China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to bring infrastructure investment, leading to massive increases in trade, to regions along the former Silk Road, and far beyond. Trouble is, more than a few extra uninvited guests are along for the ride too.
中国的“一带一路”倡议（BRI）旨在将基础设施投资带到前丝绸之路沿线地区，甚至更远更远的地方，从而导致贸易大幅增加。 问题是，不止几个不速之客也一起乘坐。
It is said we are what we eat, and until the age of the supermarket, that which we eat was traditionally grown nearby. For much of history, crops were endemic to our specific locality, until the Columbian Interchange, that brought bananas and potatoes to Europe, to name but two examples, also led to changes in agriculture having a significant impact on global populations. Feeding on all of this, and now a global scourge, was the so-called ship rat, today’s garden-variety black rat.
据说我们就是我们所吃的东西，直到超市时代，我们吃的东西传统上都是在附近种植的。 在历史上的大部分地区，农作物都是我们特定地区的特有作物，直到哥伦比亚交流道将香蕉和土豆带到欧洲，仅举两个例子，也导致农业的变化对全球人口产生了重大影响。 以这一切为食，现在是全球祸害，是所谓的船鼠，今天的花园品种黑鼠。
Luckily for her, China missed out on the Pleistocene glaciation that ended 11,500 years ago. As a result, despite being about the same size as the USA, China has three to four times more botanical biodiversity, thus making her a paradise for botanic explorers.
对她来说，幸运的是，中国错过了11500年前结束的更新世冰川期。 因此，尽管中国的面积与美国差不多，但其植物生物多样性是其三到四倍，因此使其成为植物探险家的天堂。
Celebrated English plant collector and explorer, Ernest Henry Wilson, spent more than 2 years in China at the turn of the 20th Century and was to go on to bring more than 2,000 plants from Asian to Western horticulture. He called China the “mother of gardens” and Sichuan Province “the garden of China”.
著名的英国植物收藏家和探险家欧内斯特·亨利·威尔逊在20世纪之交在中国呆了2年多，并继续将2000多种植物从亚洲到西方园艺。 他称中国为“花园之母”，称四川省为“中国之园”。
The endangered natural habitats that are the result of impending environmental disaster, already upon our green-blue speck in the cosmos, we are told, means that one in five plant species on Earth is endangered. As such, the search is on to seek out rare plants all over the world that can be collected and grown for scientific study and protection. With her intense botanic biodiversity, China is a hotbed for such.
瀕臨自然棲息地是迫在眉睫的環境災難的結果，我們已經在宇宙中的綠藍斑點上，告訴我們，這意味著地球上五分之一的植物物種瀕臨滅絕。 因此，世界各地的稀有植物正在进行中，这些植物可以收集和种植，用于科学研究和保护。 凭借其强烈的植物多样性，中国是此类生物多样性的温床。
A year and half ago, botanists in the North America-China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) visited western China to once again do just that. They were led by keeper of the living collections for the University of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum, Michael Dosmann, to a nature reserve near to the towering 5,588-metre high Xuebaoding Mountain.
一年半前，北美-中国植物探索联盟（NACPEC）的植物学家再次访问了中国西部。 哈佛大学阿诺德植物园活藏的守护者迈克尔·多斯曼带领他们前往高5588米高的雪宝顶山附近的一个自然保护区。
In an article published by Harvard Magazine documenting the expedition, Dosmann explained that some of the most productive areas, from a standpoint of botanical biodiversity are not found, as one may expect, in dense forests. Rather, they reveal themselves on the slopes above and below roads or well-trodden paths, while the banks of rivers also yield rich results, since plants growing on the edges of such open spaces are in less competition with each other. They also receive more light and are therefore more likely to seed.
在《哈佛杂志》发表的一篇记录这次探险的文章中，多斯曼解释说，从植物生物多样性的角度来看，一些最富有成效的地区并没有像人们预期的那样在茂密的森林中发现。 相反，它们在道路上方和下方的斜坡上或人行良好的小路上显现出来，而河岸也产生了丰富的结果，因为生长在这种开放空间边缘的植物彼此的竞争较少。 它们也接受更多的光线，因此更有可能播种。
In addition to roads, such environments can also be found alongside railway lines, transportation links that thanks to the BRI, now take trains far from China, deep into foreign countries.
Herein lie the threat.
除了道路之外，这种环境也可以与铁路线一起找到，由于一带一路的交通连接，现在火车远离中国，深入外国。 威胁就在这里。
When U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors come across something that raises suspicion in a batch of seed, it is very possible that the entire batch be incinerated on the spot. One can only imagine what they might make of a Chinese train full of machinery parts in soiled wooden crates that had crossed the Steppe and two continents through a dozen countries.
Such trains could have easily picked up spores from plants all along their route. It is a concept that has many experts concerned enough to request considerable funding from the Chinese government to at least look into the issue.
当美国农业部检查员在一批种子中遇到引起怀疑的东西时，很有可能整批种子被当場焚烧。 人们只能想象，他们可能会对一辆中国火车有什么看法，这列火车在脏木箱里装满了机械零件，它穿越了草原和两大洲，穿越了十几个国家。 这样的火车可以很容易地从整个路线上的植物中拾取孢子。 这是一个让许多专家关注的概念，以至于要求中国政府提供大量资金，至少调查这个问题。
The new study, co-authored by Li Yiming, China Academy of Sciences professor of animal ecology and conservation biology, published just last month in Current Biology, using a comprehensive risk analysis, found that many high-risk-environmental habitats (flora and fauna alike) do indeed lie along BRI lines. The Sichuan capital of Chengdu itself is already terminus for such a BRI railway.
这项由中国科学院动物生态学和保护生物学教授李一明共同撰写的新研究，上个月刚刚发表在《当前生物学》上，使用全面的风险分析，发现许多高风险环境栖息地（包括植物群和动物群）确实位于BRI线。 四川省会成都本身已经是这种一带一路铁路的终点站。
Since 1914, bringing soil into the United States has been forbidden, while the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora was established to address the very dangers that are the subject of this article. Going a few more years down the proverbial tracks, it is quite possible that sprouting alongside the railways lines that constitute much of the BRI may well be the new world’s botanical equivalent of a black rat.
自1914年以来，禁止将土壤带入美国，而《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》的制定是为了解决本条主题的危险。 沿着谚语中的铁轨再走几年，很可能沿着构成“一带一路”大部分的铁路线一起萌芽，很可能是新世界的植物上相当于黑老鼠。
