With the depletion of the cod fishery and so many other coastal fish stocks worldwide, the
(4)_____ a decade or more, we have caused significant damage to (5)_____ unknown ecosystems, depleted species and probably doomed many others to (6)_____.Every day, commercial fishing fleets (7)_____ primarily from just 11 nations venture (8)_____ the high seas to fish the deep ocean. What's left is truly a lonely, infertile, undersea desert.
The high seas are very special. It is here where you can find (9)_____ groupings of animals that (10)_____ their energy from sources (11)_____ the sun around volcanoes on the deep sea floor. It is only here where you can find areas still free from introduced species, (12)_____ in the seas around Antarctica. And it is here where you can find (13)_____ organisms that are more than 8,000 years old, like many of the massive deep-sea corms.
But what really sets the high seas (14)_____ from all other areas we know is the (15)_____ lack of protection for any of this natural heritage.
A United Nations meeting recently finally pay great attention to the high seas and put them on the (16)_____.Government officials from around the world gathered together with scientists, representatives from the fishing (17)_____, conservation groups and other stake-holders to discuss conservation and (18)_____ use of marine biological diversity in the high seas, (19)_____ 64 percent of the Earth's surface.
They need to move quickly. (20)_____ the fragility of these environments, we simply do hot have the luxury of time, but we can act before it is too late.
A.pointing
B.intending
C.targeting
D.aiming