Last weekend I visited the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. The website states: ‘Naturalis is the national research institute for biodiversity. Our scientists dedicate themselves to describing, understanding and preserving biodiversity without interruption.’ (https://www.naturalis.nl/en).
It’s wonderful how they present their collection. You start at the beginning of the earth and gradually walk up to the current time. Including death. The skeletons of the Dino’s are enormous, over 15 meters long, the woman in the picture might have looked like this based on the finding of her skull and bones, millions of animals are conserved and many beasts mounted. It’s a museum of the evolution of the world. And European museum a the year 2021.
It made me realise again that all our talks at big meetings about saving the planet, rescuing nature are not about nature or the planet. Nature will find a new form again, the planet will transform into something new. But what will we humans do? The dialogue is essentially about how we connect to life. And to death.