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writing

Essay: mongolian grasslands


Mongolian Grassland Degradation as an Environmental Issue

Tiffany Tong
October 5th, 2007

An environmental issue is defined as “a clash of interests in which someone causes or will cause a harm or perceived harm on someone else’s interest by way of the natural environment1.” The principle theme of the Mongolian grassland degradation problem has all the main components of an environmental issue: conflicting lifestyles and harm caused to all the inhabitants of the grasslands.

The clash of interests occurs between the new and old lifestyles of the Mongolian plains. Traditionally, the lifestyle was centred on the principle “love nature as your parents (Moyers 2001).” The size and health of one’s herd represented one’s wealth (Moyers 2001); herders had the incentive to take good care of the grasslands which supported their herds. Both traditionally and under communist control, rotation of grazing land was practised and flock size was kept to an optimum. When the Soviet Union collapsed, however, the economy became a market economy, and started to be driven purely by profit. Now the new symbol of wealth is money. Herders have started to decrease rotation, to increase herd size, and to keep more animals for profit rather than sustenance, like goats for cashmere (Moyers 2001).

The new practices ultimately harm all the herders, since their livelihood is totally dependent on the resources the natural environment provides. Rotation used to be sufficient in letting the grass grow again after a grazing season, but now the fields seem constantly barren. As one elder said, the grass used to grow up to his stirrups when he was young; now it is barely 3 inches high (Moyers 2001). Moreover, the spread of Western culture encouraged people to settle down close to large roads, where transportation is more convenient (Moyers 2001): less mobility of the herders means higher strain on the grasslands (Moyers 2001). As a consequence, the grassland degradation problem is increasingly becoming an environmental issue that has a major effect on the future of the Mongolian people.

1 Wood, Paul. Associate Professor, University of British Columbia. 7 September 2007. Pers. Comm.

References

Moyer, W. 2001. Earth on Edge. Public Broadcasting System.

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writing

Essay: conservation a normative concept

Why is “conservation” a normative concept?

Tiffany Tong

September 28th, 2007

Conservation is a normative concept because the principles of conservation are based on value judgements that cannot be rationalized or proven true, except by the norms of a society. First of all, conservation is the ideology that promotes protection of natural resources to strike a balance between consumption and preservation so that enough resources will be available for future generations to use and enjoy1. In addition, a normative concept is where a norm, or a cultural standard, is backed with good reasoning, and usually strong scientific evidence, to become a guiding principle for society’s actions2. Normative concepts are prescriptive: they talk about what we should and ought to do, as opposed to descriptive statements which attempts to describe reality as it is. They are essentially a value judgement made by the society as a whole, regarding which actions are right or wrong, good or bad, and which actions we should prioritize (Wikipedia). Therefore, by definition, conservation is a normative concept because it judges the value of our environment and descendants by the norms of our society and results in statements about what we should or ought to do in order to preserve those values.

Normative concepts are so abundant and ubiquitous in most societies that we normally do not think deeply about their implications. Taking conservation for an example, one might ask, “Why do we have to think for future generations?” Or “Why do we believe nature is important and should be preserved?” The answers to these questions cannot be logically deduced without coming back to the fundamental premise that it is the norm, or the “correct” way, to do so. Hence, if our society thought that either future generations or nature is not important, then we might not even have the concept of conservation at all.

1 Wood, Paul. Associate Professor, University of British Columbia. 5 September 2007. Pers. Comm.
2 Wood, Paul. Associate Professor, University of British Columbia. 19 September 2007. Pers. Comm.

References

Wikipedia: Normative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative Accessed 28 September 2007.

Categories
writing

Essay: beauty and the dove campaign

New Saviour or New Suppressor?

Tiffany Tong

November 15th, 2006

Only 2% of [surveyed] women describe themselves as ‘beautiful’; almost one half of them think their weight is ‘too high’.

Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Website (“Dove”)

The above findings are from a Dove initiated survey of 3,200 women aged 18 to 64 from ten countries including the United States, Canada, and Japan (“Dove”). In response, Dove launched a new advertising campaign in which the city bloomed overnight to reveal eye-catching billboards. It turned heads not because of its stick-thin, sexy female models, but because of it featuring models with thick, round thighs and full stomachs that curve out instead of in. The different coloured women, in pure white underwear, laugh with their mouths wide open. Confident, natural, basic are the first words that come to mind.

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writing

Essay: Nature as Teacher

Nature as Teacher:

Ecosystem Characteristics Applied to Urban Settings

Tiffany Tong

November 15th, 2006

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents; it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.”

