6. Gorse
a. We’re going to listen to a longer segment of the video, in which Hugh, Tricia, and a local farmer speak about this non-native plant. What is the significance of gorse in the Hinewai story?
b. Listen again from 14:06 to 15:22. Which three of these are true of gorse, according to Hugh?
- It can be counterproductive to try to destroy gorse.
- Gorse is helpful in some ways to the agricultural industry.
- Gorse lowers the level of nitrogen-based chemicals in the soil.
- Gorse grows very well in places where there are no other competing plants.
- Gorse encourages young native plants by providing a sheltering layer of vegetation.
Answers are here.
c. Can you reconstruct these sentences (as heard in the clip) using the words in bold?
worth looking at I initially thought
a sceptic of let alone me
(i) When I first heard of the fact that Hugh and the trust were going to use gorse to help regenerate the natives, I was _________ it.
(ii) Gorse is a terrible, terrible weed for pastoral farming; it’s shocking, and no-one, _________, would deny that.
(iii) If you’ve got it, and it’s sort of infested the landscape irretrievably, in a way, it’s _________ its good points.
(iv) _________ that the progression from gorse to native trees would take 50 years, but in ten years, you can see it.
Click here for answers and a further vocabulary exercise.
Present: Prepare a 2-to-3-minute anecdote about a time when someone – it might have been you – was initially sceptical of an idea which later turned out to be a success.
Englishin3d 