Museum Manifesto. Facing the limits

Here we are, facing extremes of awareness: on the one hand, a feeling of omnipotence, a powerful driver for the denial of limits; on the other, an increased perception of our belonging to the living world that encourages us to rethink in a more reasoned way about our place in ecosystems, but that can also drive some people to anguish, to a fatalistic and desperate rejection of civilization.
How can we live between these two constraints and what discourse should we adopt to envisage a future that is neither techno-liberal nor apocalyptic? Could a better a wareness of our belonging to the living world, combined with the mobilization of knowledge and know-how, give us hope?

This document was drafted by a committee formed in 2020 at the initiative of Bruno David, palaeontologist and President, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN). The committee was chaired by Philippe Cury, marine ecologist, research supervisor, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), with for managing editor Guillaume Lecointre, zoologist, systematician and scientific advisor to the President of the Muséum. The committee members include: Jean-Michel Besnier ◊ Frédérique Chlous ◊ Philippe Cury ◊ Bruno David ◊ Jean-Baptiste Fressoz ◊ Carine Giovannangeli ◊ Guillaume Lecointre ◊ Cécile Lestienne ◊ Harold Levrel ◊ Samuel Pavard ◊ Marie Ségur ◊ Luc Semal ◊ Jean-François Toussaint ◊ Danièle Tritsch ◊ Claire Tutenuit.