɪˈɹəʊʒən/, vanish /ˈvænɪʃ/
- Palavras longas — acerte a sílaba tônica: vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, monoculture /ˈmɒnəˌkʌlt͡ʃə(ɹ)/, apocalyptic /əˈpɒ.kə.lɪp.tɪk/, desertification /dɪˌzɝ.tɪ.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
Sons difíceis para falantes de português:
- Consoante final — sem acrescentar um “i” depois: shrub /ˈʃɹʌb/, farmland /ˈfɑːɹmlænd/, rebuild /ɹiːˈbɪld/, erode /ɪˈɹəʊd/, hillside /ˈhɪlˌsaɪd/
- /l/ final — a língua toca o céu da boca, não vira “u”: fertile /ˈfɝːtəl/, fragile /ˈfɹæd͡ʒəl/
- /h/ — um sopro suave, diferente do “r”: hillside /ˈhɪlˌsaɪd/, behave /bɪˈheɪv/, hopeful /ˈhoʊpfl̩/, hardy /ˈhɑɹdi/
Como praticar com este vídeo
- Ouça o vídeo inteiro uma vez sem falar e anote as palavras que você não conhece.
- Faça shadowing frase por frase na velocidade normal, repetindo cada uma até o seu ritmo ficar igual ao do falante.
- Grave a sua voz e compare com o original, prestando atenção a palavras como collapse, vegetation, shrub.
O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.