Randy Olson
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And a couple of years ago when they had the huge oil spill on the coast of Spain, the media described the region as "pristine," despite hundreds of years of fishing and recent problems with over-fishing. I think it's just a word that people enjoy saying because it makes them feel good, and its great for salesmanship -- pristine real estate, bottled water from pristine springs.
The slide show on our website is titled, "Pristine?" in an effort to get people to think about what the word means these days. But now, two years after producing the slide show, I'm thinking we should also have added a segment titled, "If not pristine, then what?"
That's the real problem. Most major environmental scientists have come to accept that nothing on earth is pristine any more (there was a big paper in Science last year on "human impact ecology" saying its time to define "natural" ecosystems as including human impact). But what is less clearly thought out is the answer to "if not pristine, then what?" A lot of fisheries biologists recommend maintaining fish stocks at 40 to 50 percent of their baseline, and a large group of scientists recommended in the late 90's setting aside 20% of the ocean for protection. But getting clear agreement on how far short of pristine is acceptable is still a major debate, as seen by the disagreement over the implementation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
- Randy Olson
www.shiftingbaselines.org
The slide show on our website is titled, "Pristine?" in an effort to get people to think about what the word means these days. But now, two years after producing the slide show, I'm thinking we should also have added a segment titled, "If not pristine, then what?"
That's the real problem. Most major environmental scientists have come to accept that nothing on earth is pristine any more (there was a big paper in Science last year on "human impact ecology" saying its time to define "natural" ecosystems as including human impact). But what is less clearly thought out is the answer to "if not pristine, then what?" A lot of fisheries biologists recommend maintaining fish stocks at 40 to 50 percent of their baseline, and a large group of scientists recommended in the late 90's setting aside 20% of the ocean for protection. But getting clear agreement on how far short of pristine is acceptable is still a major debate, as seen by the disagreement over the implementation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
- Randy Olson
www.shiftingbaselines.org
