ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the evolving paradigms that surround collections. It discusses the contributing factors to our sector's past inertia. The chapter explores the Anthropocene as an encompassing framework for the future. It then focuses on several other related and timely opportunities for the sector; and profiles what a holistic ethos entails in order to advance an institution in the most efficient and effective manner. For a museum to aspire to its most externally valuable state requires clarity on what being relevant entails in exact terms. In the twenty-first century, what makes a natural history museum and its kindred institutions museums of anthropology, nature, nature and science, and the natural sciences—in this chapter, all referred to as "nature-focused museums" maximally relevant is surely their most pivotal undertaking. The chapter concludes the Taipei declaration approach the baseline concept — namely, that nature-focused museums illuminate the meaning and implications of the Anthropocene.
