EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Rift Valley Agriculture

Rift Valley
Kenya, Eastern Africa

Explanation:  The Rift Valley of eastern Africa has amazing sights and paleohistories.  On this flight over the valley, however, we see modern occupations.  

This conjures the concept of "shifting baselines" ... where one's personal life experiences of the state of the land equates to what one determines is the natural or long-term historic state of the land.  

The problem is that such "baseline" orientations do shift over time (even over one's lifetime), so that one's determination of what is "natural" or "historic" is but a short-term view.

Think what this might mean for managing the land for natural conditions.

This land below -- now agricultural fields -- was once acacia woodlands with native wildlife galore. But the current "baseline" is ... well, you can see.