FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET Annual Review 2019/20 Patron HRH The Duchess of Cambridge

Chair The Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint

Director Sir Michael Dixon KBE DL

Trustees Professor Sir John Beddington CMG FRS Dame Frances Cairncross DBE FRSE Professor Christopher Gilligan CBE Professor Sir John Holman KBE Anand Mahindra Hilary Newiss Robert Noel Simon Patterson Professor Sir Stephen Sparks KBE CBE FRS Professor Dame Janet Thornton DBE FRS FMedSci Dr Kim L. Winser OBE

Trustees to 31 March 2020

Professor Christopher Gilligan CBE and Professor Sir John Holman KBE have since stepped down as Trustees and Harris Bokhari OBE and Prof Yadvinder Malhi FRS have been appointed in their place.

The Final Leap by Stefan Christmann, winner of the 2019 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio Award.

2 CONTENTS

Introduction by the Chair of Trustees 3

Introduction by the Director 3

The Urban Nature Project 5

A snapshot of 2019/20 6

Inspiring visitors 11

Across the UK 19

International reach 23

Harnessing technologies 33

World-leading science 37

Focus on sustainability 42

Income and expenditure 44

Our performance 45

Raising revenue: commercial activities 46

Raising revenue: philanthropy and partnerships 48

Our supporters 50

3 To the Moon, Mars and Beyond – the Director, Sir Michael Dixon, presenting at the space - themed 2019 Annual Trustees’ Dinner, which coincided with the fftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing and featured lively discussion on current space research by Museum scientists.

4 Introduction by the Chair of Trustees Introduction by the Director

On 17th March the Museum closed its doors to the public for the I had hoped to be writing this valedictory piece following a frst unplanned time since the Second World War. It was a very record year for the Museum. This so nearly happened, but the sad moment in a year in which visitor numbers were on course impact of Covid-19 from early March and the closure of the to break records. But inspirational ideas like the Natural History Museum from the 18th of the month took the gloss off a highly Museum do not become great institutions and survive for 139 satisfactory fnal full year of my tenure as Director. years by accident. They are resilient organisations fuelled by the Nevertheless, total attendance at our South Kensington and dedication and passion of their staff, supporters and visitors. As Tring sites reached 5.3 million (only 4.8% down on the record the doors to South Kensington and Tring swung shut, plans were year of 2013/4 in effectively 11 months), total self-generated already underway to ensure the Museum was able to continue to income grew 2.2% to £45.1 millon, we had a record year in engage the widest possible audience with nature and science and income from scientifc grants and contracts and, after a huge that important work did not grind to a halt. institutional effort, we were successful in our Budget bid for Visits to the website and engagements on social media had £180 million to build a new science and digitisation centre on already shown impressive growth in the year. In lockdown they the science and innovation campus at Harwell. rocketed still higher, driven by audiences starved of interactions Added to this were awards and plaudits for our digitisation with the natural world and their beloved Museum as well as by programme and our digital output, the elevation of Wildlife the global scientifc community eagerly downloading datasets Photographer of the Year to yet new levels of achievement, from the Museum’s Data Portal. Digital versions of the Nature active participation in the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Live events, usually held in the Museum, attracted audiences of creation of a vibrant and exciting forward programme of public over 20,000 for a single event. Our Members and Supporters events and exhibitions and a successful year of fund-raising for, were able to enjoy additional bespoke content online. In this way and development of, our Urban Nature Project. the Museum was able to keep audiences connected with nature, Finally, we launched a powerful new Strategy to 2031 playing a vital role in aiding their wellbeing during lockdown. which engendered signifcant media coverage and substantial The Museum also kept its focus on strategic priorities. Work support from our major stakeholder groups and some new continued on the programme which will eventually see 40% of ones. All in all, this was a truly enormous effort and level of the collection moved to a new state of the art research centre achievement, so I thank and pay tribute to colleagues across in Harwell. And as part of the Urban Nature Project there was the entire Museum for making my fnal full year in post such a an online public consultation to share with local communities memorable one. plans to redevelop our grounds around our South Kensington However, we face unprecedented challenges as a result of site. It was clear by the end of March that our buildings in South the Covid-19 global pandemic. This is a stark reminder that our Kensington and Tring would be closed for some months and that actions have consequences. We cannot continue to degrade this would have a signifcant impact on fnances. However, the nature, destroying natural habitats in the intensifcation and hard work and innovation demonstrated by colleagues to keep expansion of agriculture and animal production and juxtapose audiences engaged and projects continuing has put the Museum domesticated and wild animals, for example in live markets, in the best possible position to face the challenges and grasp the without serious risk of new zoonotic diseases affecting opportunities that its 140th year will bring. humans. Covid-19 will not be the last pandemic, but we can This year will see Sir Michael Dixon retire from his post as minimise the risk if we take the right action. Director after 16 years of outstanding service. During his tenure Never has the Museum’s vision of a future where people the Darwin Centre has opened, visitor numbers have grown by and the planet thrive been more relevant. Nor has our mission 70%, funding for our new science and digitisation centre has been to create advocates for the planet ever been more necessary. secured and the Museum has embarked on a bold new strategy to Others will now take this important work forward, but I will be help society tackle the planetary emergency. Mike’s contribution watching with continued deep interest. will endure for years to come and we wish him well for his new role as Principal of Green Templeton College, Oxford University. With our new Director Dr Doug Gurr and two newly appointed trustees, Professor Yadvinder Malhi FRS and Harris Bokhari OBE, the Museum will not miss a beat as we continue to work for a Sir Michael Dixon future where people and planet thrive. Museum Director

The Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint Chair of Trustees

5 6 The Urban Nature Project

This year we placed our response to the growing challenges faced by biodiversity in our towns and cities at the heart of the Museum’s plans. Using the reimagined gardens in South Kensington as a launchpad, the Urban Nature Project will work in partnership across the UK to empower people to protect the nature on their doorsteps. Our Royal Patron HRH The Duchess of Cambridge visited the Museum in October 2019 to hear about the work already underway to champion UK biodiversity.

‘Connecting with the natural world has never been more important. I’m delighted that the Museum’s Urban Nature Project will inspire and enable people in towns and cities across the UK, and visitors to the Natural History Museum, to engage with the natural world on their doorsteps. It will also help us understand the impact we are having on nature in urban environments, so we can act together to protect, nurture and enjoy it.’ The Duchess of Cambridge

In August we appointed a design team to take forward the transformation of the Museum’s fve-acre gardens into a fully accessible green space in the heart of the city. The gardens will be somewhere visitors can explore the diversity of life on Earth and our scientists can develop methods to protect urban nature. The Wildlife Garden will be extended to double the area of native habitats within the grounds. The design team are working with Museum experts and external conservation and heritage advisors. By March we were preparing to share the developed plans with the public and gather their feedback. Together with partners including The Prince’s Trust and the London Wildlife Trust, the Museum will reach over 100,000 young people, families and schools with a new UK-wide learning programme. We have talked to partners, families, teachers and community groups to support the development of the learning programme. We have also held focus groups with neurodiverse audiences, consulted on the barriers and opportunities for engaging vulnerable people and forged new relationships to support a volunteer programme. In September 2019 the Museum was awarded a development grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, enabling us to move forward with the development of our national engagement programme. We want to develop new ways to increase the understanding and conservation of urban nature and to share these skills and knowledge. This includes developing eDNA metabarcoding for urban nature recording and new digital methodologies such as acoustic monitoring. The pilot project began this year with scientifc sampling taking place at the Museum as well as our partner sites National Museum of Wales Cardiff and with RSPB Scotland and Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow.

Our Royal Patron HRH The Duchess of Cambridge, visited the Museum’s Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity to hear how it is championing and helping protect UK wildlife.

7 A SNAPSHOT OF 2019/20

Beetle named after young For one night only Solution in a sponge climate activist Nearly 4,000 visitors joined a special Research leader Dr Ana Riesgo and her Scientifc associate Michael Darby Lates event in December to celebrate team revealed the exciting potential honoured Swedish climate activist Greta the BBC’s new Seven Worlds, One Planet of using sea sponges to collect animal Thunberg by naming a new species of series, the channel’s most-watched DNA from the ocean. Traditional beetle after her. Nelloptodes gretae is factual TV show for 2019. Producers, techniques can be expensive and slow, less than a millimetre long, and lives researchers and leading Museum but harnessing a sponge’s power to across the globe. Greta was just 15 when scientists gave talks and led activities flter 10,000 litres of water a day could she sparked some of the largest climate showcasing species from each episode. revolutionise the growing interest in strikes in world history. ‘I’ve learned you The music composer for the series, collecting environmental DNA (eDNA) are never too small to make a difference,’ Academy Award-winning Hans Zimmer, such as this to analyse. she once said. also attended.

