full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alasdair Harris: How a handful of fishing villages sparked a marine conservation revolution

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I'm a marine biologist here to talk to you about the crisis in our oceans, but this time perhaps not with a message you've heard before, because I want to tell you that if the survival of the oceans depended only on peploe like me, scientists trading in publications, we'd be in even worse trouble than we are. Because, as a sinsitcet, the most important things that I've lrenaed about keeping our oceans htehaly and productive have come not from academia, but from fishermen and women living in some of the poorest cuioentrs on earth. I've learned that as a cniearovissntot, the most important question is not, "How do we keep people out?" but rather, "How do we make sure that coasatl people throughout the world have enough to eat?" Our oceans are every bit as ctiiacrl to our own survival as our atmosphere, our forests or our soils. Their staggering productivity ranks fisheries with farming as a mainstay of food production for humanity.

Open Cloze

I'm a marine biologist here to talk to you about the crisis in our oceans, but this time perhaps not with a message you've heard before, because I want to tell you that if the survival of the oceans depended only on ______ like me, scientists trading in publications, we'd be in even worse trouble than we are. Because, as a _________, the most important things that I've _______ about keeping our oceans _______ and productive have come not from academia, but from fishermen and women living in some of the poorest _________ on earth. I've learned that as a _______________, the most important question is not, "How do we keep people out?" but rather, "How do we make sure that _______ people throughout the world have enough to eat?" Our oceans are every bit as ________ to our own survival as our atmosphere, our forests or our soils. Their staggering productivity ranks fisheries with farming as a mainstay of food production for humanity.

Solution

  1. critical
  2. people
  3. conservationist
  4. countries
  5. coastal
  6. scientist
  7. learned
  8. healthy

Original Text

I'm a marine biologist here to talk to you about the crisis in our oceans, but this time perhaps not with a message you've heard before, because I want to tell you that if the survival of the oceans depended only on people like me, scientists trading in publications, we'd be in even worse trouble than we are. Because, as a scientist, the most important things that I've learned about keeping our oceans healthy and productive have come not from academia, but from fishermen and women living in some of the poorest countries on earth. I've learned that as a conservationist, the most important question is not, "How do we keep people out?" but rather, "How do we make sure that coastal people throughout the world have enough to eat?" Our oceans are every bit as critical to our own survival as our atmosphere, our forests or our soils. Their staggering productivity ranks fisheries with farming as a mainstay of food production for humanity.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
coral reefs 3
marine conservation 3
coastal people 2
small area 2
years earlier 2

Important Words

  1. academia
  2. atmosphere
  3. biologist
  4. bit
  5. coastal
  6. conservationist
  7. countries
  8. crisis
  9. critical
  10. depended
  11. earth
  12. eat
  13. farming
  14. fisheries
  15. fishermen
  16. food
  17. forests
  18. healthy
  19. heard
  20. humanity
  21. important
  22. keeping
  23. learned
  24. living
  25. mainstay
  26. marine
  27. message
  28. oceans
  29. people
  30. poorest
  31. production
  32. productive
  33. productivity
  34. publications
  35. question
  36. ranks
  37. scientist
  38. scientists
  39. soils
  40. staggering
  41. survival
  42. talk
  43. time
  44. trading
  45. trouble
  46. women
  47. world
  48. worse