The second paragraph:

One common way in which elephants harm trees is by stripping them of their bark. Dr Wigley, who did indeed start from the obvious assumption, set off to find out how much worse bush fires would make the effects of this bark- stripping. To this end he set up a study in the Kruger National Park, a reserve on South Africa’s border with Mozambique.

strip：動詞，剝?nèi)?，剝奪。注意搭配的介詞用of，他被判有罪，并被剝奪了頭銜，He was found guilty and stripped of his title.

He set off to find out how much worse bush fires would make the effects of this bark- stripping. 他開始研究對于被剝?nèi)淦さ拇髽鋪碚f，一場大火是如何讓情況變得更糟糕的。這里可以掌握的是這個句型的使用：how much worse A would make the effects of B. A 是如何讓B 更糟糕的。比如他們在研究塑料的過度使用是如何讓污染變得更糟糕的，They are setting off to find out how much worse the overuse of plastic would make the effects of the pollution.

段落大意：介紹研究者，研究地點(diǎn)和其研究目的：被大象拔掉樹皮的樹木，再遭遇一場火災(zāi)，情況會變得多糟糕。