The HMAP project originated in 1999 out of a call for a historical reference point for the Census of Marine Life, an ambitious natural science program to establish a contemporary baseline of marine life. The census leadership realized early on that an assessment of the health of the ocean ecosystem needs historical reference points to be meaningful. Historians argued that social, economic, and cultural frameworks would be needed to understand these reference points, and that the historical information would be of value in itself for enriching our understanding of the interaction of humans with marine life. Participants in two workshops in 2000 and 2001 of historians and marine scientists agreed on a broad research agenda that was subsequently developed and funded to the tune of a total of $15 million US by several major funders.2 The original project ended in 2010, but the Oceans Past conferences continue as regular conferences (the latest held in Fremantle, Australia, in November 2012 and the next to be held in Tallinn, Estonia, in 2015), and HMAP continues as a network organization

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