UNESCO

I was able to develop some thoughts on natural heritage futures as an invited speaker at the conference From Menageries, to Zoos, to Everything in Between: Can we Envision a New Breed of Zoos? held at Brown University in Providence, USA (15 March 2025) for ca 50 attending participants.

My contribution was as follows:

Zoos and natural heritage futures
This talk is about zoos and the roles of natural heritage in managing the relations between present and future societies. I will present several ways in which zoos can contribute to raising significant issues that directly address anticipated needs of future societies. This includes questions on what it means to be human, the relations between human and non-human lifeforms, and how to make sense of a changing world through animals. That world will face the following challenges, among others:

• AI/machine learning: challenging the distinction between things and people
• Space exploration (Mars): raising questions about belonging and responsibilities in the Universe
• Climate change and environmental destruction: blurring the boundary between nature and culture

Zoos remain significant in the future because they can be creating opportunities for engaging people in stories about what it means to be human and about a variety of ways for human societies of relating to the natural world.