The changing oceans

From pristine habitats to polluted sinks, our oceans has it all. While our knowledge about the oceans is evolving, there also seems to be a collective amnesia which makes humanity forget what is being done and what changes the oceans have encountered. This is what scientists call shifting environmental baselines. Commonly known as shifting baseline syndrome.

In his latest book "The Unnatural History of the Sea", Prof. Callum Roberts explains the phenomenon which is easy to understand. He states "The idea of shifting baselines is familiar to us all and does not just relate to the natural environment. It helps explain why people tolerate the slow crawl of urban sprawl and loss of green space, why they fail to notice increasing noise pollution, and why they put up with longer and longer commutes to work. Changes creep up on us, unnoticed by younger generations who have never known anything different. The young write off old people who rue the losses they have witnessed as either backward or dewy-eyed romantics. But what about the losses that none alive today have seen? In most parts of the world, human impacts on the sea extend back for hundreds of years, sometimes more than a thousand. Nobody alive today has seen the heyday of cod or herring. None has watched sporting groups of sperm whales five hundred strong, or seen alewife run so thick up rivers there seemed more fish than water. The greater part of the decline of many exploited populations happened before anybody alive today was born."



Oceans from Tom de Kok Teachings on Vimeo.

So when these baseline shifts happen, the environment that we live in becomes unpredictable and it takes every organism on the planet to adapt itself to sustain life.That apart, the quality of life degrades too. The present generation is already facing the brunt of our predecessors actions. The next generation, from ours.

These changes happen so subtly, that it is pretty hard to determine the impacts of even the minutest of shifts. If we take the city of Chennai, it is hard to imagine the fact that rich coral reefs and lush mangroves once existed in some of today's popular beaches in the city. When I heard from fishermen about how Chennai looked few decades ago, I literally had to ask them to come over again. What I heard was unbelievable, but true. Madras, as Chennai was formerly known, had rich marine biodiversity as it had been recorded by English scientists when India was under the rule of Britain. This raises the question how and why weren't the resources managed properly. At present, only the remnants of the rich past remains.

 According to the laws of nature, change is inevitable. Determining the changes for good or to its worse is in no one else's, but our hands.

Lets embrace changes and also make sure that the changes are for good.