Benefits to local communities
BENEFITS TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES
economic
BICE will contribute to the stimulation of local businesses and tax revenues, increasing tourism with collaborative advertising and cross-promotions with small businesses. BICE will, when and wherever possible, utilize local contractors and locally sourced building/construction materials.
Facilities will also provide volunteer opportunities and internships to members of the local community such as retirees, students, and others. Volunteerism itself has many positive benefits to both the volunteer and the facility they serve.
On the global scale BICE, breeding research and education facilities and BICE's habitat-restored lands in the native developing countries would create economic opportunities for employment which would replace the devastating effects of poverty-inspired illegal activities that harm the environment (such as poaching, illegal logging, and illegal mining) with sustainable jobs.
GOVERNMENT
Although BICE is politically non-partisan, we do engage in political advocacy and lobbying concerning environmental matters, endorsing or opposing, globally, individual policies pertaining to relevant issues (similar to the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, National Audubon Society, Center for Biological Diversity and Safari Club International, etc.).
RECREATIONAL
On the lands BICE owns, after restoration is complete, we open public access to them for recreational purposes such as hiking, camping, biking, horseback riding, etc.
EDUCATIONAL
For the scientific community, the restored lands are also open to scientists and educational groups conducting field research such as paleontological excavation, archeological excavation, animal, plant, fungi, and soil specimen collection, and camera trap-setting among many other things.
For the purposes of further education and scientific research, BICE also will help counties (and similar regional sub-divisions), community/junior colleges and universities plan, design, and build natural history museums with collections and repositories for paleontological, contemporary zoological, and herbarium/contemporary botanical specimens and material. When animals at our facilities die, the remains would be sent to an appropriate local junior college or university to assist in the planning, development, and construction of their natural history museum and its collections.
We also believe that the community should have a more profound education on wildlife. When going to a zoo, most people do not know what they are looking at or are not aware that there are a number of other species and their subspecies that exist in the world, with only subtle variations of those most obvious features. This is why BICE has come to an extensive list of nature-focused, on-site schools and programs at each facility.
- On-Site Nature Preschools (similar to the Environmental Nature Center (ENC) of Newport Beach, CA and the Will Smith Zoo School at the San Antonio Zoo in San Antonio, TX).
- After-School Programs (in coordination with local schools and school bussing transportation).
- Nature Summer Day-Camps (similar to 'zoo camps') and park sleepovers.
- College/University Internship and Exchange Programs in cooperation with the individual schools.
- Private or public art classes.
- A trade/vocational school for adults interested in zoo animal care and management.
- A joint animal care and management program in cooperation with local colleges or universities.
- Citizen Science Classes (local citizens participate in scientific research projects under the direction of a professional scientist).
- Each BICE facility on an annual basis will offer a group trip to a locality where taxa at collection are native. There will be citizen science instruction on the trip.
- Lectures, debates, panel discussions, related documentary films, art and photography classes and citizen science classes hold within our facilities.
We will also offer customized guided tours from a list of topics that you and/or your group can choose from. These tours would be given by an education specialist, on-site animal care and management trade schools which would qualify students for employment as an animal keeper at the institute where the course was taken.
BICE facilities will offer both domestic and foreign guided group travel experiences to relevant wilderness areas where taxa featured at that facility are native.
ENTERTAINMENT
Depending upon the size of the facility, a food court, coffee shop, snack shop or vending area will be available. Most BICE facilities will offer a unique dining experience with an on-site restaurant featuring views of at least one of the animal taxa within the collection.
Menu items will be based on recipes submitted by members of the local community, using organic, locally grown (farmed and ranched) ingredients as well as a menu for culinary creations from the regions to which animals in the collection are native.
Our facilities will have event and entertainment opportunities in the form of concerts (with special native/cultural music) held in the lecture hall, event bookings (weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, memorial services, corporate events, twelve step meetings etc.) in designated areas where animals and guests will not be disturbed.
