Name: The ocean's shifting baseline
Uploaded: 2012-02-28T17:45:21Z
Duration: 8 min 45 s
Description: The ocean has degraded within our lifetimes, as shown in the decreasing average size of fish. And yet, as Daniel Pauly shows us onstage at Mission Blue, each time the baseline drops, we call it the new "normal." At what point do we stop readjusting downward?

The ocean has degraded within our lifetimes, as shown in the decreasing average size of fish. And yet, as Daniel Pauly shows us onstage at Mission Blue, each time the baseline drops, we call it the new "normal." At what point do we stop readjusting downward?

Daniel Pauly: The ocean's shifting baseline

The ocean's shifting baseline

Charles Darwin's 1835 Galapagos observations reveal a shocking decline: the once "common" sailfin grouper is now Red Listed.

A personal journey in West Africa shows a stark reality: tilapia fish that sustained communities now mature at half their size.

Revealing the unseen scars of trawling in Southeast Asia: a once vibrant seabed reduced to muddy debris, a loss beyond fish.