Closure of Natural History Museum in Bahrain

[Snow, Neil]

A precise and complete mailing address would be helpful.

________________________________

From: Taxacom Discussion List on behalf of Kevin Winker
Sent: Mon 10/3/2005 2:45 PM
To: TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: [TAXACOM] Closure of Natural History Museum in Bahrain



I encourage all to send emails in support of retaining the Natural
History hall and collections in this national museum. Please copy to all
three email addresses.

Best,
--
Kevin Winker
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Drive
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
ffksw at uaf.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-acarology at nhm.ac.uk [mailto:owner-acarology at nhm.ac.uk] On Behalf
Of A.Mohamed at uwalumni.com
Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 11:18 AM
To: acarology at nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Closure of Natural History Museum in Bahrain

Natural History hall to be closed - please support us to fight this closure.

Please forgive our intrusion into your working day but the scientific
community here in Bahrain desperately seeks your support. Bahrain has a
large
national museum, mostly given over to cultural and archaeological finds; the
museum however does include a small but vigorous Natural History section.
Sadly the current Museum Director, Culture and National Heritage Assistant
Under-Secretary recently informed the entire museum staff at a general
meeting
that the Natural History hall would be closed; the entire collection
dismantled and along with its scientific collections, disposed of.  The
decision to close the Natural History hall, museum staff were informed, was
that the Natural History section has no cultural value, was out of place in
a
National Museum, was only popular with children and since the Director in
the
future didn't want children under the age of the seven to be allowed into
the
museum. Its closure would allow the display hall, offices, laboratories and
storage space to be given over to more culturally acceptable displays beyond
the intellect of children so providing justification for an admissions age
barrier at the museum.

The reasoning and arbitrary nature of the Directors decision without
recourse
to discussion, appeal or public debate is for the scientific community here
in
Bahrain difficult to comprehend and due to the local social structure
incredibly difficult for us to contend internally within the country without
support. It is for this reason we seek your assistance by way of letters of
support in fighting this imminent closure and the disposal of the Natural
History collections at the Bahrain Natural National Museum. A few words of
support is all that we require, the museum web site has recently been
disabled
but we believe its email is still active, musbah at batelco.com.bh .

We would be grateful for copies of supporting letter to be sent to us at any
of the following emails listed below so that we can add them to our petition
to His Majesty the King, Shaikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa.

Thank you for your time

Howard King, Bird recorder

howardk at batelco.com.bh

Dr. AbdulAziz Mohamed AbdulKareem, Entomologist

A.Mohamed at uwalumni.com