Loren McClenachan’s presentation of: “Historical Marine Ecology: Informing the future by learning from the past” was extremely interesting and relevant to the theme of this class. These conversations are happening all around us all the time—topics such as global warming, climate change, changing ecosystems, etc. but she dove into a specific area of maritime history. I thought it was very interesting and unique that she decided to focus on the link between social history and changing marine environments, rather than just one or the other. It is important to note that social history and environmental history go hand and hand, a comparison that people sometimes have trouble understanding.
Dr. Loren McClenachan focused on three main aspects that the Florida Keys marine ecosystems were facing: decreasing size of trophy fish, importance of coral reefs, and the damaging nature of boom-bust fisheries. These differentiations were interesting because many conversations about climate change and the environment do not typically focus on these topics, but rather melting ice caps, a person’s carbon footprint, burning fossil fuels and the ozone layer, etc. but this was a nice change. Talking about fish was enlightening because I have learned very little about marine life in my college career. I have taken a climate change class both at Colby and in Australia, but neither of these classes ever focused on marine ecology, so I was excited to learn about something new. While this discussions was common in the fact that many people are having discussions on climate change and sustainability, this one shed light on a mores specific topic.
I found it particularly interesting when she shared the photos of different ecosystems and asked how distressed each ecosystem was. Obviously, if we were given pictures of factories and garbage, we would say that the ecosystem was in danger. However, when given a picture of an underwater ecosystem, it is much harder to tell. I think this was especially interesting when thinking about the history of ecosystems, because from the naked eye an ecosystem might look completely healthy, but when compared to its prior state you can see a clear difference and how it make be in danger. For instance, I recently was at the Great Barrier Reef with my parents, who had traveled there 30 years prior. I was astonished by the coral I saw, for to me it looked like an incredible aspect of nature. To them, they were unimpressed and concerned, for the last time they observed the reef was before the climate had changed so significantly. Although they are not experts in environmental studies and climate change, their perspective was different from mine because of their knowledge on the reef’s history. Linking the history with the current state is quite important, for how could someone who doesn’t study this topic be able to understand the magnitude of the situation by just observing an ecosystem’s current state. This has an extreme relevance to our lecture series, for you can’t understand a current ecosystem without understanding it’s prior ecosystem, so fully connecting the presence of the past.