Where flm comes to life A new exhibition based on the smash-hit flm Fantastic Beasts, written by J. K. Rowling as a prequel to the Harry Potter story, was announced. Set to open in the Waterhouse Gallery later in 2020, visitors will encounter legendary beasts, spellbinding digital installations and historic objects from the collection. Items will also include a tiger, an Erumpent horn – a flm prop shown here being held by Roberto Portelo Miguez, senior curator in charge of mammals – and a replica dragon skull.

8 A plastic impact frst A pioneering study by Museum researchers revealed a staggering 560,000 hermit crabs have died after becoming trapped in discarded plastic bottles. Working on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and Henderson Island in the South Pacifc, Dr Alex Bond, senior curator in charge of birds and colleague Dr Jennifer Lavers are the frst to measure the impact of plastic on a population.

G’day to a new fly

A fly never before seen in the UK, or New jewels in the collection Europe, was spotted in the Wildlife Garden by David Notton, senior While studying the Museum’s vast beetle curator of hymenoptera. The tiny scale collection, Dr Jaroslav Marek from the parasite fly, originally from Australia, University of Pardubice in the Czech has been introduced into Israel, North Republic identifed eight new species America and South America to control of jewel beetle, so named for their the cottony cushion scale fly, a plant iridescent colours. The exciting fnds pest. The species likely arrived here by were collected in South America more accident, on ornamental potted plants, than 150 years ago by the great Victorian and may predate on Britain’s increasing collectors Charles Darwin and Henry population of cottony cushion scale flies. Walter Bates.

9 A SNAPSHOT OF 2019/20

LUMIX People’s Choice winner Station Squabble by Sam Rowley won the LUMIX People’s Choice Award after a public vote in the 2019 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition. The amateur photographer from Bristol observed the mice inhabiting London’s Underground by lying on platforms for fve hours each night for a week, before capturing this split-second fght over some food crumbs.

Discoveries in time Over the course of 2019, scientists in the Museum described 412 new species – from beetles smaller than a full stop to the oldest known stegosaur. With biodiversity in crisis, and habitats under increasing pressure, it has never been more important to document life on Earth. Recording species before they 48,000entries to Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019, are lost will help secure the insights coming from 100 different countries they hold.

10 To the skies and back again Uncovering metamorphosis Startling new research by Dr Julian Hume Museum forensic entomologist Dr Martin revealed that the rail – the only native Hall and his team published a paper on flightless bird left in the Indian Ocean – how new imaging technologies such as evolved to live on land rather than the CT scanning can reveal one of nature’s skies, twice. Fossils from Aldabra, in the greatest enigmas, the change of body Seychelles, show flightless birds lived on form through metamorphosis. Using a the island just before it was submerged, group of flies known as cyclorraphous, and surprisingly began to evolve again they showed how imaging techniques just after. developed for medical science can now replace dissection.

UK project given life A project to sequence the genome of every animal, plant, fungus and protozoan in the UK has received £9.4 million from the Wellcome Sanger Institute for its frst phase. The Darwin Tree of Life Project will sequence DNA of 66,000 species, bringing invaluable new insights into their evolution, their future, and their possible use for biomedicine. The Museum is one of ten institutes partnering on the project that will give unprecedented insights into the diverse range of species on the British Isles.

The earliest of the stegosaurs From just a handful of vertebrae and an upper arm bone, dinosaur researcher Dr Susannah Maidment and her team discovered the oldest stegosaur ever found. Likely to be about 168 million years old, and related to other stegosaurs such as the Museum’s Sophie, Adratiklit boulahfa was discovered in Morocco is not only a new species but also a new genus.

11 12 INSPIRING VISITORS

The Museum continues to be an inspirational day out for visitors from across the world, exploring the wonder and fragility of nature through exhibitions, activities and events. We are the world’s most visited natural history museum and one of the most visited attractions in the UK and Europe, feeding people’s curiosity with stories and insights from the world around them, creating advocates for our precious Earth.

Success in numbers

Visits to the Natural History Museum broke the fve million mark, with 5,303,859 across both sites. Although historically a high, it is down 189,141 from last year, likely because we closed 14 days early due to Covid-19 safety measures. We remain in the top four UK visitor attractions with the British Museum, Tate Modern and the National Gallery. Luke Jerram’s Museum of the Moon art installation, in the Jerwood Gallery, was our most visited exhibition with 2,227,988 visitors during its run from 17 May 2019 to 5 January 2020 representing 63% of visitors to the Museum during that time. Our Ice Rink saw its highest visitor numbers in its 15-year history with 221,189 skaters, and Wildlife Photographer of the Year was seen by 129,778 visitors. The Museum’s Learning Volunteering Programme grew and diversifed in 2019/2020 and helped the Museum engage nearly 150,000 people in collections-rich learning conversations.

Museum of the Moon, a six-metre spherical sculpture suspended in the Jerwood Gallery, here photographed from below with the million visitors to Luke Jerram’s Pride colours projected on to the ceiling above it. 2.23Museum of the Moon art installation

13 Inspiring visitors

Museum of the Moon Revelations and renovations at Tring A large re-creation of the Moon drew over 2 million visitors to the Jerwood Gallery. Museum of the Moon, a six-metre spherical sculpture suspended in the air, featured In summer 2019, Tring celebrated Britain high-resolution NASA imagery of the lunar surface. The artwork offered a new and as the birthplace of dinosaur studies by absorbing perspective of Earth’s celestial neighbour, and was accompanied by a opening British Dinosaurs: From Fossils surround-sound composition by BAFTA and Ivor Novello award-winning composer to Feathers. The free exhibition displayed Dan Jones. fossils never before seen by the public, The piece celebrated the fact that while people around the world have different and visitors could measure themselves historical, cultural, scientifc and religious experiences of the Moon, it connects us all. up against an Iguanodon leg bone, or Museum of the Moon coincided with the fftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon the real teeth of a Megalosaurus landing, and was accompanied by a vibrant programme of events, performances and bucklandii. Merit researcher Professor activities, including yoga under the Moon and interactive theatre. Paul Barrett led an evening event and children enjoyed a series of themed craft workshops. ‘This is more than an Instagram Following a bid to DCMS, Tring also launched valuable work to secure its opportunity. It is the chance to be infrastructure. The failing exterior cladding, windows and doors of the transported from the terrestrial Ornithology Building, the link corridor and the dermestarium will be replaced, and concerns of daily life, to get up close new roofs ftted with solar panels. and personal with the Moon’s pock- marked surface and consider the splendour of the natural world.’

Culture Whisper

A royal visit Our Royal Patron HRH The Duchess of Cambridge visited the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity in October 2019 to hear how staff are working to protect increasingly threatened UK wildlife. Children in the UK are half as likely to visit green spaces as they were only a generation ago, and so head of the centre Dr John Tweddle and head of learning and audiences Beth Stone are also working to increase public knowledge of UK wildlife and to engage young people with the nature on their doorstep. The Museum has continued to forge partnerships across the UK to empower schoolchildren, families and communities to help protect wildlife in urban areas.

14 Inspiring visitors

Study leave for key dinosaur After being on display for two years in Hintze Hall, and with funding from the Milner Family, the frst Mantellisaurus skeleton ever discovered was temporarily removed for study. With the help of the Museum’s Imaging and Analysis Centre, a team used laser and handheld scanners to build a 3D digital model of each bone of this large herbivore. The models can then be uploaded and manipulated, to rearticulate the skeleton. This data will be made available for scientists all over the world. As the frst Mantellisaurus to be discovered, the skeleton is an invaluable reference for anyone researching this group. Such work means we can share its scientifc increase in visitors to Tring signifcance while still displaying the world-class specimen for visitors to enjoy. 6%over the previous year

A journey in space From October 2019 to January 2020, visitors were invited to reflect on the beauty of our planet from space in the flm Orbit: A Journey Around Earth in Real Time. Created by visual artist Seán Doran with music by producer and DJ Phaeleh, the flm used time-lapse photographs from the NASA archives to recreate what a journey around Earth would look like from the International Space Station, a habitable satellite. The flm was in real time, lasting 92 minutes and 39 seconds, the time it takes the International Space Station to orbit Earth.

15 Wildlife Photographer of the Year The overall winner of Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 2019 was Chinese photographer Yongqing Bao with The Moment (see pages 30-31). It frames the standoff between a Tibetan fox and a marmot, seemingly frozen in a life-or-death deliberation. And 14-year-old Cruz Erdmann won Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019 with Night Glow (above) – a serene portrait of an iridescent bigfn reef squid captured on a night dive in Indonesia. The two images, selected from 48,000 entries from 100 countries, continue to be displayed with other awarded images from the competition, across the UK and internationally. At the time the Museum closed, visitor numbers in South Kensington were 30% up on the previous year.

