Who we are
About Us
BIODIVERSITY INSTITUTES OF CONSERVATION AND EDUCATION (BICE)
BICE is the first of its kind to formulate and franchise pre-planned facilities at efficient costs, to offer to cities and communities of all sizes in order to take their part in conservation of the world’s flora and fauna.
BICE designs and prioritizes institutes and zoos for communities according to conservation status (priority), climate (appropriate, most similar to native habitat) and, in some cases, regional and cultural relevance (city, high school or college/university mascots, etc.).
We seek to mitigate biodiversity loss through ex situ (captive holding and breeding outside of home range) conservation practices, and promote biodiversity education to local communities for more effective in situ (preservation and monitoring of taxa within their home range) conservation results.
BICE gives each city and town an opportunity to take responsibility for the stewardship of a specific taxonomic group or, in some cases, geographic region to serve as an insurance population (or segment of) for the world’s diminishing flora and fauna.
Our aim is to rebuild, repopulate and restore the native ecosystems and biomes for the world’s wildlife and plant life, in order to create a more sustainable future for all life and develop human appreciation for all life forms as the key to their own survival.
FACILITIES
Our specialty is the planning and design of taxonomically focused facilities for cities, towns and counties with a population between 1,000 to 99,999 people. However our services are not limited to just that. Cities and Metropolitan Statistical Areas of 100,000 people or more would be offered full-fledged zoos with more taxonomically diverse collections, based on climatic suitability. Cities and towns in the developed world (United States, Canada, Europe etc.) would have collections (both full-fledged zoos and institutes) with broad geographic diversity, however, those in developing countries would have collections restricted to what is native to their region. This would encourage economic and environmental sustainability through education, research and tourism.
Based on scientific proof, BICE is of the belief that proximity to nature benefits human societies. With the continued growth of existing pockets of human population and encroachment of wild areas, as well as anticipating eventual migrations of human populations due to climate change, it is necessary to design migration corridors connecting habitats in order to maintain and increase genetic diversity of animal and plant populations. Lack of genetic diversity has serious health and survival consequences.
All BICE facilities will be entirely ‘green’, using sustainable building methods and materials. Sustainable forms of energy (such as solar) will power all facilities. Recyclable materials will be utilized in clean, simple designs that do not take attention from the animals, themselves. Construction will utilize recycled plastic building blocks, 3D printing construction, recycled metal, recycled wood and other cutting-edge processes and materials.
In order to enhance the comparative experience for visitor observations, separations between enclosures will be designed with sightlines open to other species and/or their subspecies, enhancing the comparative experience for visitor observations.
As biodiversity loss is a global problem, the need for the eventual global establishments of BICE is indisputable. With its sights on global community participation, we seek to establish a pilot model facility in each country and in each of the fifty United States to promote national and global awareness. We will present appropriate designs to specially researched, chosen cities, towns and counties. Of course, growth will be determined and implemented whenever and wherever public interest is expressed.
A CONSCIOUS DESIGN
BICE believes it is possible to integrate human development with animal and plant development by “conscious design”, that is, by preserving or introducing vast areas of wilderness connected by migration corridors, intermixed with areas of human populations. This by extension of the concept of county, state and national parks and preserves along with natural animal highway overpasses connecting wild areas.
In order to be conservative with our fiscal and material resources, BICE facilities will be created with simplistic, functional, naturalistic and aesthetically pleasing designs.
Similar to The Nature Conservancy and National Audubon Society, BICE maintains a foundation that purchases land (former farmland, former ranchland etc.) and restores the land converting it back into the habitat/ecosystem that occupied it prior. On that land, when feasible or necessary, we release native animal taxa that were captive bred at our facilities for restorations of such habitat and for conservation of those species. We also plant native plants on that land that were grown at our facilities for the restoration of that habitat.
BICE engages in a “reciprocal process” of animal management, with special attention to successful capture and acclimation to captivity before transport to a facility in the developed world. BICE creates breeding and education facilities in their home range, from where these animals are being collected. Done in this way, their native species and subspecies can gradually adjust to captivity before export into the developed world, increasing chances for successful transportation and acclamation. In order to most successfully transition these insurance populations back into their native range, equally important is the management of wild animal taxa being conserved, propagated and raised in captivity in the developed world’s facilities. Only their native species would be managed in their specialty facilities/institutes due to the number of endemic species and their sensitivity to outside influences of pathogens to which they may not have adapted or evolved immunity.
BICE HQ will act as a central database for excess and discarded natural history specimens to be placed in an appropriate collection Headquarters will maintain relevant transitional repositories.
BICE HQ will operate a centralized ‘Frozen Zoo’ and Botanical Seed Bank. This will be a storage facility in which genetic materials (DNA, sperm, eggs, embryos, and live tissue) are taken from animals and stored. This is for research and protection of the gene pool of endangered and threatened species and subspecies. The cost of each facility having their own Frozen Zoo and Seed Bank would be too high. BICE would work in cooperation with other organizations to these same ends.
