Shifting baseline
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Ashifting baseline(also known as asliding baseline) is a type of change to how a system is measured, usually against previous reference points (baselines), which themselves may represent significant changes from an even earlier state of the system.
The concept arose in landscape architectIan McHarg's 1969 manifestoDesign With Nature [1]in which the modern landscape is compared to that on which ancient people once lived. The concept was then considered by thefisheries scientistDaniel Paulyin his paper "Anecdotes and the shifting baselinesyndromeof fisheries ".[2]Pauly developed the concept in reference tofisheries managementwhere fisheries scientists sometimes fail to identify the correct "baseline"population size (e.g. how abundant a fish species population wasbeforehuman exploitation) and thus work with ashifted baseline.He describes the way that radically depleted fisheries were evaluated by experts who used the state of the fishery at the start of their careers as the baseline, rather than the fishery in its untouched state. Areas that swarmed with a particular species hundreds of years ago, may have experienced long term decline, but it is the level of decades previously that is considered the appropriate reference point for current populations. In this way large declines in ecosystems or species over long periods of time were, and are, masked. There is a loss ofperceptionof change that occurs when eachgenerationredefines what is "natural".
Most modern fisheries' stock assessments do not ignore historical fishing and account for it by either including the historical catch or use other techniques to reconstruct the depletion level of the population at the start of the period for which adequate data is available. Anecdotes about historical populations levels can be highly unreliable and result in severe mismanagement of the fishery.[3][4]
The concept was further refined and applied to theecologyofkelp forestsby Paul Dayton and others from theScripps Institution of Oceanography.They used a slightly different version of the term in their paper, "Sliding baselines, ghosts, and reduced expectations in kelp forest communities".[5]Both terms refer to a shift over time in the expectation of what a healthy ecosystem baseline looks like.
Broadened meaning
[edit]In 2002,filmmakerand formermarine biologistRandy Olson broadened the definition of shifting baselines with anop-edin theLos Angeles Times.He explained the relevance of the concept to all aspects of change and the failure to notice change in the world today. He andcoral reefecologistJeremy Jackson(ofScripps Institution of Oceanography) co-foundedThe Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Projectin 2003 to help promote a wider understanding and use of the concept inconservationpolicy.[citation needed]
The Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project grew from its three founding partners (Scripps Institution of Oceanography,The Ocean Conservancy,[6]andSurfrider Foundation) to over twenty conservation groups and science organizations. The project has produced dozens of short films,public service announcements,and Flash videos along with photography, video, and stand-up comedy contests, all intended to promote the term to a broader audience. The Shifting Baselines Blog, "the cure for planetary amnesia" is run by the Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project on theSeed (magazine)Science Blogs.[citation needed]
The concept has been broadened to apply to underappreciated, slowly-occurring positive change by Mark Henry who labelled it Progress Attention Deficit.[7]
See also
[edit]- Bias of an estimator– Statistical property
- Flynn effect
- Observer bias– Cognitive bias
- Observer-expectancy effect– Cognitive bias of experimental subject
- Overton window– Range of ideas tolerated in public discourse
- Normalization of deviance– Sociological phenomenon
Notes
[edit]- ^McHarg, Ian (1969).Design With Nature.The Natural History Press. pp.67-70.
- ^Pauly (1995)
- ^Beddington, John R.; Rettig, R. Bruce (1984)."Techniques for Regulating Fishing Mortality".Approaches to the regulation of fishing effort.Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.ISBN92-5-101492-2.Retrieved21 October2021.
- ^Maunder, Mark N.; Piner, Kevin R. (1 January 2015)."Contemporary fisheries stock assessment: many issues still remain".ICES Journal of Marine Science.72(1): 7–18.doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsu015.Retrieved21 October2021.
- ^Dayton (1998)
- ^Casey, Shannon (1 February 2007)."Around the Pier: Shifting Baselines".Scripps Institution of Oceanography.Archived fromthe originalon 12 July 2019.Retrieved21 October2021.
- ^Henry, Mark (October 2021).In Fact: An Optimist's Guide to Ireland at 100.Gill Books. pp. 398–401.ISBN9780717190386.
References
[edit]- Dayton PK, Tegner MJ, Edwards PB and Riser KL (1998)"Sliding baselines, ghosts, and reduced expectations in kelp forest communities."Ecological Applications,8(2):309-322.
- Papworth SK, Rist J, Coad L and Milner-Gulland EJ (2008)"Evidence for shifting baseline syndrome in conservation"Conservation Letters,2(2):93-100.
- Pauly, Daniel (1995)"Anecdotes and the shifting baseline syndrome of fisheries."Trends in Ecology and Evolution,10(10):430.
- Pauly, Daniel (2001)"Importance of historical dimension policy management in natural resource systems."Archived2008-04-19 at theWayback MachineACP-EU Fisheries:Research Report No 8.
External links
[edit]- Shifting Baselines website
- Shifting Baselines Blog
- Shifting baseline- Conservation Science Institute
- Anne Canright."California Coast & Ocean: Shifting Baselines"(PDF).seaaroundus.org.Sea Around Us (organization).RetrievedSeptember 12,2016.
Volume 22, No.3, 2006
- Puget Sound PartnershipArchived2012-02-20 at theWayback Machine_ A 10-minute clip of the effect of shifting baseline on the health of the Puget Sound.
- Proving the ‘shifting baselines’ theory: how humans consistently misperceive natureMongabay.com,June 24, 2009.
- Daniel Pauly: The ocean's shifting baselineArchived2014-02-05 at theWayback MachineTED,2010.