An evening with Dr Who Memberships Our after hours programme continues to Signifcant changes took place this year be inspired by the wonders of our planet, to strengthen our membership scheme. In but also the wonders of beyond. August we added more flexible guest and In October 2019, visitors joined family options, and enabled the Museum a special Dr Who-themed Lates, to claim Gift Aid on eligible memberships. taking selfes with the TARDIS that In September we introduced our new and ‘materialised’ beneath Luke Jerram’s hugely successful lecture series, giving colossal Moon sculpture. They discovered our Members and Patrons an opportunity secrets about the long-running television to hear from the Museum’s world-leading programme with its special effects scientists and experts. Alongside this we team Millennium FX, while our scientists launched our family events workshops, were on hand to unravel the science providing our Family Members with an fact behind the science fction. A special exclusive chance to experience ethical screening of the Smith & Jones episode hands-on animal encounters and to meet from series 3 was also screened. Lates is Mary Anning, the famous fossil- a free event, bringing exhibitions, talks, hunting pioneer (above). science demos, food and drinks to visitors on the last Friday of the month.

16 Inspiring visitors

Making connections As part of European Researchers’ Night, a collaboration with other UK museums, we ran an evening of events celebrating the global network of scientists that work together to deepen our understanding of Earth. World Wild Webs: Our Interconnected Planet, was a free festival of science, where more than 150 experts explored networks in nature, sustainable solutions to today’s environmental issues, how digital technologies give us access to the latest research and how delving into the past is key to protecting the future of our planet. There were talks, story-telling and pop-up demonstrations exploring our planet’s interconnectedness.

Learning through LEGO play In 2019, as part of our Corporate Partnership with the LEGO Group, we created two immersive activities inspiring families to learn together through play. In LEGO® Life Forms participants used LEGO bricks to predict what life could look like elsewhere in the galaxy. Visitors added their life forms to one of four LEGO landscapes, each based on a different moon or exoplanet, and thought what adaptations they would need to thrive there. In Mission to Mars: LEGO® Explorers Workshop families learnt that exploring and understanding Mars is a key challenge in space exploration. They worked together to design and build a LEGO Martian rover, and coded, tested and evaluated their designs before seeing how their rovers performed on a realistic Martian surface, receiving guidance from Museum scientists via video. Originally a programme designed for Museum school visits, this free learning activity was adapted for families to form part of the Museum’s Space Season, and coincided with the fftieth anniversary of the lunar landing.

17 Inspiring visitors

Raise a cuppa for nature As part of our long-term partnership with herbal wellbeing company Pukka Herbs, we hosted a free family festival championing nature. For two weeks in late summer, visitors to the Museum found out about the importance of protecting pollinators with interactive workshops, pop-up science stations and pollinator-craft activities hosted by the Museum’s experts and the Pukka team. Pukka Herbs’ purpose is to nurture healthier, happier lives through powerful organic plants. This family festival helped to inspire a love of the natural world and encouraged visitors of all ages to fnd out more about the wildlife on their doorstep and the steps we can take to help it thrive.

Repair and restoration works took place on the Museum’s perimeter railings, here on the main Cromwell Road entrance gates, returning the Grade 1 listed railings back to their original heritage red colour.

18 Inspiring visitors

Volunteering at the Natural History Museum: Eight hundred and ffty volunteers supported our various projects last year, developing new skills, improving their career prospects and helping us create advocates for the planet. Volunteers make a real difference to the Museum, investing their time, energy and talent in us, through personal choice and without expectation of fnancial reward. Current roles are varied, with opportunities in Learning, the Wildlife Garden, Science, Libraries and Archives as well as Development, both at South Kensington and Tring. To ensure our volunteer offer demonstrates best practice, we held focus groups on our recruitment process, induction and training programme. We are also developing our Work Experience programme, to engage with more young people, to help them learn what it’s like to work in a large museum as well as share knowledge from Museum professionals about career choices. In 2020, the Museum plans to implement a new volunteer management system that will engage with our volunteers more effectively than we have done previously. It will enable recruitment, onboarding, training and scheduling to be recorded in the same place, but more importantly enable our volunteers to have a central hub for updates.

Enjoyment for all Since April 2019, supported by funding from the Lord Leonard and Lady Estelle Wolfson Foundation, fve Dawnosaurs events provided 2,183 neurodiverse children and their families and carers opportunities to enjoy the Museum outside the usual crowded and noisy opening hours. We organised relaxed early access to most galleries, live animal shows and other science learning and creative activities. A Changing Places toilet was available for mobility disabled visitors and a sensory room opened for those needing quiet and contemplation to assist their visit. As part of the Museum’s future commitment to diversity and inclusion, we commissioned a training provider to deliver access and inclusion awareness training across the Museum.

19 20 ACROSS THE UK

The Museum’s citizen science projects invite members of the public to become involved with our scientifc research. By recording observations of wildlife, collecting samples or transcribing handwritten records, the public can unlock the potential of our collections and gather vital data for our scientists, helping them to better understand the natural world. Tens of thousands of people across the country take part in these projects each year, and they form a crucial component of our engagment with the public.

The wildlife of London

In April 2019, the Museum encouraged London residents and visitors to join the City Nature Challenge 2019, a competition in which cities across the globe compete to fnd and record as much wildlife as they can in just four days. We made more than 5,000 wildlife spots and over 1,100 species were recorded. We also joined Brilliant Butterflies, a volunteer project led by the London Wildlife Trust in partnership with the Natural History Museum and Butterfly Conservation, helping to restore patches of chalk grassland in Croydon, south London. The Museum will train volunteers to monitor and identify invertebrates in the area, and to gather DNA information, which will build an unprecedented understanding of the wealth of invertebrates that live on chalk grasslands, leading to a new approach to monitoring and improving the health of suburban green spaces. The Museum has also been working with citizen scientists and staff from the London Wildlife Trust onsite and in Camley Street Natural Park, an urban oasis just Museum scientists gave talks to the public using specimens relating behind King’s Cross Station, gathering DNA fragments from soils and pondwater. This to the local area at the First Light environmental DNA, or eDNA, may expose how new genomic methods can be tailored Festival in Lowestoft, Suffolk. to support conservation in urban areas.

21 Across the UK

At grassroots level Postgraduate researcher Victoria Burton led a two-year project to reveal more about earthworm numbers and their preferred soil. In collaboration with the Earthwatch Institute and in association with the Earthworm Society of Britain, 1,850 people surveyed various soils and found twice as many earthworms in clay and loam compared with sandy soils, and that surface-feeding worms are most frequently found in shrubs and hedges, and have a taste for vegetable beds. Our BioBlitzes continue to unearth new fnds in parks, cemeteries and canals where our scientists and volunteers try to fnd and identify as many species of plants, animals and fungi as possible in an area, usually over a 24-hour period. Since BioBlitzes started in 2008, around 15,000 people have participated, contributing valuable scientifc data used, for example, to monitor the migration of species and record species new to the UK.

National assets A festival of light We are part of a huge project to bring In June 2019, fve Museum scientists participated alongside scientists and staff digital unifcation to all European from CEFAS (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science) in a natural science assets, in a project new midsummer 24-hour First Light Festival in the seaside town of Lowestoft in called Distributed System of Scientifc Suffolk. The festival featured music, art, flms, storytelling, walks, talks and science Collections (DiSSCo). In January 2020 engagement. Our scientists engaged local audiences with spotlight talks and pop-up as UK lead, with the Royal Botanic stations with specimens relating to the local area. Approximately 30,000 visitors Garden Edinburgh and the Royal Botanic attended throughout the 24-hour period. Gardens, Kew, we signed an agreement to jointly fnance UK representation and have established a consortium with the National Museum of Scotland, the National Museum Wales, Oxford University Museum of Natural History, the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Manchester Museum, the British Geological Survey, the National Biodiversity Network and the Horniman Museum. Uniting the UK’s natural science collections will bring together an estimated 130 million specimens, sustaining and reimagining the UK’s excellence as a leading science nation.

