Ecological baselines, biodiversity conservation and human-wildlife co-existence - opportunities and insights from natural history collections

人为压力正在造成全球生物多样性危机，地球上75%的陆地和66%的海洋环境被人类活动“严重改变”（IPBES，2019），人类对环境资源的开采超过了自然提供资源的能力（Dasgupta，2021）。生物多样性对人类的生存至关重要，但我们正在挤压它-在我们的危险（惠特米等人，2015; Pievani，2014）。我们需要迫切地改变我们与支持我们的自然世界的关系和互动（迪亚兹等人，2019年），迈向可持续共存，使我们都能茁壮成长。我们还面临着“基线变化”的挑战-综合症-改变对与人类预期寿命短和历史知识差距有关的“原始”环境条件的看法（Pauly，1995; Papworth等人，2009年）。我们需要关于物种、生态环境和人类与野生动物相互作用的长期信息，作为评估变化的背景和参考，并理解和支持有效的保护和共存。自然历史收藏提供了一个无与伦比但未得到充分利用的生物数据档案，有机会在人类影响加速之前提供对生物多样性、生态、保护和人类与野生动物共存的见解（约翰逊等人，2011; Brummitt等人，2015; Bartomeus等人，2019; Lughadha等人，2019; Meineke等人，2019; Ewers-Saucedo等人，2021年）。该项目将调查自然历史收藏的机遇和挑战，以深入了解生物多样性和人类-野生动物相互作用和共存的历史信息和时间表，重点是海洋脊椎动物。然后，收集的数据将与其他现代和历史来源（例如当地生态知识）相结合，以全面的方式产生知识。最后，该项目将探讨这些结果与人类和环境因素之间的联系，以告知生物多样性保护和恢复的目标和方法。还将考虑这种方法的背景和可靠性。

Anthropogenic pressures are causing a global biodiversity crisis, with 75% of the planet's terrestrial and 66% of its marine environments "severely altered" by human activity (IPBES, 2019), and with humanity's extraction of environmental resources outweighing nature's capacity to provide them (Dasgupta, 2021). Biodiversity is critical for humanity's survival, but we are squeezing it out - at our peril (Whitmee et al., 2015; Pievani, 2014). We need to urgently transform our relationships and interactions with the natural world that supports us (Diaz et al., 2019), moving towards a sustainable co-existence that enables us all to thrive. We also face the challenge of 'shifting baseline'- syndrome - shifting perceptions of what constitutes 'pristine' environmental conditions linked to short human life expectancies and historic knowledge gaps (Pauly, 1995; Papworth et al., 2009). We need long-term information on species, ecological settings and human-wildlife interactions as context and reference to assess change, and to understand and support effective conservation and co-existence. Natural history collections offer an unparalleled yet under-utilised archive of biological data, with opportunities to provide insights into biodiversity, ecology, conservation and human-wildlife coexistence, potentially before the acceleration of human impacts (Johnson et al., 2011; Brummitt et al., 2015; Bartomeus et al., 2019; Lughadha et al., 2019; Meineke et al., 2019; Ewers-Saucedo et al., 2021). This project will investigate the opportunities and challenges of natural history collections to provide insights into historical information and timelines on biodiversity and human-wildlife interactions and coexistence, focusing on marine vertebrates. Collection data will then be combined with additional, modern and historical sources (e.g. local ecological knowledge) for a holistic approach in generating knowledge. Finally, the project will explore links between these results and human and environmental factors to inform biodiversity conservation and restoration aims and approaches. The context and reliability of this approach will also be considered.