INSTITUTES

Single Taxon Specialty Facilites

Institutes (Single Taxon Specialty Facilities) are facilities that focus on one Order, Family, Genus, and the Species and their Sub-species that are classified within it.

The purpose of these institutes would be to preserve, conserve and propagate the world’s fauna and flora, especially those with decreasing population trends.

FULL – FLEDGED ZOOS

Biodiverse, full-fledged zoos entail facilities whose collections contain multiple taxonomic groups rather than focusing on only one, as do the institutes.

The reason BICE advocates for full-fledged zoos to be geographically specialized within counties/regions of multiple cities with populations of 100,000 or more concentrated within them is to promote incentive to visit nearby zoos, receiving a different “geographic” experience from each of them.

MUSEUMS

BICE intends to include small, taxonomically-focused natural history museums and fossil collections (casts) having to do with the taxonomic group featured at that institute. 

An important reason for museum collections is an accumulation of surplus specimens that many existing museums do no have room or funds to store. 

BICE is of the belief that every major public and university should have a natural history museum on its campus.

COLLECTION PLANNING

Determined by appropriate climate and cities’ economic capabilities when planning collections, the more threatened the taxon, the higher priority for placement at the institution. In other words, the taxa chosen for exhibition, of any given population trend, are “Not Evaluated”, “Data Deficient”, “Near Threatened”, “Conservation Dependent”, “Vulnerable”, “Endangered”, “Critically Endangered”, and “Extinct in the Wild”. Of those populations that are considered “Least Concern”, Decreasing population trends would take priority over Stable or Unknown population trends.

Speaking on a global scale, developing countries would most advisably concentrate on taxa native to their region, whereas industrialized and developed countries in the Northern Hemisphere would have more geographic diversity in their collections.

IMPORTANCE

• Institutes’ collection planning and resource allocation strategies provide a wider range of conservation status choices than full-fledged zoos because they are restricted to their designated taxonomic group.
• With over 33,000 species at risk worldwide according to the IUCN, there is no reason why every city or town could not support some kind of Institute in order to facilitate the work of conservation and biodiversity stewardship.
• Aesthetically designed Institutes with botanical gardens and scenic walking paths can attract visitors as one of their local destinations to connect to the natural world.