Indigenous knowledge as a remedy for shifting baseline syndrome

• Published in: Frontiers in ecology and the environment 2019-02, Vol.17 (1), p.13-14
• Main Author: Jardine, Timothy D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Domains; Environmental conditions; Indigenous knowledge; Polar environments; Restoration; Tropical environments; WRITE BACK
• ISSN: 1540-9295; 1540-9309
• DOI: 10.1002/fee.1991

Jardine argues on Indigenous knowledge (IK) as a remedy for shifting baseline syndrome. Soga and Gaston recently outlined the features of shifting baseline syndrome (SBS), a condition whereby each new generation inherits an environment that has worsened from the generation before, producing lowered expectations for conservation and restoration. They showed some of the self-reinforcing elements of SBS and provided four recommendations to help counter it. He commend the authors for clearly articulating this syndrome and offering potential paths forward to correct it. Across a spectrum of environmental domains, SBS is pervasive, and many of its most pressing challenges are concentrated in remote sections of the Tropics and the Arctic, regions that to outsiders may appear relatively untouched by human activities. Here he argue that IK has a strong role to play in limiting the shifting of baselines, especially in countering perceptions of these regions as pristine environments. IK, also referred to as traditional (ecological) knowledge, has been defined as a cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings with one another and with their environment. Notably, IK has the potential to advance a narrative of past environmental conditions, an appropriate baseline against which to judge current state.