Bird Study Highlights Loss Of Wildlife Knowledge From One Generation To Another

Our ability to conserve and protect wildlife is at risk because we are unable to accurately gauge how our environment is changing over time, says new research in Conservation Letters.

The study shows that people may not realise species are declining all around them, or that their local environment may have changed dramatically since their parents’ and grandparents’ days, and even in their own lifetime.

This could be bad news for conservation projects, because if people do not perceive there to be any degradation of the world around them, they may be less willing to engage in activities to conserve and protect the environment.

The new study provides the first evidence of so-called ’shifting baseline syndrome’ – a conservation theory which says that people’s perception of the environment is determined by what they see now, with their own eyes, and does not take into account what things were like in the past.

These results suggest that wildlife knowledge is not being passed on from older to younger people, resulting in ‘generational amnesia’ where what is perceived as ‘normal’ by younger residents may in fact be quite different from circumstances a couple of decades ago. The study also provides evidence for the potential importance of ‘personal amnesia’ where people assume that what they see now is how the world has always been.

Science Daily