The environment”, someone once said “It is all around us…” .It certainly is all around us as a subject today. One can hardly pick up a paper, or turn on the TV without encountering ’sustainability’, ‘climate change’, ’sustainable technology’, etc…
Surely, the time has come for zoos, aquariums and large audience nature sites to become accepted as the sites/ vehicles for Society to talk about the environment..? And to be given the resource by Government to do so.
This is the main thrust of our work for the Consortium of Zoos, Wildlife & Nature Sites and Aquariums, and, in a different sense, on a European level for the EU Interest Group.
From where I stand, the logic seems irrefutable. I just took a look at website for the Centre for Alternative Technology (”Europe’s leading eco-centre“). http://www.cat.org.uk/ in the middle of Wales. It looks like a great place and I may try and go over the summer. They get 65,000 visitors a year, and good for them.
But we all know that is a tiny number of visitors compared to the 100,000’s and millions that go to those eco-centres that are better known as ‘zoos’. The Earth Centre in Doncaster, UK cost something like £124 million to establish, but closed down after a few years attracting only a few tens of thousands of visitors. So a monument to sustainability, proved to be ….. well, unsustainable.
Only the Eden Project ( a member of the Consortium) thrived. Why? Because, like zoos and aquariums it holds out the prospect of being ‘thrilling’. You are not just going to be taught. There is a simple, easy to explain, visceral appeal in immersing yourself amongst fantastic plants and animals.
So will the UK Government and the Governments of all the other European nations, and the EU itself get it..? I can see the round peg inevitably slotting into the round hole at some time in the future. And we do have a head of steam with the interest of the Deputy PM in the UK, the Biodiversity Minister, the Secretary of State for Education. etc…
But how can we make it happen sooner, more surely? Or in our lifetimes? Will I read the papers when I am ninety that Government has finally decided to use zoos and nature sites as vehicles to deliver environmental policy ( …and science learning …and regional economic development… and public c0nnection with overseas development… and learning partnerships with universities… and…)
What do I have to say to whom when? What is the trick I am missing? What am I not doing..?
Talk to me
John
johnreganassociates.com
