国家地理:保护着海岸和生命的消失的森林(2)
Haldar, a meticulously dressed widow of about 50, had at least had some inkling of what was to come. She'd watched as the nearby Sundarbans, a vast mangrove forest that flanks the village, had retreated, its trees looking increasingly weedy. She'd noted how the water appeared to draw strength from the forest's weakness. The only surprise, Haldar insisted, is that the village's earthworks held out for so long. "The trees defended us, but we treated them very badly," she said. "So now we are all suffering the consequences."
哈尔达是个寡妇，今年50岁，总是穿戴的很整齐，对于即将发生的事，她心里多少有数。她看过孙德尔本斯上那片广袤的守卫着村子侧翼的红树林是怎样逐渐退去的，因为那些树变得越来越瘦弱。她也知道那些水流是怎样带走了树木的生命力。唯一令哈尔达感到惊讶的是，村子居然坚持了这么久。她说：“那些树保护了我们，但我们并没有善待他们。所以我们现在就要承担后果。”
In Bangladesh and the neighboring Indian state of West Bengal, there are thousands of villages like East Dhangmari -- places that are losing their natural defenses against climate change just as it is intensifying. The land is paper-flat and crisscrossed by rivers bulging with meltwater from the Himalaya. Cyclones frequently roar in off the Bay of Bengal, sometimes killing thousands. Flooding is pervasive.
在孟加拉国和邻近的印度西孟加拉邦，有成千上万个东当马里一样的村子--在气候变化加剧的时代，它们却在逐渐失去自己的天然屏障。那里地形平坦，其上十字形交错着喜马拉雅山上融化的雪水汇成的河流。飓风时常从孟加拉湾席卷过来，有时会造成上千人的死亡。随之而来的就是肆虐的洪水。
