The term ‘shifting baselines’ was coined to conceptualize the process by which we alter the world but forget what it was like beforehand, and each subsequent generation regards a progressively poorer natural world as normal. Since colonization by settlers, shifting baselines has been occurring in the Salish Sea.

Born on Salt Spring Island, Tara has witnessed substantial changes in her own life-time and over the past two decades has focussed her research on understanding these changes as a result of cumulative impacts from multiple stressors. These stressors include land use change leading to habitat loss and degradation, introduction of non-native species, hyperabundance of some native species, climate change and more. In this talk she’ll share what researchers are learning and offer science-based evidence on what we can do about it.