Shifting baseline

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.

[3][4] The concept was further refined and applied to the ecology of kelp forests by Paul Dayton and others from the Scripps 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".

In 2002, filmmaker and former marine biologist Randy Olson broadened the definition of shifting baselines with an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.

He and Jeremy Jackson, a coral reef ecologist, co-founded The Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project in 2003 to help promote a wider understanding and use of the concept in conservation policy.