For my first assignment, I have decided to talk about the topic of how people make decisions. The first idea is, “People face trade-offs”. What is trade-off? Well, trade-off is a situation in which it must lose some quality in exchange for other qualities. It involves a decision which fully understands the advantages and disadvantages of each choice. In the body of this assignment I will explain many examples of people facing trade-offs, the example that I have chosen is ‘trade-offs between profitability and the conservation of biodiversity’.
There is a known trade-off between profitability and the conservation of biodiversity; the effort by farmers to increase crop yield usually diminishing biodiversity. Consequently, producers may not wish to tolerate agricultural plant diversity and remove trees and brush to increase profit margins. Such increases in profitability often occur in both agricultural monocultures and in mixed systems of land use. Monoculture is the practice of cultivating large tracts of land with trees or other plants of the same species. While it is an efficient and profitable theory from a commercial perspective, from the ecological point of view it is disastrous. The basis of all ecosystem diversity and monoculture practice is merely violating this principle. If there is less plant diversity there will also a decrease in animal diversity. On rubber plantations in Cuba and Indonesia, the number of rubber trees per unit area increased rubber production. Simultaneously, there was a corresponding decrease in the amount of other species of trees. In extreme cases, it can be very frequent when establishing monoculture crops or tree species with large economic importance. Another example could be in class, you acquire a beneficial amount of knowledge when you go to class, but if you didn’t go to class you could still gain benefits. So, if you come to class your opportunity cost is equal to that of not attending a party with your friends, i.e. sacrificing leisure time for hours of classes. Furthermore, you could say the same for eating an apple or drinking a soda, if you eat the apple your opportunity cost will be to not drink the soda, you are sacrificing the soda for an apple. My last example is deciding if you want to be with your girlfriend or go to the stadium to watch a game, if you choose to be with your girlfriend, what is your opportunity cost? It is definitely going to be not watching any sport at the stadium.
To summarise what I have written above, trade-off generally refers to a type of quality loss, but a gain of other qualities in the end. This implies that a decision is made with regard to the advantages and disadvantages of making the decision.

Words: 453

Reference:
Thejakartapost.com (2013). Indonesia continues to improve regulatory environment for doing business: WB. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/10/29/indonesia-continues-improve-regulatory-environment-doing-business-wb.html [Accessed: 12 Nov 2013].