Place of research, treasure trove, keeper of nature
Natural History Collections are in danger across the world
MúzeumCafé 34.
The natural sciences and museums have always been inseparable. Specimens in natural history collections represent both the diversity of the Earth’s natural world and the still natural spots of the biosphere. Moreover, species not present elsewhere can be found in these museums. They store as much information as the world’s largest libraries. However, to make use of this information requires specialists who can only be trained in the museums themselves. So it could be presumed that the significance of natural history museums is not questioned by decision-makers responsible for government budgets. However, what used to be obvious earlier, unfortunately is less and less so. Natural history museums across the world are in trouble – indeed, they are in great trouble. There are thousands of flora and fauna species which today exist only in museums – not merely species which became extinct in the geohistorical past but also those that have disappeared as a result of human activity. The most well-known examples include the Tasmanian wolf, the Arctic great auk and the dodo. The Hungarian Natural History Museum also has a skull of a Steller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas), one of the few that remained after the large marine animal living in the Bering Sea was exterminated only 27 years after it was discovered. British geologist and naturalist Thomas Belt was in charge of gold mining in Chontales province in Nicaragua between 1868 and 1872. He sent the Natural History Museum in London a large number of animals including several endemic insect species he had collected in his free time in the forests of Chontales. They were cleared a long time ago and today the province is dominated by grazing ground for cattle. No trace of those forests has remained in Chontales and their fauna has disappeared for ever – their existence is represented by the type specimens kept in London. Budapest has received some in return for other species. Nothing would be known of those species if museums had not expended care in preserving them. During the golden age of natural history collecting (the 19th century) collectors travelling to exotic regions caught everything they could and took them home. The newly erected museums had plenty of space for the prey, and at the time no licences were required for collecting or hunting. That has all changed. Museum space is contracting, the maintenance of collections is costly, and laws on nature protection have become so strict that it is no longer possible to collect anything without permission, which is hard to come by. Moreover, it may happen that what has been collected with permission cannot be taken out of a country. Today collecting is connected to projects with a goal defined in advance, one largely narrowing the range of items to be collected. At most 50 per cent (according some estimates only 10 per cent) of species on the Earth are known, therefore to collect is a must. However, at present it is unclear who is going to bear the cost of collecting and presenting the remaining species, and where the new generation of museum researchers to perform that task is coming from. A natural history collection can be maintained and developed if it is supervised by a qualified curator. A database or a catalogue is not sufficient when you want to know what a collection comprises. A curator is needed who is versatile and experienced, so he or she must do a lot of collecting and acquire knowledge of a large amount of species. It is the collecting alone, which preserves the representatives of thousands of species; it is the only means of doing that. (In Hungary the Natural History Museum is the only place which has at least one specimen of each species in the country.) There is a noticeable ‘bustle’ in natural history collections where the staff are active and collecting is intense. Mounting, labelling and preliminary distribution of the collected items is continuous, alongside a significant international postal turnover. Sending items abroad has basically two aims: on the one hand, the already identified specimens are requested for the examination of features not earlier considered, or in order to compare the closest relatives when new species are described. On the other, unidentified items accumulated in collections are classified. The fact that species are becoming extinct on Earth to an increasing degree is well-known to natural scientists. What is less well-known, but at least as alarming, is the fact that the number of natural scientists with extensive expertise of various species is rapidly decreasing, and that a new generation of scientists is missing. Due to financial reasons the position of natural science research in museums is unfortunately deteriorating across the world. The turning point came when the emphasis shifted from a museum’s heritage-preserving and researching function to exhibitions. A study of 2003 clearly shows what characterised the ‘old’ museum. “Today it is generally believed that a museum’s duty is to serve the public. The old-fashioned museum had no such obligation. It had a building, it had collections and people who looked after them. It was properly financed and the visitors went to admire what was displayed. A museum bore no responsibility for its visitors but primarily for its collections.” Such a situation was convenient for museums and it is also true that tax payers, who chiefly maintain museums, can be ‘repaid’ mainly by good exhibitions. However, the situation has turned around. Natural history museums must hold their ground amidst the fierce competition of the overcrowded cultural market, while governments expect ‘cheaper functions’. Thus finances are nearly always cut in research and collection maintenance. The Hungarian Natural History Museum is not exempt from the crisis. As a result of staff cuts whole collections have been left without experts. Curators of natural history collections are not portable entities. Young professionals cannot be taken on to replace dismissed colleagues. At a cost of much money and effort, the museum has become accustomed to the Ludovika building, which the government has selected for the National University of Public Service. The collections, which have been moved to the their present location, must be moved yet again. Another move comes and with each move parts of the mineral and insect collections are ruined. The independence of two provincial natural history museums in Hungary has ceased – they become branches of the Hungarian Natural History Museum this year. Elsewhere, where natural history is only one part of a museum, research is at low key at best. Increasing the collection can hardly be considered and even preservation is a problem. As one American palaeontologist has put it: “Even if we justifiably bemoan the anti-intellectualism of much of modern society, Western culture at its best cherishes books and libraries as symbols of civilisation, humanity, and intellectual freedom. It is therefore striking that we do not see threats to other accumulations of knowledge and potential knowledge in the same way.”