ebird
Summary
- Birdwatching on property being allowed
- Data put into ebird
- Data made public and now there are impacts to the property owner
Data collected
- Bird observations - not for a particular project
Variables in the data
- species
- location
- location / habitat - probability of occurance
Data scale
Ethics
- should an observer make this data available publicly?
- what should he have done before publicizing?
- what is the expectation to protect the species?
- does a property owner have a right to privacy? property use?
Benefits / costs
- save a species!
- cost of preservation to an individual?
Rooibos tea
Summary
Data on tea as a sustainable source of income for low-income farmers in S. Africa.
Data
- Individual researcher with particular targeted data for a particular study
Variables
- Native v GMO tea plants
- rate of production of tea
- rate of growth / decline of other species
- greater growth of Rooibos -> decline in diversity of other plants
Scale
- this is where the tea grows
- answer the question as is
Ethics
- farmers making money are mostly white - benefit
- wild type v farmed type
- affects how much farming can be done
- more plants -> less biodiversity
Clean water
Summary
Wetlands purify water. Mining erodes wetlands = less clean water.
Data
- levels of peat - metal contamination
- researchers - targeting specific data from specific wetland
Correlations
- higher erosion v water purification potential
dataset size
- Is there a way to collect this data on a large scale to understand a general trend?
ethical
- locals need clean water, otherwise there’s a cost for artificial purification
- make money mining
- species conservation - species are harmed by metals in the water
- wetlands in S Africa are rare - species may go extinct
Frogs
ethics
- people can be focused on their next meal
- how do align our (1st world) values with people in places we believe should be conserved