From Parklane Landscapes
Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS) is what happens when we forget how vibrant the natural world used to be. Each generation grows up with a more depleted environment and calls it "normal," simply because it's all they've ever known.
Think about walking through a park and thinking, "This seems healthy." But maybe 30 years ago that same park had twice as many birds, wildflowers, or insects. If you never saw that version, you don't feel the loss - and that quiet forgetting becomes the new baseline. Over time, we start accepting degraded ecosystems as normal.
Researchers warn that this shift lowers our expectations, increases our tolerance for decline, and reduces our urgency to protect what's left.
What helps:
Intergenerational conversations that reconnect us with what nature used to be.
Direct experiences with nature that sharpen our awareness of change.
Remembering (knowing) the past is the first step to restoring the future.
Not a sponsor, I don't think it's an AI graphic, and I think it has something important to say. Plus it does have an owl. We can't save our animals if we don't save them the spaces they need to thrive.
Some species (I can reference owls specifically, of course) do benefit from some types of man-made clearings. Field and orchards can provide nice open areas for those that hunt while flying or ones perched high on the periphery and have a great view of rodents going after dropped fruit or grains.
But when we leave nothing for the wildlife, use poisons or other deterrents, or add hazards, then we're just taking from the environment while giving nothing back. I've been happy to be able to highlight new programs for farmers and large landowners where they can get assistance or even get paid for turning corners of their properties back into those which will sustain biodiversity. A few weeks ago someone reached out saying their family had farmland and wanted to know what they could do to help owls and other wildlife. I directed them to their state wildlife commission to see what programs they had and they found a ton of things the state would help with.
Like anything else, there's good and bad ways to do things. People just need to become aware.