From Parachutes to Partnerships: An “Integrated” Natural 
History Museum Expedition in the Philippines* 
Terrence M. Gosliner i and Meg Burke 2 
1 Terrence M. Gosliner, Many W. and Diana V. Hind Senior Curator and Dean of Science and 
Research Collections, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California 94118, 
Email: tgosliner@calacademy.org: ~ Meg Burke, Director of Teacher and Youth Education, 
California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California 94118; Email: mburke@calacademy.org. 
The 2011 Hears! Philippine Biodiversity Expedition was the largest ever launched by 
the California Academy of Sciences, and was also the largest and most diverse expe¬ 
dition to ever take place in the Philippines. Filipino collaboration and participation 
were vitally important from the outset. Scientists of both nations documented biodi¬ 
versity in a variety of habitats and across multiple biological disciplines, identifying 
more than 500 species new to science. The expedition also modeled a new way of 
embedding substantial educational outreach and media coverage, and promoting 
conservation actions. More than 900 people attended educational events in the 
Philippines. Extensive television, radio, online, and print media coverage occurred 
both in the Philippines and in the U.S. during the expedition and after. A conference 
at the end shared preliminary results among scientists, educators, policy makers, 
and media, before the Academy team even left the country. 
One of the most cherished and venerable activities of museums is to conduct expeditions of 
exploration around the world. The “golden age” of expeditions in the late nineteenth to the mid¬ 
twentieth centuries often led to remarkable discoveries and captured public imagination, but also 
generated controversy as the developed countries frequently extracted cultural and biological treas¬ 
ures from the less-developed world. Modern natural history expeditions have broadly expanded the 
mutually beneficial aspects of the explorations, reduced the prospect of exploitation, and created 
new expectations of interaction. Scientific institutions these days still seek, however, to explore and 
discover in foreign lands, and return with specimens and new knowledge. A successful contempo¬ 
rary expedition must have a clearly articulated plan for collection of specimens and dissemination 
of scientific results, a progi'am outlining desired impacts, and inclusion of partners from the host 
country in the process of planning, implementation, and post-expeditionaiy interactions and fol¬ 
low-up. These elements are industry standards today, but are often relegated to just the biological 
aspects of the expedition. It is the authors’ view that expeditions, to have tmly broader and lasting 
impact, must also address key societal issues such as education, conservation, and building a more 
sustainable future.' These broader societal aspects of an expedition are rarely documented in the 
literature, if they are occurring at all. 
A hundred and fifty years ago, scientists would often arrive in a country, conduct their research 
and extract specimens, all in the absence of interaction with local researchers or institutions. In the 
Philippines, this brand of foreign researcher is referred to as a “parachute scientisf ’ because the sci¬ 
entist drops in and then disappears. 
In the modem world, “partnership” is the name of the game and the only reasonable strategy. 
It is also the strategy that will most likely achieve the greatest results. 
The California Academy of Sciences — the oldest cultural institution west of the Mississippi, 
* This article was first published in Curator (2013, 56(l);47-67) and with minor modifications is reprinted here with 
permission. 
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