Why study change in the Bay of Fundy?
How do we measure change? What is the evidence of natural change occurring in the Bay of Fundy? What is the evidence of change in the Bay attributed to human activities? Can the methods of detecting and interpreting change(s) be improved? What challenges face us in our quest to understand change in a complex marine ecosystem – the Bay of Fundy? These are suitable questions for initiating critical thinking about a highly complex topic. The challenge is to reliably distinguish natural change from human-induced change. Some of the latter could then be ameliorated if deemed socially and environmentally “important” (e.g. impacts of barriers on tidal rivers, loss of northern right whales, continued atmospheric inputs of mercury, pulp mill pollution, and others below). How do we define change and ecological change? The dictionary definition of change is: “making or becoming different; substitution of one for another, variety” (Sykes 1976). Change differs from “effects” or “impacts”, as the la