22 Across the UK

Real World Science We convene the Real World Science network. The Museum works with a network of UK museums that use their collections to engage pupils and teachers with science. Together with the Grantham Institute, we’ve been considering the barriers to engaging audiences with climate change, and the potential for using our collections to communicate climate science. A set of workshops brought museums and researchers together to embed future collaborations to increase the quality and Dippy on tour quantity of engagement on climate. We continue to partner with Dippy the Diplodocus cast continued its UK tour in 2019. The iconic skeleton stood Peterborough Museum as part of the at the Cromwell Road entrance for almost 40 years, and after 12 months careful Arts Council England Museums and conservation, the plaster-of-paris model left London in 2018. Since then it has drawn Schools Programme. In addition, Leeds crowds at Dorset County Museum, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Ulster Galleries and Museums continued Museum, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Great North Museum: successful delivery of STEM Careers for Hancock in Newcastle upon Tyne and National Museum Cardiff (above). The tour All (Science, Technology, Engineering and continued to Number One Riverside in Rochdale, which opened in February, and will Mathematics), supported by the Eranda go on to Norwich Cathedral, its fnal destination. Dippy on Tour: A Natural History Rothschild Foundation, which aims to Adventure is brought about by the Natural History Museum in partnership with the focus on young people with special Garfeld Weston Foundation, and supported by DELL EMC and Williams & Hill. educational needs and disabilities.

New fght for urban wildlife Nationwide searches Our ambitious new Urban Nature Project On a national scale, in the Big Seaweed Search, an ongoing partnership with the is now in its planning stage, having Marine Conservation Society to monitor the effects of environmental change on secured funding from the National Lottery Britain’s sea life, people recorded living seaweeds on the seashore. Seaweeds are Heritage Fund and other key funders critical to protecting marine environments, but are vulnerable to changes in sea including the Evolution Education Trust, temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Since the project began in 2016, the Cadogan Charity, the Garfeld Weston more than 370 surveys have been submitted. We’re also working with the University Foundation, Johnson Matthey, the Huo of Sheffeld to examine museum specimens to answer key questions about bird Family Foundation, and Workman LLP. colour evolution. Known as Project Plumage, Museum project staff took pictures of The aim is to inspire communities to take specimens using a camera that detects both visible and UV light – as birds themselves action for urban wildlife through the can see UV light, this has an impact on our understanding of how birds see each other. transformation of the Museum’s gardens Volunteers help mark out areas for examination on each photo to help us extract data and a network of regional and national on the colour and pattern of each bird. partnerships, galvanising a national urban biodiversity movement. A national learning programme is already being developed through formal partnerships with London Wildlife Trust, the Prince’s Trust and existing Real World Science partnerships. We have consulted volunteers, community groups and visitors, and tested new activities with more than 300 students and teachers. All this activity will inform strategic decisions to best engage audiences as we develop the project to the next phase.

23 24 INTERNATIONAL REACH

The Museum continues to form innovative new partnerships around the globe that help us realise our vision for a world where people and planet thrive. These relationships are central to our international strategy as we broaden our reach and impact.

World Economic Forum

This year the Museum was invited by the World Economic Forum to participate in its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Coinciding with our strategy launch, the four-day conference attended by world leaders gave us the opportunity to share our direction with the very people who shape the global agenda. Our presence included a powerful new digital display of Wildlife Photographer of the Year. We took images from this year’s competition and created a large-scale projection right in the heart of the conference centre. The Museum’s head of Earth Sciences, Professor Richard Herrington, merit researcher Dr Sandra Knapp and one of the forum’s Young Scientists of 2019, researcher Dr Adriana De Palma, hosted a Talk Nature station, giving fascinating insight into their respective areas of researching minerals, botany and biodiversity, work that is helping to shape debate about the major issues facing the planet today. The scientists engaged with the world’s political, business and other leaders and displayed specimens from the Museum’s world-leading collection. Cruz Erdmann – our Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year – was in conversation with explorer Dr Sylvia Earle about the state of our oceans, and Dr Adriana De Palma explored data-based predictions of biodiversity loss and how these can promote Scientists from the Museum at behavioural change towards responsible consumption. the Talk Nature station, World Economic Forum, Davos, 2020 While the experience enabled us to engage with advocates for the planet at the and the digital display of Wildlife highest level, it was also a powerful reminder of the soft power we can exert as a Photographer of the Year (above). world leading museum and scientifc institution.

25 International reach

A presidential visit In October we hosted a visit from the President of the Republic of Seychelles, H.E. Mr Danny Faure. This included a behind-the-scenes tour of our collections, a meeting with our scientists on our work in the region and a visit to Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Throughout the visit we discussed issues around climate, its impact on the Seychelles, and how we could work together to mitigate upcoming challenges.

Exploring the Pacifc Growing our partnerships with China The Deep-Sea Systematics and Ecology Group, led by merit researcher Dr Adrian Glover, continues to run projects in our high seas and polar oceans. Funded by the Over the past 12 months we have Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the group has been studying the continued to develop links with various evolution of novel species at deep-sea hydrothermal vents and in the past year organisations across China. In June 2019 collected a new species of deep-sea sponge from the northeast Pacifc that uses a we opened Wildlife Photographer of the feeding mechanism as yet unrecorded in this group. Year at the Chengdu Museum. Supported In Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, a new research project has commenced by the Sichuan Newsnet Media Group working on material from a recent expedition to the Larsen Ice Shelf. The group has the exhibition received signifcant media also been leading a major conservation project in the central abyssal plains of the attention and was visited by 470,000 Pacifc that are undergoing exploration for deep-sea mining. This has been funded people over its two month run. We have by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, as well as through baseline survey also developed our partnership with contracts with UK Seabed Resources, which is mandated to conduct environmental the new National Botanical Museum of assessments by the regulator, the International Seabed Authority. Adrian has just led China – to be opened in Kunming late a team of Museum scientists on a 37-day voyage to the 4,000-metre deep abyssal 2020. In September a team of senior plain of this region, returning with more than 1,500 samples of specimens from the museum representatives travelled area that will be studied using integrative DNA taxonomy in the coming years. to the region to explore collaborative exhibitions and public programming.

3people viewed, our000,000 touring exhibitions across the world 00

26 International reach

‘I was incredibly honoured to have the opportunity to showcase my photography to such a global audience as the annual World Economic Forum. During the environmental activist movements of 2019, I decided that I wanted to make my change in the world through the lens of my camera and I’d like to thank Wildlife Photographer of the Year for giving me such a huge platform to progress from.’ Sir Michael Dixon with Cheng Lianyuan, the Party Secretary of Kunming, China. Cruz Erdmann

27 International reach

Our touring exhibitions around the globe Our perennially successful touring exhibitions programme continues to reach large and diverse audiences around the world. The programme not only helps us promote our brand around the globe, but enables us to hold important conversations about the state of the natural world with international audiences. Wildlife Photographer of the Year opened at the Field Museum in Chicago in March 2019. This was the frst time the exhibition has been in Chicago and our frst time partnering with this major peer institution. The exhibition also opened in various countries across the globe including China, Australia, France, Germany and Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland. Our latest exhibition Dive into the Jurassic opened in December 2019 at the Bahrain National Museum. The exhibition was supported by the UK-Gulf Culture and Sport programme from the British Council, DCMS and the GREAT campaign. To accompany the exhibition we developed learning resources for school groups and trained local staff in our approaches to pedagogy.

Bears in Colombia The Museum is working with the international consortium GROW Colombia to research the genetics of the Andean bear. This large, secretive mammal is the last remaining short-faced bear in the world. Usually found in humid forests high in the Andes, the population has fragmented and declined signifcantly because of habitat exhibitions were displayed loss caused by deforestation, farming, mining and urbanisation. We are helping to map the bear’s genomic history, using DNA collected from hairs and faeces, as well 44across 13 different countries as bone and skin samples from museums in Colombia. Knowing if populations are during the course of last year genetically incompatible will help inform conservation efforts.

28 International reach

Supporting the Museu Nacional Brazil We signed a fve-year memorandum of understanding with the Museu Nacional Brazil to support them after the devastating fre that destroyed their museum and collection in 2018. The partnership, which has been kindly supported by the British Council, has resulted in various staff exchanges, workshops on digitisation of collections and support in developing a new collections storage facility. Sir Michael Dixon, Director of the Natural History Museum, said, ‘The fre at Brazil’s National Museum was not only a tragedy for the global museum community but for anyone who loves the natural world. We are making this declaration of support to one of our international counterparts because we understand the global necessity of these collections to further advance our scientifc knowledge of the planet we live on and to help humanity make better decisions now and for the future.’

