摘要：In 1995, Daniel Pauly identified a "shifting baselines syndrome" (SBS). Pauly was concernedthat scientists measure ecosystem change against their personal recollections of the past and, based on thisdecidedly short-term view, mismanage fish stocks because they tolerate gradual and incremental eliminationof species and set inappropriate recovery goals. As a concept, SBS is simple to grasp and its logic iscompelling. Much current work in marine historical ecology is rationalized in part as a means of combatingSBS, and the term has also resonated outside of the academy with environmental advocacy groups. Althoughwe recognize both conceptual and operational merit in SBS, we believe that the ultimate impact of SBSon ocean management will be limited by some underlying and interrelated problematic assumptions aboutecology and human–environment relations, and the prescriptions that these assumptions support. In thispaper, we trace both assumptions and prescriptions through key works in the SBS literature and interrogatethem via ecological and social science theory and research. We argue that an expanded discussion of SBSis needed, one that engages a broader range of social scientists, ecologists, and resource users, and thatexplicitly recognizes the value judgments inherent in deciding both what past ecosystems looked like andwhether or not and how we might reconstruct them
