Unit 4 – Our Changing Planet

Lesson A – An Earth Sciences Lecture

Professor: Today we’ll begin by discussing some limestone landscapes. As you probably know,
this rock is formed when sea creatures die and fall to the ocean floor. Over time, layers of
skeletons build up and the bottom layers are pressed down. Eventually the pressure turns them
into limestone. Interestingly, the term limestone doesn’t come from the color of the rock—which
is typically white or gray, not green—but from “lime,” an important industrial product made
from limestone. Anyway, limestone is a relatively hard rock, but water can wash it away,
especially water that is slightly acidic. Uh, we usually think of acid rain as being caused by
human industry, but sometimes acid rain can be caused by gases from volcanoes.

Now as I was saying, water can erode limestone. Typically, some parts of the rock are weaker
than others, and these areas are eroded first. This leads to holes and cracks in the rock. If this
continues for thousands or even millions of years, some very dramatic landscapes can form. Let
me show you a photo of one such landscape. Can anyone tell me what kind of landscape we’re
looking at here? No? OK, well this is a photo of a classic karst landscape, that’s K—A—R—S—
T, karst. Like many other terms related to geology or landscapes, that name was originally
borrowed into English from a German word.

Anyway, karst landscapes form in areas where limestone is exposed to the weather. Here’s a
photo of a particularly amazing karst landscape. This is Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park
located near the western coast of the island of Madagascar. The word Tsingy can be translated
into English as something like “place where one cannot walk without shoes,” and I think you can
see why that’s an appropriate name. The limestone peaks can be very sharp. In fact, some people
call this area the Forest of Knives. It’s really dramatic, isn’t it? Anyway, let me explain the
formation of this amazing landscape in a little more detail.

At first, the Tsingy landscape forms like other karst landscapes; that is, water begins to erode the
rock and causes small holes and cracks to form. As more rain falls, water flows into these cracks
and holes and makes them larger and larger until they form small caves. As more water flows
into the caves, erosion continues, making the caves larger and larger. As the process continues,
the tops of some of the caves collapse, creating even bigger caves. The roofs of other caves may
collapse. At this point, the landscape is a series of rock pillars and deep canyons. As more rain
falls, it erodes the rock pillars more and more, and forms the sharp, knifelike points that you can
see here.

Some tourists visit the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park, but it is a difficult environment for
people to walk through. As I mentioned, the limestone peaks are sharp. This isn’t related to our
topic, of course, but Madagascar has experienced political instability and this, combined with
other issues, has made Tsingy less attractive as a tourist destination. As a result of these factors,
human activity in the region is fairly light. This fact, together with the unique landscape and
climate, means that Tsingy de Bemaraha is home to some incredibly rare species of plants and
animals.

Anyway, now let’s look at some other kinds of limestone landscapes.

Lesson B – Vocabulary

Exercise A – page 74

1. This led to local people making a big effort to preserve the forest. They tried different things,
but people found that one of the most effective ways of preserving it was to limit the number of
tourists each year.

2. One important aspect of modern life is finding a balance between work and other parts of life.
It’s not easy to balance the need to make money with the desire to enjoy life, but studies show
that it’s important for both our physical and mental health.

3. So, as I was saying, this had a major impact on the situation. What kind of impact? Well, after
it happened, demand rose, prices fell, and the company saw profits increase significantly.

4. After several weeks the companies decided it was necessary to reach a compromise, and both
sides reduced their demands. Like any compromise, it wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough
that both companies were reasonably happy with the end result.

5. Some people argued that the decision about the new park would cause harm to local wildlife.
They were concerned that animals might be hurt. As it turned out, those concerns were
unnecessary: instead of being harmed, local wildlife actually benefited.

6. The idea was that the new museum would bring more tourists to the city. In theory, this made
sense. After all, there were few other tourist attractions. But that was only in theory, and
unfortunately it didn’t work out that way in practice. In fact, most visitors to the museum are
actually local residents.

7. The executives were sure that the company was going to become stronger over the next few
years. However, the company’s position in the industry was more fragile than they knew. It was
so fragile, in fact, that within a few months, sales had declined by almost fifty percent.