29 THE MUSEUM ON TOUR Over the last year our touring exhibitions reached 3 million people across 13 countries.

Canada UK 251,727 899,193 visitors to Treasures of the Natural visitors to Dinosaur Encounter at The World at Musée de la Civilisation, Collection, Lincoln; Dippy on Tour at Quebec; and Wildlife Photographer of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Year at Royal BC Museum, Victoria Glasgow, Great North Museum: Hancock, and Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Newcastle upon Tyne, National Museum Cardiff, and Number One Riverside, Rochdale; and Wildlife Photographer of the Year at The Herbert Museum, Coventry, The Dock Museum, Barrow-in- Furness, The Base, Greenham, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, Seaton Tramway Museum, Beverley Art Gallery, USA Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Bristol M Shed, Nature in Art, Gloucester, and 449,942 Guernsey Museum visitors to Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Field Museum, Chicago, Spain Houston Museum of Natural Science and Detroit Zoo 15,603 visitors to Wildlife Photographer of the Year at COAM, Madrid

France 90,472 visitors to Extinction at the Muséum de Toulouse; and Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Rouen and Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Bourges

Switzerland 226,119 visitors to T.Rex: The Killer Question at the Naturhistorisches Museum Bern; and Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Naturhistorisches Museum Basel and Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Neuchatel 30 Sweden 58,265 visitors to Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, Stockholm

Germany China 50,584 687,000 visitors to Wildlife Photographer of the visitors to Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Naturkundemuseum Reutlingen, Year at Chengdu Museum, Beijing Zoo Museum Mensch und Natur, Munich and and Zhejiang Museum of Natural History Westfalisches Pferdemuseum, Munster

Italy 34,136 visitors to Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Forte di Bard and Fondazione Matalon, Milan

Bahrain Australia 45,568 120,721 visitors to Dive into the Jurassic at the visitors to Wildlife Photographer of the Bahrain National Museum, Manama Year at Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney and the National Wool Museum, Geelong

New Zealand 34,569 visitors to Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Nelson Museum and Auckland War Memorial Museum

31 Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019 Grand Title winner Yongqing Bao captured the moment a Tibetan fox lunges at a Himalayan marmot as it ventures out of its burrow.

32 33 34 HARNESSING TECHNOLOGIES

The Museum’s digital channels welcomed a record number of visitors during the year, including more than 8 million UK and 6 million international visitors to our website. In Science our digitisation programme made great progress and won two awards recognising its work. And the Museum’s successful bid for a new science and digitisation centre at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxford will add to this crucial digital data resource in the future.

Award-winning digitisation programme

The Museum’s Digital Collections Programme won two awards recognising its work: Best Not for Proft Project from the UK IT Industry awards and a World Summit Award as one of the world’s best digital content solutions contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Signifcant upgrades have been made to the Museum’s data portal, an online platform to share our research and collections with experts around the world. The programme aims to mass digitise the Museum’s collection of 80 million objects to provide the global scientifc community access to unrivalled biodiversity and geological specimen data gathered over the past 250 years.

Expanding our web

We had 14 million website visits, up 6% from last year, with total page views reaching 34 million. Our content still remains popular with our UK audience, with more than eight million visits. We have welcomed more international traffc to the website with six million international visits, a growth of 16%. The unprecedented period of closure during the Covid-19 crisis confrmed how important it is for the world-class physical Museum to have a best-in-class digital offer. Continued refnements to the site, backed by an ambitious strategy, have resulted in a period of signifcant growth in digital visitors. The digital face of the Museum was modernised with a new look Amongst the additions to our homepage – a clean design and simplifed colour palette. It is vital that web content website was our new Anthropocene hub which was launched in January can reach the widest possible audience. The site is now much easier to access, 2020, coinciding with the launch of especially for screen reader users, with bolder, underlined links and additional text our new strategy. on images.

35 Harnessing technologies

Diversity and inclusion Marketing highlights We launched a new plan to improve understanding of diversity and inclusion, to reach We have seen a huge increase in email under-represented audiences, to achieve greater diversity in our workforce, to better marketing success, with 37% more email develop the careers of under-represented groups, and to tackle bias that holds back subscribers. Average email open rate has colleagues’ careers. Through our Urban Nature Project we began working on engaging increased from 13% to 18% and revenue has with more diverse audiences who feel the Museum may not be for them. Our Principal increased 16%. This success was achieved Curator of Crustacea, Miranda Lowe, co-authored an influential paper examining the by subscribers now being able to list their issues of museum collections linked to colonial histories and we started a review to preferences, and by the inclusion of a new understand, acknowledge and address the history of our collection and institution, browsing tool, allowing us to fnd out more including how the collections came into being, where they were collected from, who was about their interests. Emails for Wildlife involved and what the impacts were. Visitors to the Museum were able to attend black Photographer of the Year visitors, targeted history Untold Stories tours that recognise the contributions of indigenous people to the welcome emails and a re-engagement world of science and natural history, as well as LGBTQ+ themed tours, highlighting stories programme also contributed. Interest in about the Museum and the natural world that are often overlooked or hidden. Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature saw We embedded an inclusive design approach to all exhibitions, consulting directly us gain 12,000 subscribers in just one week. with neurodiverse audiences, those with visual and hearing impairments, and others Our award-winning Come to Life with a range of disabilities that may affect the way they engage with us. And we have advertising campaign continued to support Dawnosaurs, our onsite and online programme for children and young people with the Museum with some excellent results neurodiverse conditions, and a programme of Deaf-led tours for D/deaf audiences. in a recent YouGov research campaign. We also celebrated Pride month, alongside LGBTQ+ visitors and colleagues, with our The summer campaign was seen by one online programme of features, news and social media posts designed to champion and in fve adults living in London, and almost highlight diversity in science. double that by those who had visited the Museum in the past 12 months. 71% of the London adult population found this Media highlights campaign appealing and agreed that it was something they would expect from Extensive media coverage raised the profle of our scientifc work, events and exhibitions the Natural History Museum (70%). – driving website hits and visits to the Museum. A science highlight was the Mission Jurassic excavation site in Wyoming. A BBC crew and Sunday Times writer joined the dig resulting in 16 hours of coverage on BBC radio, TV, digital and social media platforms. Donations and ticketing The online ‘long read’ was one of the BBC’s most popular digital articles of 2019, read by over 1.5 million people in its frst week alone. The overall media coverage generated 28 September saw the launch of our new million individual ‘opportunities to see’ the Museum’s feldwork in coverage worldwide. online donation service. In exhibitions, Wildlife Photographer of the Year had its most successful Teams across the Museum also communications campaign to date, securing coverage in 86 countries with almost 10 collaborated to support improvements to billion individual ‘opportunities to see’ worldwide. The extensive coverage helped drive the ticketing system ahead of tickets for record-breaking hits on the Museum’s website – up 81% in the frst week of going on Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature sale on 2019. For the specifc Wildlife Photographer of the Year LUMIX People’s Choice going on sale, which helped us deal with campaign, media coverage helped increase website hits by 220% year on year. the unprecedented demand.

Video A monthly ‘How to...’ video format was launched and quickly saw success. A flm entitled How to build a hedgehog home received more than 460,000 views and 15,000 engagements. It generated a positive buzz and feedback, where viewers shared their hedgehog homes with us. Another one of our most popular videos, published to the YouTube channel, was an animation explaining how dinosaur fossils formed. It had more than 53,000 views.

36 ONLINE IMPACT

14 million website visits.

4.5 million visits were to Discover. This was an increase of 34% from 3.4 million the previous year. Discover drives our online growth. Naturenauts Visit planning continues to be In the past year signifcant improvements have been made to our Naturnauts game important with 4.4 million to create a better experience, which has resulted in people spending more time using visits. This has held steady the app. The Museum, in partnership with Dell EMC and in association with Intel, frst year on year. launched Naturenauts in 2018 to complement Dippy on Tour’s mission to encourage children to venture outdoors and interact with the natural world. Designed for children 8.2 million website visits aged four and above, characters’ Dippy and Fern the fox lead the user through a series originated from search of fun exploratory games investigating the natural world around them. engines. An annual increase of 10%.

Discover For visitors Over two thirds of visits Discover, our online magazine, received We have been researching what our originated from a mobile 5.7 million page views over the past year, visitors need to plan their visit. As a device. an increase of 39% from the previous result, we updated our popular online year. Discover is responsible for our gallery information and introduced We have a total of just over overall online growth and is read by a See me at the Museum function to 3.5 million followers across people across the world. Its content show visitors where they could fnd all our social media channels. covers all aspects of the Museum’s the specimens featured in our Discover expertise: new species, British wildlife, stories. We also created a new What’s on We saw a total of 2.7 feldwork, dinosaurs, historical fgures, section for Tring and introduced clearer million engagements (likes, the Anthropocene, wildlife photography information for visitors, covering special comments and shares) and breaking science news. Our goal access needs at both sites. across our social media posts is to take visitors on a digital journey We gave budding palaeontologists on Facebook, Twitter and to becoming advocates for the planet. in South Kensington the chance to fnd Instagram, a 65.5% increase Our content is designed to frst ignite dinosaur specimens in the galleries on the year before. their curiosity in the natural world, then by developing a mobile dinosaur trail to motivate them to discover more, for smartphones. Summer 2019 saw the and fnally to empower them to make team use informed decisions about how to protect Instagram’s live for the frst time on the planet. function location on Mission Jurassic, a dinosaur dig with colleagues in Wyoming, USA. Mission Anthropocene hub launch Jurassic stories were seen by . The digital team put the Museum’s new mission and vision into action with an 2.6 million people online hub dedicated to discussing humanity’s impact on the planet. Known as the Anthropocene hub, it explores issues including climate change, biodiversity loss 25,000 people engaged and plastic pollution, as well as the solutions to these generation-defning concerns. with content on our digital It champions the Museum scientists working on protecting people and the planet in platforms during the week we the future. launched our new strategy.

