Samenvatting

This applied research aims to provide insights that will assist Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a leading institution in biodiversity research attracting around half a million museum visitors annually, in enhancing public understanding of biodiversity and motivating greater stewardship of nature. Over the past 50 years, wildlife populations have declined by 73% (WWF 2024, 7), and 1 million species face extinction (IPBES 2019, XVI). While 71% of people in Europe have heard of biodiversity, only 41% understand what it means (European Commission. Directorate General for Environment 2019, 7). There is an urgent need to inform the public about the significance of biodiversity and encourage them to protect it. As trusted public institutions that represent long-term societal meaning-making, museums can play a vital role in this effort. Naturalis’ family-oriented exhibitions highlight the beauty and diversity of nature but hardly address human impacts on biodiversity. Its forthcoming exhibition on Suriname is the first where its new strategic goal to engage the public with the biodiversity crisis could be realised. Through a case study of this exhibition and a comparative analysis of other natural history exhibitions, this study explores how the ecological crisis is currently communicated and how museums aim to inspire visitors to help reduce the effects of unsustainable human pressures on the natural environment. It finds that in the Suriname exhibition, multivocality (i.e., the inclusion of non-Western worldviews alongside the scientific perspective) takes priority over ecological urgency. To achieve its ambitions of becoming a change agent in a biodiversity-positive society, Naturalis will need to strengthen its messaging in its upcoming exhibition about biodiversity and through interventions in its permanent exhibitions.