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