37 38 WORLD-LEADING SCIENCE

Museum science transforms our knowledge of the natural world, using research on the past and the present to provide solutions to emerging global challenges. We are always redeveloping our collections and data for use by thousands of scientists, adding new potential for genomic, biodiversity and earth resources research, and using new technologies to gain deeper insight. Our international and UK partnerships create opportunities for multidisciplinary research, advanced training, increased funding, and impact for policy and societal needs. With our engagement teams, the expertise and enthusiasm of Museum scientists is essential to inspiring our visitors to act as advocates for the natural world.

Major Government investment in new Museum site

As part of the 2020 Budget, the government pledged £180 million to the Museum to create a new science and digitisation centre at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxford. Open to scientists and researchers from around the world, the facility will house around 40% of the Museum’s collections as well as laboratories, digitisation suites and technology-enabled collaborative research spaces. This new facility will help safeguard the future of the Museum’s unique collections, as well as generating big data and cutting-edge analysis from them. Relocating collections will release space at the Museum’s South Kensington site, reopening and redeveloping historic galleries to inspire, inform and engage visitors with the natural world, helping the Museum meet its mission of creating advocates for the planet.

New ancient shark from Madagascar

An ancient species of requiem shark, the oldest ever discovered, has been identifed by Museum research associate David Ward. The identifcation was made from fossil teeth, excavated from soft rocks exposed on the coastal cliffs of Madagascar. Thought to have lived during the Eocene about 40 million years ago, the new species was named Carcharhinus underwoodi, after Museum science associate Charlie Map of estimated terrestrial Underwood who has published on the subject. Biodiversity Intactness – an index Requiem sharks still exist in warm waters around the globe and belong to a now used in a UN global assessment of biodiversity in 2019. Darker colours widespread group that includes tiger, blue and blacktip reef species. This early indicate more intact ecological requiem shark probably had an incredibly wide distribution, but the fnd may community composition. suggest the beginning of its lineage.

39 Dinosaur second take in South Africa The global price of going green Dinosaur researcher Professor Paul Barrett was part of a team that helped reveal a Head of Earth Sciences Professor Richard dinosaur skeleton held at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, was not Herrington advised the Committee on what it seemed. For 30 years it was thought to be a Massospondylus, known from Climate Change that government plans hundreds of specimens collected throughout southern Africa. The unusual skull of this to widen green technologies must take herbivore was explained as an abnormality or because it was a juvenile. into account the signifcant implications The team took meticulous CT scans from other Massospondylus fossils, both for our natural resources. In a letter, co- young and fully grown, to explore its growth pattern, and concluded it was a different authored by fellow experts, he explains genus and species entirely, now named Ngwevu intloko. If more Massospondylus that to build enough electric cars to are re-identifed, it suggests life 200 million years ago was more diverse than meet targets for 2050 would require previously thought. doubling the current annual world cobalt production, as well as huge increases in the global production of neodymium, Pigs in Europe lithium and copper. To build enough wind farms or solar Genetic material from 40 pig skeletons panels to create the electricity to power in the Museum’s collection informed these cars would also require substantial a global study on the origin of the demands for steel, aluminium, cement domestic pig in Europe. Pigs were frst and glass. He argued that a wider group domesticated in the Middle East and of scientists should contribute to the farmers brought them to Europe about evidence for how best to move towards 8,500 years ago. But the DNA of modern a zero-carbon economy, and that European pigs is not from the Middle both new research and investment is East, but from European wild boar. urgently needed to evaluate the best Mammal expert Richard Sabin was one way forward. Professor Herrington was of 100 contributing curators, researchers also interviewed about widening green and archaeologists from around the technologies on Radio 4, reaching an world trying to uncover why. audience of seven million plus. The research suggests that the pigs were interbred with wild boars either accidentally or deliberately by farmers. The study of domestic animals helps us better understand how humans have shaped the natural world, and historic collections play a vital role in this.

40 World-leading science

How potatoes grew big When potatoes were introduced to Europe from South America in the 16th century, they were nothing like the crop we know today. Museum life sciences researcher Dr Sandy Knapp has been studying the evolution of potatoes far from their place of origin in the Andes. With colleagues from the Max Planck Institute in Tbingen, Germany, she examined DNA from specimens in the collection, ranging in date from 1650 to the present, including some in the Sloane Herbarium. The formation of the starchy potato tuber we eat is regulated by day length. The Andes, near the equator, experience days and nights of equal length, but in Europe day length in the summer is much longer. Tuber development did not happen normally in these long days, and tubers only grew to the size of peas. Adapting to longer days involved key changes in the gene controlling tuberisation, which the team found happened quite rapidly once the potato reached Europe. Potatoes in Europe have also benefted from crossing with other varieties and with wild species from South America. This kind of research with historical collections helps us understand crop adaptation, and can inform modern-day crop improvement.

A history of bees in Tibet Many of the 260 known species of bumblebee live not in our gardens but in the remote mountains around Tibet, and entomologist Dr Paul Williams travelled to the region to help identify them and reconstruct their ancestral relationships. In collaboration with two students from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, he identifed one of the world’s oldest and least known bumblebee species, Bombus superbus, using modern DNA techniques, mapping its distribution on a bumblebee atlas and assessing threat levels. Bombus superbus may have lived in the area for millions of years, but its relatives dispersed along Eurasian mountain ranges, and so understanding this relic will help us understand old world high alpine ecosystems.

Living with plastic in Australia Plastic kills wildlife, but Dr Alex Bond, our senior curator in charge of birds, has been studying a population of shearwaters on Lord Howe Island to examine its more subtle impacts. Tens of thousands nest on the island, off the eastern coast of Australia, feeding on fsh and squid. Over the past decade, Alex and collaborators have found that in some years 80– 90% of chicks they studied had at least one piece of plastic in their stomach, causing slower wing growth. Why the young birds are unable to distinguish the plastic from food is yet to be understood. Birds with plastic also had higher cholesterol, which in humans causes circulatory problems.

41 World-leading science

Skull scans here and beyond Professor Anjali Goswami, research leader at the Museum, joined scientists from the UK, USA, Germany and France to chart how snake and lizard skulls have evolved over time. Using cutting-edge imaging techniques, and hundreds of specimens from both extinct and living species, they were able to examine how skull shape between these two groups changed through time. This gave them unprecedented access to the evolutionary journey of some species and enabled them to delve so far into snake evolution that they could reconstruct the likely ancestral snake. The study, which used more than 180 digitised specimens, is the biggest of its kind ever completed and shows the potential of digitised specimens. It is part of a larger 6-year project led by Professor Goswami to study the evolution of the vertebrate skull. With CT and laser scans for over 2,400 skulls (1,000 of which are already available on Phenome10k.org), this project covers everything from frogs to dinosaurs and hopes to uncover the universal rules shaping the evolution of the skull.

The moons of Mars Merit researcher in cosmic mineralogy and planetary sciences, Professor Sara Russell, joined an international science board developing a mission to better understand the moons of Mars. The Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) will launch in 2024, its aim being to collect the frst ever samples from Mars’ largest moon Phobos. Museum scientists will contribute to the mission by using our world-class meteorite collection to search for possible analogues to the Martian moons. Developed by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, MMX will also make flyby observations of Deimos, the second and smaller moon of Mars. The mission aims to provide key information on whether the Martian moons are captured asteroids or are the result of a larger body hitting Mars.

42 World-leading science

Early humans in Europe Modern humans may have reached Europe 150,000 years earlier than thought, according to new research by the Museum’s Professor Chris Stringer, a lead merit researcher and expert on human evolution in the Museum’s Centre for Human Evolution Research funded by the Calleva Foundation. By reanalysing a partial skull fragment discovered in Apidima Cave, southern Greece, in 1978, an international team of researchers now believe that an early modern human migration out of Africa may have reached Europe at least 210,000 years ago. The team also dated a Neanderthal skull found nearby to 170,000 years ago, suggesting the early migratory group of humans was then replaced. Questions remain about where these people came from and what happened to them.

Threatened by extinction India’s new snakes Our work to protect nature begins What lives in the forests of Asia has been understood a little better following the with understanding it. Research leader work of Dr Deepak Veerappan, Marie Curie Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Museum, who Professor Andy Purvis was a lead author specialises in south Asian reptiles. Deepak was part of a team which identifed a of a collaborative global assessment that striking red pit viper from India’s northeastern border with Bhutan and Tibet, named concluded one million species of plant Trimeresurus arunachalensis, and a new vine snake from its eastern and central and animal are currently threatened region, Ahaetulla laudankia, with a rich chestnut brown belly. with extinction. Working with the DNA work helped them also uncover the surprisingly close relationship between Intergovernmental Science-Policy a group of burrowing snakes in the western mountains to tree-climbing species Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Museum collections are crucial in verifying these Services, the scientists considered a wide discoveries, and by publishing their fndings the team’s work can be used by range of taxonomic groups, and found on researchers across the world. average 25% of species are threatened with extinction when assessed using the well-established and transparent IUCN Red List criteria. The Plants Under Pressure Project, led by researcher Dr Neil Brummit, supports the dire situation, estimating that 380,000 plant species are under threat. It is funded by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation with additional support from the John Spedan Lewis Foundation. The partnership with the IUCN and the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, has already shown that one in fve plants is threatened with extinction, and that the biggest impact comes from humanity.

43 FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY

Our vision is a future where both people and the planet thrive. Our scientists study the impact of humans on Earth to predict changes to the natural world, and to conceive solutions for a more sustainable way forward. Sustainability is embedded throughout the Museum’s strategy, and we are committed to becoming the world’s frst museum to set a science-based carbon reduction target.

Sustainability pages on our Solar panels at Tring Food waste recycling external website In the summer of 2019, work began to In mid-February, the South Kensington For the frst time we now have a ft solar panels to the roof of the Natural site began a trial allowing staff to dedicated sustainability section on our History Museum at Tring. Throughout, segregate their food waste. This is website. It covers the ways in which the we have worked in an environmentally currently available in our cafes, however Museum is looking to reduce its carbon and ethically sustainable manner, for the hope is composting will be made emissions and energy consumption, design (insulation and solar panel available to everyone who brings in their how it will reuse and repurpose selection), during on-site works (recycling lunch too, as organic waste can account technology, and encourage everyone to and reuse) and after completion (raising for as much as 30% of general waste. refll and recycle. It lists how our cafes awareness). Throughout September, It is important that we frst assess are recycling used coffee granules, for October and November, 100% of the how useful this would be and potential instance, and how in our kitchens our construction waste was recycled, implications for pest management. fresh fruit and vegetable suppliers have resulting in 83 tonnes of material being The food waste collected will be sent moved from single use plastic packaging diverted from landfll. to an anaerobic digestion plant in Surrey, to reusable plastic crates for delivery. The 318 solar panels will meet the along with our kitchen food waste, Our environmental and energy policies entire building’s electricity needs, saving where it will produce biogas (generating are also there, as is guidance for visitors the Museum a possible £9,100 per year electricity and heat) and biofertiliser for on living more sustainably. and more than 21 tonnes of CO2, the use on farmland. It’s on these pages that we have equivalent to planting 10,514 trees. pledged to become the frst museum in the world to set a science-based carbon reduction target.

Green impact awards This was the ffth year we’ve held Green Impact awards at the Museum. Green Impact enables staff to encourage and introduce sustainable actions and ideas within their own workspaces. Teams work together to make small changes, improving resource effciency and awareness of environmental impacts, and collectively contributing to the aims of the Museum’s wider sustainability programme. The environmental accreditation scheme saw four teams achieving Gold and three teams achieving Silver. The British Geological Society and our security contractors Wilson James Security also took part, demonstrating their commitment to the Museum’s vision.

44 Making Membership sustainable All Membership packs, including guest passes and magazines (and this Annual Review), are now made from 100% biodegradable or recyclable materials, and are even mailed out in packaging made from natural potato starch not oil. In addition, rather than being made from traditional plastic PVC, the membership cards are now created from a chalk-based material coated in biodegradable PVC. This means the cards can later either be recycled with other household plastics, or even composted. Our Members are at the very heart of the Museum’s community, and we are pleased that they can now join us on our journey to a more sustainable future.

Water refll stations Green electricity Furniture reuse Due to the success of the water bottle In 2019, the Museum joined more than 20 The Estates team have been working refll station installed last year, and our other institutions to create the UK’s frst to encourage greater furniture reuse commitment to a refllable culture, we public sector Power Purchase Agreement across the Museum, benefcial both will be introducing more during the year (PPA), where each institution commits environmentally and economically. ahead. The water bottle refll station that to buying a proportion of their electricity Not only does this practice prevent was installed in our Red Zone cafe last from Scottish wind farms. This pioneering unnecessary waste, it reduces carbon year has to date prevented more than agreement supports the expansion of emissions from the manufacture and 10,000 single use plastic bottles from the UK’s renewable energy-generating supply of new furniture, and money entering the waste stream. In the future capacity. All the electricity the Museum saved can be spent on other services we hope to introduce several more refll buys from the national grid that doesn’t and equipment. The team now tracks stations, particularly in areas with a high fall within the PPA is purchased with a all furniture reused, and since January footfall such as the school’s Picnic Area Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin, 2020 has prevented over half a tonne of at South Kensington. ensuring everything we buy is from furniture going to waste and saved over renewable sources if not wind farms. £3,000 in new furniture costs

‘All of the electricity that the Natural History Museum buys from the National Grid is from renewable sources.’

45 INCOME AND EXPENDITURE

Income 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20

Admissions and membership 4,605 4,560 3,850

Government grant-in-aid 41,815 42,455 46,672

Other (incl. investment income) 1,067 1,270 1,348

Scientifc and other grants 9,246 8,985 9,524

Sponsorship and donations 9,170 6,679 7,768

Trading activities 19,561 22,626 22,611

Total income 85,464 86,575 91,773

Expenditure 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20

Commercial costs 12,948 13,650 13,061

Communications / Marketing 2,160 2,117 1,852

Depreciation 13,915 15,620 14,322

Development / Fundraising 2,044 1,639 1,770

Scientifc curation, research and libraries 26,196 25,740 26,510

Support costs 17,325 17,050 18,058

Visitor facing activities 20,189 17,962 20,701

Total expenditure 94,777 93,778 96,274

Net incoming / outgoing resources inc depreciation (9,313) (7,203) (4,501)

Net incoming / outgoing resources exc depreciation 4,602 8,417 9,821

Capital expenditure 9,390 4,664 10,768

Figures shown in £k

46 OUR PERFORMANCE

Total visitor numbers Visitor numbers to touring exhibitions School visits

4,712,000 1,649,247 209,673

5,493,000 2,214,347 231,228

5,304,000 2,963,899 259,900

Value of major research grants won £k Number of visitor days for visiting researchers Publications in peer-reviewed journals

5,500 12,721 530

4,000 15,125 482

4,400 12,901 511

Fundraising income £m Net income from trading activities £m Number of website visits

6.3 6.6 9,900,000

7 9 12,800,000

6.9 9.6 14,300,000

Facebook page likes Instagram followers Twitter followers

491,971 205,000 2,300,000

482,000 392,000 2,300,000

510,000 596,000 2,300,000

NB Our Annual Report and Accounts 2019/2020, available on our website from July 2020, includes fully audited statistics on our performance, income and expenditure. It can be found here: www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/reports-accounts.html.

2017/18

2018/19

2019/20

47 RAISING REVENUE: COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES

The Museum had a successful year overall, with self-generated income accounting for just under 50% of the Museum’s gross income. The contribution from visitor-related income (catering, retail, donations and ticketed exhibitions) was £5.8 million, while venue hire, including the ice rink, generated a contribution of £3.8 million. This has been achieved despite the disrupted end to the year, which saw visitor numbers drop dramatically in the frst two weeks of March, before we took the inevitable decision to close the Museum in response to the Covid-19 crisis.

