The Biodiversity Exhibit at NYC's American Museum of Natural History

Entering the Biodiversity Exhibit of the American Museum of Natural History, one cannot help but be overwhelmed by the size of it and the objects presented there. While it is not very hard to believe that our planet contains so much life in so many different forms, it is much more difficult to imagine the actual complexity of this life. The mammalian part of the exhibit is imposing enough, even for people who have heard or read about many of the species presented there. But the ornithological part of the exhibit, as well as the one portraying insects, is much more shocking for two reasons; firstly, an ordinary person, on average, would know less about those groups than about mammals; and secondly, species in these two groups are considerably more numerous than those in the mammalian group. As to the marine life group, it defies imagination and the ability to describe the immensity of this part of the exhibit. Plant life group is huge, but it is not as interesting, for the most part, as the rest of the exhibit.

By far the most imposing part of the Biodiversity Exhibit is the Tree of Life. Each specie in each biological group is represented by only one image, but the sheer number of these species makes the Tree of Life the part of the exhibit that makes one stop in front of it for a long time, not as much for simple observation, but for actual research. While there, I caught myself following certain branches of the Tree to find the species I was interested in and to found out what habitat they belong to and how they interact with other species around them. It is also very humbling to realize that humans are only one part of the big whole. It puts our entire role on the planet in perspective, meaning that, while we are the most adaptable species on the planet because of our intelligence, we are by far not the most important.

Although the exhibit indicates the massive diversity of life on our planet, it also forces the attendees to face the problem of the Earth's biosphere gradually shrinking under the human industrial influence. Parts of the exhibit where straight facts, rather than images, are presented appear to be as important, if not as visually appealing, as the rest of the exhibit. For example, some figures from the Museum's Council on Preservation and Biodiversity are very alarming. First of all, the public is much less aware of what biodiversity stands for and how it has been developing lately. Only 40 percent of all people surveyed by the Council are familiar with any of the concepts of biodiversity. Secondly, it is alarming that 69 percent of all biologists who participated in the survey believe that the rapid decline in the Earth's biological diversity should be considered a mass extinction, and 94 percent of these biologists believe that human activities are the primary cause of the ongoing extinction. The images of some of the heavier pollution-producing industries in action, as well as pictures of animals and plants affected by these industries, are very shocking, even scary, and make one reassess the human tendency of putting the comfort of our own species ahead of the well being of the entire planet and, ultimately, our own survival.