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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: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @08:51PM (2 children)
This is an absolute travesty and disaster.
In defense of the Australian bureaucrats, I'm not 100% convinced I'd have done anything different. Put yourself in their place. Somebody hands you a package labeled "museum samples, valued at about $2." It's now been over 2x as long as the official hold-time. Can you really fault them for saying, "eh, it's only $2, let's just burn it and be done with it. If it's such a big deal, they'll just send another." It sounds like they were sending an ordinary soil sample or something.
The "blame" as such lays in at least the following, keeping in mind that blaming one person does not reduce the fault of the others:
1) Museums for "gaming" the system and undervaluing items when shipping.
2) Government laws/customs which necessitate #1 from occurring.
3) Australia for having laws so far out of alignment with "most countries" (whatever that means)
4) The requesting museum for not highlighting #3 when making the borrowing request
5) The sending museum for not double-checking Australia customs law for #3
Basically it was a process failure, and the process should definitely be fixed. Not sure anybody acted "wrong," though... if anything, I think #1 is the closest to an immoral act, then #2.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:01AM
Have you ever tried putting "Priceless" as the value of your shipping item? Let us know the outcome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:32AM
Why didn't someone pick up the samples?
Did they call the contact number before destroying them?