The new National Museum of Natural History

Had an amazing day at the new Museum. It’s the 3rd and final piece to the triumvirate of museums in the old seat of power in Manila.

Hours are 10am to 5pm, and it’s totally free. But I still didn’t expect long lines to get in. I was happily surprised by this. It was about time Filipinos beat the heat in museums instead of malls. Why window shop when you can browse your natural heritage for free?

A huge illustration of a Philippine Eagle hangs under the insulated glass dome of the National Museum of Natural History.

The obvious centerpiece of the museum is the “Tree of Life”, a tower with an elevator whose canopy is an insulated glass dome. The “tree” springs from the top of a cement staircase and was designed by Dominic Galicia. But the original courtyard was designed in the 1930’s by Antonio Toledo.

The “Tree of Life” designed by Dominic Galicia. The original courtyard was designed in the 1930’s by Antonio Toledo.

It is one of the latest buildings to undergo “adaptive reuse” in Manila, or the reuse of an old site for a different purpose. In this case, the old Tourism Department building, which before that was the Agriculture building. P600 million was donated by various entities for its construction. The cost is estimated at P2 billion ($38 million USD).

Beside the tree is a replica of “Lolong”, purported to be the largest crocodile ever to have been kept in captivity. He was initially caught in Agusan del Sur in Mindanao in 2011 and died in captivity in 2013. He measured more than 6 meters long (almost 20 feet) and weighed more than 1,000 kilos (2,300 lbs).

It took 18 people to carry the Lolong replica to his final home at the Museum, which hopes to use the exhibition to raise awareness on Philippine wildlife and marshland ecology.

The skeleton of Lolong hangs in one of the rooms of the National Museum of Natural History.

Lolong sits facing the main entrance of the Museum, as 3 story-high banners of Philippine species watch over him, including the Philippine tarsier as pictured below. Lolong is named after Ernesto “Lolong” Coñate, a crocodile hunter in Palawan who passed sometime before Lolong was caught; but the trap that was used was designed by him.

One of my favorite halls of the Museum is the one on “Naturalists,” which struck a cord with me. It has interactive activities for kids and adults that allow them to take part in species recording and observation. And numerous taxidermies can be found in this hall, including fish, a large deer, and this Sarus Crane below; which unfortunately can no longer be found in the Philippines, but is still around in some parts of mainland Asia.

When I was a kid, I had a book about being a “Naturalist”, or “a person who studies or is an expert in natural history.” I no longer remember the title, but when I began touching the different specimens that the Museum freely allowed visitors to hold and explore, I remembered my childhood.

I used to look dig up insects in my backyard, and later explored a cliff in my neighborhood with my neighbor Sam and his little brother. There we discovered grasshoppers and caterpillars, the latter we would keep and watch pupate into butterflies at my house.

Our methods of collection at that young age were far from what is actually allowed in species collection, so I greatly appreciated the Museum for allowing children to do what I did, but legally and ethically (both the Philippine Wildlife Act RA 9147 under Section 7 and the United States Wildlife Act of 1964 under section 6302.15 allow the collection of wildlife as long as it is non-commercial and does not harm the species or the habitat).

This is the seed of a tree in the Dipterocarpaceae family, found in the tropical rainforests of the Philippines and throughout Southeast Asia. These trees can grow up to 50 meters in height, and includes trees that the Philippine Eagle often nests in, like the White Lauan. The name Dipterocarpaceae is from Greek: di = two, pteron = wing, and karpos = fruit, referring to their seeds like the one above. I assume this allows the seeds to fall to the floor from great heights at a slower speed, reducing damage.

Unfortunately not all that glitters is gold.

Though there are laws in both the US and the Philippines regarding wildlife protection, treatment of species of the human kind in regards to environmental conservation, has not at all been ethical.

In the Philippines there exists Key Biodiversity Areas where portions of land hold some of the most unique and threatened species in the world. According to data from the Tebtebba Foundation (on page 8), 75% of these KBAs are also part of ancestral land or domains of Indigenous People. Unfortunately export-oriented and foreign-dominated logging, mining, and even renewable energy projects benefit investors more than locals living among these resources (page 292).

In the United States, the term “National Park” is associated with serene “vistas of wild or untamed nature”; of campsites and boy scouts and grizzly bears. But sometime before these associations were made, between 1776 and 1887 to be specific, the US took over 1.5 billion acres from America’s Indigenous People. Today, American Indians and Alaska Natives have the highest rates of poverty of all races in the United States, with African Americans not too far behind.

A timelapse of diminishing Indian homelands (in blue) wittled down to reservations (in red), using data from maps produced by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1899, compiled by a project directed by Claudio Saunt, Russell Professor of History at the University of Georgia. Gif from Slate.com.

Museums are wonderful, convenient places where humans can explore in a safe, sterile environment surrounded by white walls and air conditioning. But we must also examine how our enjoyment and use of natural resources affects others not in our periphery. And why are they not in our periphery?

We must examine this, we must study the histories behind it, with as much zeal and desire for exploration. And we need to do this more often than not, scrutinizing it as if under a microscope at the museum.