Does everyone share the responsibility of conserving and protecting natural areas around the world? What is more important--protecting nature or protecting the livelihoods of people with jobs like cutting trees etc.?

 I think before we answer the question which is involving self -questioning every individual about their responsibility of conserving and protecting natural areas around the world, we should think about people's priorities and how it affects the rate of overconsumption and overconsumption's affects to the nature. For example, when we go to the market, we usually get more than we need. The more we get the more nature resources are consumed day by day. On the other hand, there are people whose jobs like cutting trees, making hospitals. Yeah, they should continue to do what they have to do because of their survival, but the problem is that they don't know the limit of consuming. Responsible people should educate them. Our problem is that we don’t have to keep the nature's balance. In nature all organisms live to survive, eat except humans wants more of each activity day by day. We ruin our environment by pollination, overconsumption etc. We do things before we think. NATURE should be protected no matter what because it our environment and we should know the limits. Most importantly all organisms depend on each other.  As human beings if care about our environment, we should care about the biodiversity which helps to protect the species and ecosystems.

WHY IS BIODIVERSITY IMPORTANT?

Here is the answer:

Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity where each species, no matter how small, all have an important role to play.

For example,

·                A larger number of plant species means a greater variety of crops

·                Greater species diversity ensures natural sustainability for all life forms

·                Healthy ecosystems can better withstand and recover from a variety of disasters.

And so, while we dominate this planet, we still need to preserve the diversity in wildlife.

A Healthy Biodiversity Offers Many Natural Services

Ecosystems such as the Amazon rainforest are rich in Sosyetemsinin. Deforestation threatens many species such as the giant leaf frog, shown here.(Images source: Wikipedia)

A healthy biodiversity provides a number of natural services for everyone:

·                Ecosystem services, such as

·                      Protection of water resources

·                      Soils formation and protection

·                      Nutrient storage and recycling

·                      Pollution breakdown and absorption

·                      Contribution to climate stability

·                      Maintenance of ecosystems

·                      Recovery from unpredictable events

·                Biological resources, such as

·                      Food

·                      Medicinal resources and pharmaceutical drugs

·                      Wood products

·                      Ornamental plants

·                      Breeding stocks, population reservoirs

·                      Future resources

·                      Diversity in genes, species and ecosystems

·                Social benefits, such as

·                      Research, education and monitoring

·                      Recreation and tourism

·                      Cultural values

That is quite a lot of services we get for free!

The cost of replacing these (if possible) would be extremely expensive. It therefore makes economic and development sense to move towards sustainability.

A report from Nature magazine also explains that genetic diversity helps to prevent the chances of extinction in the wild (and claims to have shown proof of this).

To prevent the well known and well documented problems of genetic defects caused by in-breeding, species need a variety of genes to ensure successful survival. Without this, the chances of extinction increases.

And as we start destroying, reducing and isolating habitats, the chances for interaction from species with a large gene pool decreases.

Now, if you got the sufficient answer, let's protect nature!

CITATION 

http://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares

Is it unethical?


 First of all, we should admit that we live in world that people is in a contradiction with their environment. We say that our natural resources such as air, plants etc. are getting dirtier (air) and destroyed( plants) day by day. Then not all of us, but most of us continue to damage our environment even if there are changes which are made, but they are not sufficient enough to make our environment normal again. Therefore we continue to do regular things. What I mean by regular things is like cutting trees to measure the biomass. It means less air for us in the future. It is unethical. Also to prove that measuring biomass got its disadvantages. Well, here they are:

• Collecting biomass data can be very time and labor consuming. Cover, frequency and density are generally more quickly estimated.
• There are many methods to directly measure biomass of herbaceous plants, but, it is difficult to estimate biomass of shrubs and trees.
• In many grassland and shrubland areas, the variability between quadrats and the accuracy of estimating production within individual quadrats necessitates that many quadrats be sampled to detect differences between sites or years.
• Biomass and Gross Primary Production are rarely measured in rangeland studies because it is very difficult (and usually impractical) to measure below ground biomass.
• Peak standing crop may be difficult to measure in ecosystems with a large variety of species because each species will generally reach it’s peak phytomass at a different time of year. For example, grassland regions in the Central Great Plains may have about equal proportions of cool-season and warm-season grasses. However, the cool-season grasses will peak out in June while the warm-season grasses will not reach peak biomass until July or August. When should peak standing crop be measured in these situations? As a compromise, peak standing crop is often measured at the end of the growing season.
• When measuring annual production, current year’s growth can be difficult to separate from previous year’s growth.
• Not good for assessing rare plant populations because destructive removal of forage is usually required.
• Standing crop can also be altered by herbivore utilization. Therefore, exclosures are usually necessary to measure this attribute. Additionally, up to 25% of the phytomass can be removed by insects or rodents that cannot be easily excluded from study areas.

Students clipping vegetation to estimate biomass in central ID. Photo by K.Launchbaugh

Workshop on estimating biomass. Photo from: www.tx.nrcs.usda.gov/news/

Monet Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Area, Saskatchewan, Canada. Photo by Mae Elsinger

• Seasonal and annual climatic fluctuations affect biomass, therefore, production is not a suitable measure for long-term trend studies that compare data taken in different years. Density, frequency, and basal cover are less susceptible to yearly variation created by climatic fluctuations.

Repeat photos from a site in Central Idaho illustrates immense year to year variation in biomass production. This study focused on production of crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum)  (Sanders, K., N. Rimbey, and L.A. Sharp. 1992. Variability of crested wheatgrass production over 35 years. Rangelands. 14(3):153-168.) --Link to original publication
1957 - Annual precipitation was 10.2 inches.   Crested wheatgrass production =846 lbs/acre.	1960 - Annual precipitation was 6.8 inches. Crested wheatgrass production = 186lbs/acre.
1971 - Annual precipitation was 16.2 inches. Crested wheatgrass production =1,090lbs/acre.	1974 - Annual precipitation was 8.1 inches. Crested wheatgrass production = 324lbs/acre.

 In conclusion, measuring biomass can be necessary for building a mall or a building or scientific reasons, but the important thing is to consider that people's health depends on nature and the gifts which is given to us by nature. We don't leave a healthy world to next generations.


Think about that !

CITATION
http://www.cnr.uidaho.edu/veg_measure/modules/lessons/module%206/6_2_why%20measure%20biomass.htm

Linnaeus and Scientific Racism

As I gather some information about scientific racism. ‘‘Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism. Scientific evidence shows significant evolutionary differences among human races and ethnic groups^’’. I come to realize that the definition of the word in every area of sciences may lead to misunderstanding if you don’t know the official meaning. Linnaeus who divides humans into four categories had become the question and argument for the people. In my opinion, Linnaeus had helped science to be grown more, but his division theory had created the first steps of the scientific racism. For that reason people started to have different opinions about the division. The color difference broke the boundaries of equality among human race by having different opinions. The biological difference between human race created some beliefs that people embrace in a way that cause some problems like taking sides based on people's colour in the past as well.   I think that we are all same and humans with different opinions and Linnaeus was a men who created this division to show the biological difference and not to decide which race is more superior or not even if the meaning of scientific racism has relationship with beliefs.It means that scientific racism may have influenced by the beliefs and racism.   In addition, you can not mark a person if they are racist and even if they are you can not say that they are racist  without knowing their real intensions and them. Linnaeus can not be considered as racist based on his theory.

CITATION

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism