Rapidly shifting environmental baselines among fishers of the Gulf of California.

ABSTRACT: Shifting environmental baselines are inter-generational changes in perception of the state of the environment. As one generation replaces another, people's perceptions of what is natural change even to the extent that they no longer believe historical anecdotes of past abundance or size of species. Although widely accepted, this phenomenon has yet to be quantitatively tested. Here we survey three generations of fishers from Mexico's Gulf of California (N=108), where fish populations have declined steeply over the last 60 years, to investigate how far and fast their environmental baselines are shifting. Compared to young fishers, old fishers named five times as many species and four times as many fishing sites as once being abundant/productive but now depleted (Kruskal-Wallis tests, both p<

SUBMITTER: Saenz-Arroyo A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1559885 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature