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Last year, Australian bureaucrats facilitated the destruction of a priceless, irreplaceable, scientific collection of plant materials on loan to their country's scientists from France. Apparently the actual destruction was carried out by an "external contractor", but that in no way absolves the bureaucracy.
Jeanson had received a message from the director of the Queensland Herbarium in Australia that was abrupt to the point of being blunt. It told him that a package of 105 botanical specimens of Australian plants owned by the Jardin des Plantes – and gathered by an intrepid French botanist more than 200 years earlier – had been destroyed by Australian biosecurity officials.
To this day, Jeanson can't quite believe what happened, and nor can scientists and museum directors from around the world who have followed the story with horror.
The specimens were both priceless and irreplaceable. How could anyone, let alone government officials, incinerate such artefacts? It was simply beyond Jeanson's comprehension. It remains so, even after post-mortems and investigations conducted in both countries, by scientists and bureaucrats, after diplomats stepped in and compensation negotiations were undertaken.
The specimens destroyed were part of the catalog of the world's plants and were a part of a base for pharmacy, agriculture, and any kind of science based on plants.
Source : 'Would you burn the Mona Lisa if it was sent?': Our horror bureaucratic bungle
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday February 26 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)
Basically, yes: don't ship any more extremely valuable scientific or cultural artifacts there. They've proven they can't be trusted with them.
It's just like loaning your tools to your neighbor: if you loan a nice cordless drill or air wrench or whatever to your neighbor, and he completely wrecks it or returns it in beat-up condition, would you ever loan such a tool to him again? You'd be an idiot if you did. In general, it's a bad idea to ever loan out valuables like this, unless the other party has proven themselves to be completely trustworthy. For France, they can probably trust certain countries with stuff like this, such as Netherlands or Norway or Germany. Australia isn't on that list, just like Zimbabwe or Sudan or Iraq.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:57AM
Actually Zimbabwe would not incinerate your valuable botanical samples. Oz-trill-ya, oh yes; Nude Sealind also (same sheepfarmerheads).