澳大利亚消防员拯救了世界上唯一的史前沃勒米松树林

澳大利亚消防员拯救了世界上唯一的史前沃勒米松树林

It was a lifesaving mission as dramatic as any in the months-long battle against the wildfires that have torn through the Australian bush.

这是一项拯救生命的任务，与在澳大利亚森林大火中持续数月的战斗一样引人注目。

But instead of a race to save humans or animals, a specialized team of Australian firefighters was bent on saving invaluable plant life: hidden groves of the Wollemi pine, a prehistoric tree species that has outlived the dinosaurs.

但是，澳大利亚一支专门的消防队员队伍并没有展开一场拯救人类或动物的竞赛，而是决心拯救宝贵的植物生命:隐蔽的沃勒米松林，这是一种比恐龙还古老的史前树种。

Wollemia nobilis peaked in abundance 34 million to 65 million years ago, before a steady decline. Today, only 200 of the trees exist in their natural environment — all within the canyons of Wollemi National Park, just 100 miles west of Sydney.

沃勒米松树林在3400万到6500万年前数量达到顶峰，然后稳步下降。今天，在自然环境中仅存在200棵-都在悉尼以西仅100英里的沃勒米国家公园的峡谷中。

The trees are so rare that they were thought to be extinct until 1994.

这些树非常稀有，人们认为它们在1994年之前就已经灭绝了。

That's the year David Noble, an officer with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, rappelled into a narrow canyon and came across a grove of large trees he didn't recognize.

就在那一年，新南威尔士州国家公园和野生动物管理局的工作人员戴维·诺布尔进入一个狭窄的峡谷，偶然发现了一片他不认识的大树林。

Noble brought back a few twigs and showed them to biologists and botanists who were similarly stumped.

诺布尔带回了几根树枝，并把它们展示给同样被难住的生物学家和植物学家。

A month later, Noble returned to the grove with scientists. It was then that they realized what they had found: "a tree outside any existing genus of the ancient Araucariaceae family of conifers," the American Scientist explains. The trees are tall and can reach 130 feet high in the wild. They have thin, fragile bark covered in dark brown nodules that give them a sort of "bubbly" appearance. They bear cones that appear at the end of their branches, and the trees are monoecious, meaning that each plant has both male and female cones.

一个月后，诺布尔带着科学家们回到了小树林。就在那时，他们意识到他们的发现:“一棵不属于古代针叶树科的任何现存属的树，”这位美国科学家解释说。这些树很高，在野外可以长到130英尺高。它们有薄而易碎的树皮，上面覆盖着深棕色的结节，给它们一种“泡沫状”的外观。它们的球果长在树枝的末端，这些树是雌雄同体的，这意味着每棵植物都有雄性和雌性球果。

So when Australia's wildfires started burning toward Wollemi National Park in recent weeks, firefighters from the parks and wildlife service and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service put a carefully planned operation into motion.

因此，当澳大利亚的野火最近几周开始向沃勒米国家公园蔓延时，来自公园和野生动物管理局以及新南威尔士州农村消防局的消防队员启动了一项精心策划的行动。

"This is a key asset, not only for the national parks, but for our entire country," Matt Kean, New South Wales' environment minister, said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

新南威尔士州环境部长马特·基恩在接受澳大利亚广播公司采访时表示:“这不仅是国家公园的关键资产，也是我们整个国家的关键资产。”

Large air tankers dropped fire retardant around the pines. Firefighters set up an irrigation system around the trees to keep them wet.

大型空中加油机在松树周围投放阻燃剂。消防队员在树木周围建立了一个灌溉系统，以保持树木湿润。

"If the fire did go through, we wanted it to be a cool burn as opposed to a hot burn to give them the best chance of survival," Kean said.

基恩说:“如果真的发生火灾，我们希望火灾是在湿润状态下，而非干燥状态下，这样可以给他们最好的生存机会。”

The fire did sweep through the canyons, and through the groves where these trees have somehow survived for millions of years.

大火确实席卷了峡谷，也席卷了这些树木以某种方式存活了数百万年的小树林。

For a few days, the smoke was so thick that it wasn't clear whether the plan had worked. "We all waited with bated breath," Kean said.

有好几天，浓烟滚滚，不清楚这个计划是否奏效。“我们都屏住呼吸等着，”基恩说。

At last the smoke abated.

烟终于消散了。

A few trees had been charred by the flames, and two died. But the efforts had paid off. "Finally," Kean said, "we were able to get in there and see that, thank goodness, the trees were saved."

几棵树被大火烧焦了，两棵被烧死了。但这些努力得到了回报。“最后，”基恩说，“谢天谢地，我们终于达到目标，看到树得救了。”

He says they knew they had to do everything they could to save the Wollemi groves.

他说，他们知道他们必须尽一切努力来拯救沃勒米森林。