Name: The ocean's shifting baseline
Uploaded: 2012-02-28T17:45:21Z
Duration: 8 min 45 s
Description: The ocean has degraded within our lifetimes, as shown in the decreasing average size of fish. And yet, as Daniel Pauly shows us onstage at Mission Blue, each time the baseline drops, we call it the new "normal." At what point do we stop readjusting downward?

Daniel Pauly: The ocean's shifting baseline

The ocean's shifting baseline

The ocean has degraded within our lifetimes, as shown in the decreasing average size of fish. And yet, as Daniel Pauly shows us onstage at Mission Blue, each time the baseline drops, we call it the new "normal." At what point do we stop readjusting downward?

People often believe the natural world they inherit is how it has always been, overlooking dramatic losses over time. In one lagoon, fish shrank to half their former size in a generation, yet locals accepted this as normal. The phenomenon, called shifting baseline, means that as ecosystems degrade, expectations quietly move downward. Without preserving history or creating protected areas, society risks accepting only remnants of what once existed.