Natuuramnesie: Hoe we vergeten zijn hoe de natuur er vroeger uitzag

Abstract

In 1995 marine ecologist Daniel Pauly introduced the shifting baseline syndrome. In it he described how little use is made of historical information about the occurrence of fish species within fisheries and fish ecology. Knowledge about harvesting and, in a broader sense, the ecology of fish is based on contemporary information in which researchers at the start of their career take the observed situation as their starting point. Anecdotes were used by Pauly as a source to gain historical insight into distribution and status of fish species. His analysis was the prelude to an increasing interest in natural history, especially with regard to the distribution and status of animal species. In addition to interviews, with which information from anecdotes was made available, historical, archaeological and paleontological research was used to arrive at natural-historical reconstructions. The bundling of these reconstructions shows that there is hardly any collective, natural history consciousness in society. Nature policy is based on information collected from 1970 onwards, and historical information plays no role in this. Natural history information is of great importance for nature restoration projects and for the development of a collective natural history consciousness. Without such consciousness and the use of such knowledge for nature restoration, recovery will be more difficult. The standard underlying the restoration of nature is that of a heavily degraded nature. Similarly, support for nature conservation declines if the image of that nature is based on information spanning the past few decades, ignoring change before that time.