Museos en el Antropoceno: Definiendo nuevas buenas prácticas ante la crisis de la biodiversidad

• Autores: Claudio Campagna, Leonardo Campagna
• Localización: Revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, ISSN-e 1853-0400, ISSN 1514-5158, Vol. 14, Nº. 2, 2012, págs. 199-207
• Idioma: español
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • Museums in the Anthropocene: Defining good practices in face of the biodiversity crisis.Natural History Museums (NHM) have a complex mission that extends from housing collections intended forscientific research to providing entertainment and education to the general public. The Anthropocene, definedby a global biodiversity crisis that stems from human impact on ecosystems worldwide, calls for a reevaluation ofthe priorities within this mission. Endangered species have redefined the purpose of zoos and aquariums aroundthe world, impacted academia and are beginning to have repercussions on the goals of some NHM. Assisting inspecies conservation is likely to be the key mission that will guide activities in NHM during the next decades; anobligation from which few institutions in our society will be exempt of. NHM must play a predominant role notonly in presenting this crisis to the general public but also in solving it. In the same way that in the past exploringand documenting the natural world has defined the need for NHM (and collections help serve this purpose); in thefuture, museums must actively seek to mitigate the threat to biodiversity. The crisis does not yet occupy a leadingrole in societies’ decision making; however, NHM can contribute to bringing change by refocusing their mission,and by redefining some of their practices and priorities. In the centre of the debate lie the value of scientific collectionsand the procedures by which they are obtained.