This is Nunavika beautiful landscape of the wind carries them thousands of forests, blue skies and crystal clear waters. kilometres. When they reach a cold It's a huge territory with fourteen Inuit environment, the gas becomes a liquid, villages in the Arctic area of Canada. like water. So when the wind carries POPS
into the Arctic cold temperatures make There are wild animals such as bears
them stick to plants and fall into the and wolves everywhere. There are also
oceans, where they remain and build up caribou - a kind of reindeer. Fish fill the
over time. POPs also collect inside the fat rivers, lakes and sea. In summer, the sun
of people and animals, and since they shines day and night. This is when the
can't be digested, they stay there forever. people fish, hunt and pick berries. Winter
The biggest animals like seals and whales, is cold and dark, but at night, stars fill the
have the most POPs in their bodies. These clear, dark sky and the Northern Lights
are the animals that Inuit people have swirl above in a symphony of colour.
been eating for thousands of years. You might think that Nunavik's
POPs can cause cancer and allergies, geographical position at the ends of
as well as damage to the nervous and the Earth keeps it safe from big city
immune systems. They can also cause problems like air and water pollution
developmental problems in babies Unfortunately, the pretty villages of
and children. Clearly, something had Nunavik have not escaped the problems
to be done about the problem and so that the rest of the world face too.
in the 1990s, the United Nations held a Some years ago, scientists made a
meeting called the Stockholm Convention worrying discovery. An extremely dangerous group of chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants' (or POPs) were attacking the Arctic environment. There are few factories in the region and not many cars, so where was the pollution coming from? It turns out that it was coming from factories and cities thousands of kilometres away. But how? POPs are used everywhere - in electronic appliances like TVs, in the lights and electrical wiring of buildings and in
Inuit people paint. They are also sprayed onto crops
of Nunavik as pesticides. Over time, they evaporate, become gas and go into the air, and
to discuss banning lots of the POP chemicals. Since then, many countries have agreed to start producing fewer POP chemicals and as a result, levels of POPs in the Arctic are falling It will take many years for the problem to go away. For one thing, buildings around the world still contain many tons of POPs in their paint and wiring. Every day, those chemicals turn into gas and enter the atmosphere, eventually reaching the Arctic For the Inuit people, and all the people and animals in the arctic regions, their only hope is the work of scientists and the cooperation of the rest of the world in putting an end to POPs once and for all.
1 Which description best fits Nunavik?
a It's a small village. b It's a place of natural beauty
It's close to big cities. d It's dark in summer.
2 What is true about the Inuit people according to
the article? a They all have health problems. b Many of them drive cars. c They find their food in nature.
d They eat a lot of fat.
3 How do POPs get to the Arctic?
a Other countries send them there. b They are in the oceans. C Factories in the Arctic produce them. d They are carried in the atmosphere.
4 What does 'the problem in paragraph 6 refer to?
a POPs in the environment b cancer and allergies in children c Inuit people eating whales and seals
d producing fewer POPs 5 What is the article mainly about?
a problems faced by animals in the arctic benvironmental problems caused by POPS
the decisions of the Stockholm Convention d how the United Nations can help the environment
