YDS READING PASSAGES / TEST 4 49. Soru

-17. A LONGING for THE PAST

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world's largest award for grass-roots activism and environmental achievement. The recipients — and there have been a total of 94 of them since the prize was launched in 1989 — hail from every region of the globe. Among the profiles of the 2003 award winners is Odigha Odigha, a Nigerian forest activist and educator.Odigha Odigha recalls what it was like as a child to walk to school under the canopy of the rainforest in Cross River State in south-eastern Nigeria. "You could walk several kilometres without seeing the sun's rays," he says. "You would only hear the sounds of animals, birds and see wonderful butterflies, and come in close contact with nature, run around and pluck some leaves and fruits. As an adventurous kid, I used to enjoy it so much. And, at that time, you could get into fresh water, which was so fresh that you could drink it."The rainforest was a paradise in the eyes of the young boy. It had vast stands of hardwoods and was home to the world's endangered gorillas. But 40 years later, the rainforest in Cross River State has become a much different place. "What we have now is a vast desert encroachment coming in from the north, coming towards the coastal area," Mr Odigha says. "The trees have gone, trees like mahogany, ebony. It is a pathetic situation. I am not sure that we have fully come to terms with what we are losing, what is happening to us as a country." A century of excessive and largely unchecked logging has had devastating consequences, says Mr Odigha, "and today less than 10 percent of Nigeria's original rainforest survives."

From the description in the passage, Odigha Odigha ------ .