Did you know, when they dig up dinosaur bones in Alberta, Canada, they list them as being from Alberta? When they dig them up in Mongolia, they are from "The Gobi Desert." I guess that way they don't have to consider them part of Mongolia's national heritage. Indeed, the natural history museum in Ulaanbataar was closed when I was there. Their bones are on loan to rich countries that fail to mention Mongolian people having taken any part in their discovery.
Mongolia is very good at conserving its natural resources. Suspicious of outsiders, used to living off the land, lakes, streams, and mountains are not to be sacrificed for the short-term gain of quick riches, though Western companies are always trying to shake loose its natural resources at the expense of its scenery.
You see, these same countries will then get to come back to Mongolia after the devastation has commenced and tell them how to conserve their resources.
That is what Western countries are now doing in Africa. Western people having decimated the populations of wild animals through centuries of game hunting, many African species are now threatened, endangered, or extinct. That means, to save the animals they endangered, Western people get to come in and tell them how to manage their resources at their expense. What a great deal, for Western people!
Do African people get any credit for living successfully with these same animals for thousands of years without destroying their populations? Maybe Western people should, I don't know, defer to African people for once about how to manage African resources.
The San Francisco Zoo is extremely poorly managed. Why do I say so? There is nobody there during the very height of the summer. It's easy to see why: it is expensive. It is expensive to push people into getting a membership, but it is not something easily worked in. It lies in an outlying neighborhood. It is pulled away from the street very far.
The most important function of a zoo which is concerned with conservation is to bring in people who normally would not care about it and convince them of its necessity. But the loop closes. To enter, you must already have the proper values, therefore do not need the education.
The Academy of Sciences San Francisco is better situated, but even more expensive. Membership has made it very cheap to go since it can be worked into practically any day of the week for me, but it remains remote and prohibitively expensive for the very people who need to know how the world is being changed by human activity. That's not wise management. That's cordoning off the knowledge and making it exclusive.
Ultimately, we reject or accept the notion that people are to blame for their circumstances or can be improved through education. If we accept that people can be made better by education, then we must automatically assume those that have the least need it the most.
Charging people $20-$30 each for admission (with nominal discounts) is the ultimate statement of lack of faith in educating all. It shows a startling lack of interest in the future of this country, and planet. That is something Western institutions ought to think about.
Mongolia is very good at conserving its natural resources. Suspicious of outsiders, used to living off the land, lakes, streams, and mountains are not to be sacrificed for the short-term gain of quick riches, though Western companies are always trying to shake loose its natural resources at the expense of its scenery.
You see, these same countries will then get to come back to Mongolia after the devastation has commenced and tell them how to conserve their resources.
That is what Western countries are now doing in Africa. Western people having decimated the populations of wild animals through centuries of game hunting, many African species are now threatened, endangered, or extinct. That means, to save the animals they endangered, Western people get to come in and tell them how to manage their resources at their expense. What a great deal, for Western people!
Do African people get any credit for living successfully with these same animals for thousands of years without destroying their populations? Maybe Western people should, I don't know, defer to African people for once about how to manage African resources.
The San Francisco Zoo is extremely poorly managed. Why do I say so? There is nobody there during the very height of the summer. It's easy to see why: it is expensive. It is expensive to push people into getting a membership, but it is not something easily worked in. It lies in an outlying neighborhood. It is pulled away from the street very far.
The most important function of a zoo which is concerned with conservation is to bring in people who normally would not care about it and convince them of its necessity. But the loop closes. To enter, you must already have the proper values, therefore do not need the education.
The Academy of Sciences San Francisco is better situated, but even more expensive. Membership has made it very cheap to go since it can be worked into practically any day of the week for me, but it remains remote and prohibitively expensive for the very people who need to know how the world is being changed by human activity. That's not wise management. That's cordoning off the knowledge and making it exclusive.
Ultimately, we reject or accept the notion that people are to blame for their circumstances or can be improved through education. If we accept that people can be made better by education, then we must automatically assume those that have the least need it the most.
Charging people $20-$30 each for admission (with nominal discounts) is the ultimate statement of lack of faith in educating all. It shows a startling lack of interest in the future of this country, and planet. That is something Western institutions ought to think about.
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