Ancient Indian Proverb

Introduction

The earth’s condition has been deteriorating since the industrial revolution (Hails). Global warming, pollution, peak oil, ozone layer depletion and many others have become household terms. The most famous international environmentally friendly protocol, the Kyoto protocol, has been signed for 8 years. Yet, not only has Canada failed to meet its goal of reducing 6% of carbon dioxide emissions from the 1990 level, but instead, is has actually gone up 24% (CBC News). Our current ecological footprint analysis tells us that for everyone in the world to live a Canadian lifestyle-that is with large sprawling urban areas and more than one car per family-we need the total resources of 4.2 Earths (the ecological footprint per capita in Canada is 7.6 hectares when the biocapacity is 1.8 hectares) (Hails). Although words such as sustainability or ecological footprint are tossed around, by most people, casually and without real meaning, I believe it has come to a time when these terms should be treated by all with serious respect and, accordingly, take action to help prevent a global crisis happening. Where should we start? By thinking and being sustainable.

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writing

Essay: Speciesism

Tiffany Tong

October 16, 2006

What is the common ideology between mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, peace activist Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and many others? Your answer may be that they are all vegetarians, but in fact, they all believed speciesism is immoral. Accordingly, one might ask: what is speciesism?

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my research

Science One measurement project

Here is my first ever measurement project I wrote a short paper for at UBC.

As for the quality….just keep in mind it was my first such paper.

All rights reserved.

Title: Mapping the Echoes of the Echo Circle at Wyman Plaza

Author: Tiffany Tong

Abstract

The echo properties of the Echo Circle at Wyman Plaza of the University of British Columbia were measured with two wooden sticks as a sound source and Audacity as the recording program. The results provided support to the hypotheses of the middle platform being the focal point of the circle and of the sound waves reflecting off the right angle of the circle to form echoes.

Introduction

The Echo Circle at Wyman Plaza of the University of British Columbia has very interesting echoing properties. If one stands on top of the platform in the middle and makes a sufficiently loud sound, one can hear its echo on the platform, but nowhere else. My hypothesis is that the sounds waves made inside the circle bounce off of the right angles made by the circular seats around the platform and reflect back to the original place where the sound was made. Also, the middle of the circle, where the platform is, should be the focal point of the circle-the echoes should have the largest intensity at the focal point. In this experiment I used the program Audacity to measure the time intervals between the spikes in the graphs, which indicate echoes, to determine where in the circle the sound sources reflect.

Categories
my research

wow…still dreaming

Hello blog,

I think I’m still dreaming. I just woke up from a dream where I went to live in a village in rural Tanzania for two months. I remember lots of goats, people, and orphans. And wait, when I woke up, I found this on my computer…

thesis

Abstract

Conducted for the Programme for Agricultural and Natural Resources Transformation for Improved Livelihoods (PANTIL), this research endeavour was aimed at improving upon a dairy goat project for orphans in the villages of Nyandira and Ndugutu in Mgeta, Tanzania. Over a period of six weeks, I collected qualitative data using an action-based research approach in hopes of catalyzing a successful implementation process. The results indicate that the orphan-goat project can provide both immediate and enduring assistance to the orphans; however, the project needs much more community support. At the end of my fieldwork, many stakeholders have agreed upon establishing institutions to ensure a fair, accountable, and efficient process of distributing benefits from the project to the orphans. Concrete short- and long-term goals and a timeline for implementation are set. Financial sustainability is found to be possible without additional funding. Finally, risks and corresponding mitigating strategies have been discussed with the project steering board so that future problems can be anticipated and avoided.

Categories
my research

My Research!

Hello blog,

Off I go tomorrow for some dream-like work…

research proposal

another list – bound to get tons of spam also

The permanent African “tan”

The malaria medicine: Lariam

The lessons

The roads

African dancing

craft markets

Religion

Atheist

Rafting the Nile

Ringing cellphones in lectures

Bahai temple

Beauty standards

Marriage proposals

New York Kitchen

Garden City

Gouvindas

Dress shopping

dress making

Morning runs

Tuhende Safari Lodge

Owino Market

Uganda National Museum

Cultural Show

Rwanda

Tanzania

Casino girl?

“Cheena”

When I am alone, my nationality becomes a publicly (though not by me) enjoyed guessing game. Most often, surprisingly, they get my ethnic roots right: Chinese. The local word for that is “china” or “mchina” (which in Kiswahili means one chinese, wacheena means plural chinese). So I get calls of that along with some mzungu calls. Although, when you are alone, it seems like they know you’ve been around town for long enough (so that you are not scared to go out alone), and stop harrassing you that much.

Other guesses include Japanese, Indian, Mexican, Peruvian, Korean, Philipino, and others that I didn’t understand, hear, or have forgotten.

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