8. So, it was decided to hire consultants to advise on how to promote the region as a tourist
destination. The suggestions that the consultants made were effective, and the number of visitors
increased dramatically.
9. After you have collected your data, you need to do an analysis of it. Exactly how you analyze
it will depend on the kinds of data that were gathered. Have a look at page 78 of your textbook
for some examples of data analysis.

10. The main complaint among citizens is related to the city’s infrastructure. Residents feel
roads, bridges, and even power networks are in poor condition, and they want more money to be
spent on repairing and replacing the infrastructure.

Lesson B – A Conversation about Selecting a College

Liam: Hi, Serena. How’s it going?

Serena: Oh, hi, Liam. Everything’s fine with me. What’s new with you?

Liam: Not much. Well, actually, I’m trying to decide where to go to college.

Serena: Which colleges are top on your list?

Liam: Just three right now: New York University, the University of Southern Maine, and Mount
Royal University.

Serena: What was the last one? Mount Royal? Where is it?

Liam: It’s in Calgary, in Canada.

Serena: Huh. Don’t be offended, but that seems like a pretty random selection of schools. I
mean, I can understand NYU—I’d love to go to college in New York—but why Maine or
Calgary?

Liam: Because I’d like to get a degree in ecotourism, and there aren’t that many colleges that
offer it.

Serena: Ecotourism? Hmm. You’re going to have to tell me what that is.

Liam: My parents said the same thing. Basically, ecotourism tries to make sure travelers have a
great experience but in a way that can preserve nature and benefit local people. It’s about finding
a balance between tourism and the environment.

Serena: So, it’s like tourists get to visit natural areas without having a negative impact on them?
That’s pretty cool.

Liam: I know, right? I’ve always loved traveling, so getting a job related to travel is kind of a
dream of mine. And I’ve heard that ecotourism is a real growth area in the tourism industry right
now, so I’m hoping it’ll be easy to find a job after I graduate. And there are so many news stories
these days about how humans have damaged the environment, so it seems like the right thing is
to try and protect it, you know?

Serena: Right. But isn’t air travel bad? Traveling by airplane is one of the worst things you can
do for the environment.

Liam: You’re absolutely right, Serena. So, the idea behind ecotourism is to find a compromise.
If people are going to travel somewhere, ecotourism says let’s make sure they travel in a way
that causes as little damage as possible; let’s make sure they act in a responsible way when they
arrive; let’s make sure they know the harm that humans can do to the landscape.

Serena: That sounds good in theory, but how does it work in practice?

Liam: Well, I was reading about ecotourism in Madagascar. Apparently there’s a national park
there called Tsingy de Bemaraha or something. It’s this amazing landscape—like a forest of
sharp rocks. A great tourist destination. But it’s hard for tourists to get there, and they’re likely to
damage the landscape. It’s a pretty fragile place, apparently.

Serena: OK.

Liam: So what happened was these ecotourism consultants came in. They did an analysis of the
area and selected some regions that were especially good for tourists. They built facilities and
infrastructure—walkways, bridges, that kind of thing—to allow tourists to visit these regions
without causing erosion or damaging local wildlife. Apparently a couple thousand local jobs
were created.

Serena: You’ve really done your research on this, huh, Liam? But still, no offense to Southern
Maine or Calgary, but New York must be at the top of your list, right?

Liam: Actually, I’m leaning towards Mount Royal University in Calgary.

Serena: How come?

Liam: Well, for one thing, Mount Royal is the only school that actually offers ecotourism as a
major. The other two schools offer courses in ecotourism, but my major would have to be
tourism and hospitality, not ecotourism. For another thing, Calgary is a great city, apparently one
of the five most livable cities in the world. And lastly, studying in Canada would save me a lot of
money. My father’s Canadian, so I’m a dual US and Canadian citizen. That means my tuition
fees would be lower. I worked it out, and studying in Calgary would be around 25 percent
cheaper than going to school in New York and about 10 percent cheaper than studying in
Portland, Maine.

Serena: Whoa. That’s a pretty big difference. I might have to look into going to school in
Canada myself.