Earth Trusts : A Quality Vision for Animals?

• Contemporary zoos often articulate benevolent purposes of conservation, education, research, and recreation, at the same time as they entail several problematic dimensions in terms of relationships between humans, animals, society and nature. This paper responds to critiques of the present zoo system as articulated by previous theoretical and empirical research. It envisions a future of zoos in which human-animal encounters are made possible largely without human intervention and without symbolic and physical appropriation and commodification of animals. The study uses as its point of departure a vision called “Earth Trusts”. The objective is to apply methodological tools from the discipline of Futures Studies, i.e. Environmental Scanning and Trend Analysis, in order to delineate the most viable aspects of the vision. Visions are “paradigm hoppers” as they provide a means for reaching beyond prevailing attitudes, ideas and values and recombining existing concepts and constructions in new and exciting ways. They make space available for re-conceptualizations of familiar phenomena and institutions, and point at different ways in which such re-conceptualizations may be concretized and actualized. The “Earth Trusts” vision is placed 25 years into the future which provides for creative innovation while allowing for changes indicated by some current trends.

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