Over the Moon Sustainable retail and licensing More than two million visitors saw The Retail team have been working with their suppliers to introduce soft toys flled Luke Jerram’s Moon, which was a with stuffng made from recycled PET plastic bottles, rather than traditional synthetic spectacular installation in the Jerwood polyester. We have updated our T. rex, Diplodocus and a baby Triceratops and in time Gallery, open from May 2019 to January all Museum-brand dinosaur and mammal toys will be updated. Approximately 40 will 2020. The Moon proved popular with be launched in 2020, doubling in 2021. our event clients and visitors. It was All new licensed clothing lines are made from cotton sourced under the Better both thought provoking and relatively Cotton Initiative, the largest cotton sustainability programme in the world, as a object-light, making the space ideal minimum. One of our newest brand partnerships is with clothing retailer Finisterre, for programming and hire. Fourteen a certifed B Corporation that balances purpose with proft and is inspired by a love corporate clients hired the Jerwood of the ocean. Our licensed clothing range celebrates prominent naturalists John Gallery for staff or client entertainment James Audubon, Maria Sibylla Merian and Charles Darwin, who travelled the oceans events during the installation, and we returning with sketches and handwritten research, some of which were used as organised our own public programme inspiration for the products. The collection uses sustainable components such as of yoga, wine and cheese evenings, and organic cotton, Econyl (made from fshing nets) and recycled polyester. concerts. Collectively our commercial teams generated a contribution of over £200,000 from these events. Plastic reduction commitment Throughout our commercial businesses we have been making changes to reduce our carbon footprint and protect the planet. We have removed all plastic water bottles, cutlery and straws from our cafes and, where plastic food packaging has not yet been replaced, it is now 70% recycled plastic. In our shops and in our e-commerce deliveries we have replaced bubble wrap with recycled paper packaging, our new tote bags are made from recycled plastic, and all new products are developed sustainably, with minimum packaging, and plastic only where it is required by law or where there is not yet a viable alternative.

48 Venue hire Wildlife Photographer of the Year The Museum hosted 160 events from a diverse range of private and corporate clients who love the spectacular backdrop the Museum provides, the renowned excellence In its 55th year and still going strong, of our team, and the synergy with their values and mission. Together, these events the Wildlife Photographer of the Year generated a net contribution of £3.8 million – record results for the second consecutive exhibition, supported by Ørsted and year and 40% of the Museum’s overall self-generated income. The Ice Rink proved LUMIX, had been on track to achieve as popular as ever, with a staggering 221,000 people skating, slightly up on the a record number of visitors before previous year. the Covid-19 crisis. At the point of the Museum closing, we had welcomed 130,000 visitors, which was a 30% Green hire increase on the same period in the previous year. This was helped by us We have made great strides in reducing the carbon impact of our venue hire business. being able to increase the exhibition We banned plastic water bottles and cutlery in April 2019 and moved all our venue capacity, which allowed us to make hire suppliers to a new waste management process, so that all waste is separated more tickets available in advance in line with the Museum’s own practices, signifcantly reducing the amount of waste and meant that we turned far fewer going to landfll. More excitingly, we also now run a venue hire package that is visitors away on-site, at weekends carbon-neutral and 100% vegan, which is proving increasingly popular with clients. in particular.

Coldplay chose the Museum as the venue to launch their new album ‘Everyday Life’ – tickets sold out within minutes.

49 RAISING REVENUE: PHILANTHROPY AND PARTNERSHIPS

The Museum is a not-for-proft organisation and so charitable partnerships and contributions form a vital source of income. This year our strategic relationships with corporates, individuals and funders who share our ambitions and purpose have continued to make a signifcant impact, creating ambassadors for the work of the Museum and thousands of advocates for the planet.

Patrons A legacy to Darwin Our Patrons are among our most committed supporters, who seek a deeper connection The Philanthropy Team worked with to our work through special access to our collections and science with behind-the- colleagues in Earth Sciences and the scenes tours, discussions and lectures, VIP receptions, exhibition previews and other Digital Collections Programme to enable exclusive access opportunities. Their generous support is vital in helping us continue the digitisation and conservation of our role as a voice for nature – strengthening our education programme, and helping to almost all the fossil mammals collected fund our modernisation and our life-saving science initiatives. In September 2019 we by Charles Darwin on his historic Beagle relaunched our Patrons Circle, sparking a welcome 56% growth in Patrons income. voyage. The collection contains 100 of We express our sincere thanks to these passionate members of our community. the 102 known bones he gathered from South America, dating from between 2.6 million to 10,000 years ago. They were in an incredibly fragile state, so much so that access to them for researchers was restricted. With funding from the Hartnett Conservation Trust, the team was able to run a pilot scheme to conserve and digitise 10% of the specimens, creating 3D scans of each. This was a huge success, with the scans viewed thousands of times online. Excitingly, thanks to the generous support of the Charles Hayward Foundation and other funders, the project has been extended to the complete collection, and others collected by Darwin.

Memberships ‘The Museum is an intellectual powerhouse, Our members are the foundation of the Museum’s growing community where great scientists are working on of supporters and friends, and their subscriptions make a vital contribution some of the biggest questions facing to our fnancial sustainability. Income of just over £1 million was received in mankind… [the Patron scheme] directly 2019/20 and our renewals rate remains supports this work so you can have fun at 72% – testament to the loyalty and deep connection our members feel for the while helping save the Earth too.’ Museum and our mission.

Steven Larcombe, Patron

50 7,768,00pounds were delivered in income through philanthropic donations and corporate partnerships0 in 2019–20, enabling a wide range of programmes and activities to be carried out at the Museum.

Challenge events The Museum is grateful to every single person who helps raise revenue for us, including the many hundreds who support us through sponsorship in sporting events. For 2019/20, these included the Virgin London Marathon, and the Vitality Big Half marathon, the 100-mile Prudential RideLondon and the Museum’s Race for Nature – our own 5k and 10k park runs. It takes hard work and training to complete these challenging events, as well as some fantastic costumes! This huge effort raised a wonderful £18,398 towards the Museum and its vital work.

Corporate partnerships Philanthropy: cities and nature We have had an excellent year working with companies with which we share authentic One of our most ambitious plans to synergy. These partnerships help enhance our programmes, reach new audiences, and date, the Urban Nature Project, took a provide vital income to the Museum. We are proud to create bespoke partnerships that step forward with generous support beneft both the Museum and the organisations themselves. from individuals, foundations and Our long-term hardware supplier DELL EMC continued as an associate sponsor for corporations. The project looks to Dippy on Tour: A Natural History Adventure, supporting the web app game Dippy’s address the growing disconnection Naturenauts. Leading transporter of fne objects, Williams & Hill, continued to between people and nature due to generously support the tour, transporting Dippy around the country. increasing urbanisation, to launch Commercial property management and building consultancy frm Workman LLP a national partnership programme became our frst corporate sponsor for our Urban Nature Project, which aims to inspire between museums, schools and UK communities to act for local wildlife. Leading sustainable technology company wildlife organisations to encourage an Johnson Matthey is also supporting the project with a donation. appreciation of the diversity of wildlife In the summer we joined forces with the UK’s largest organic tea company, Pukka in cities, and to mobilise people to take Herbs, to run the family festival, Nature’s Champions, engaging visitors with a variety action to protect it. of nature-themed activities in support of biodiversity. We also continued to work with We’ve secured half the total project the LEGO Group, running activities for families and school groups; to coincide with the cost of £19.6 million, through key funders 50th anniversary of the Moon landing we helped participants learn about space science including the National Lottery Heritage through play. Fund, the Evolution Education Trust, Ørsted continued their sponsorship of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition founded by Dr Jonathan Milner, the in London for their sixth year, and we continued planning for the third year of our joint Cadogan Charity, the Garfeld Weston secondary school education initiative Generate: Scientists of the Future, building Foundation, Johnson Matthey, the Huo knowledge of science-related careers and the role of science in our lives. Leading Family Foundation, and Workman LLP. electronics company Panasonic LUMIX continued to sponsor the Wildlife Photographer The Museum needs to raise an additional of the Year exhibition and the LUMIX People’s Choice Award. £8.6 million by spring 2021 in order to Software company Adobe helped reveal the collection through 3D design, by creating secure further support from the National 3D assets inspired by insects, which were then offered for free on Adobe Stock images. Lottery Heritage Fund.

51 OUR SUPPORTERS

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whose funding on behalf of the UK public makes our work possible.

We are grateful to all our philanthropic supporters and corporate partners – their generous support increases the impact of our popular public galleries in South Kensington and Tring, the research of our scientifc community, and our innovative learning and outreach programmes.

Our thanks also extend to our Board of Trustees, our Ambassadors and all of our volunteers for their time, expertise and continuing commitment to the Museum’s mission – to create advocates for the planet, working towards a future where both people and the planet thrive.

The Director’s Circle Philanthropic supporters

The Cadogan Charity The A. G. Leventis Foundation

Dame Vivien Duffeld Kirk B. Alexander

The Evolution Education Trust Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Jeremy Herrmann The Calleva Foundation

Sir Michael and Lady Hintze Charles Hayward Foundation

Professor Anthony and Mrs Angela Marmont The Claude and Sofa Marion Foundation

Dame Theresa Sackler The Eranda Rothschild Foundation

Guy Weston Friends of the National Libraries

Garfeld Weston Foundation

The Gerald Ronson Family Foundation

Hobson Charity Limited

Huo Family Foundation (UK) Limited

The Lord Leonard and Lady Estelle Wolfson Foundation

National Lottery Heritage Fund

The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation

The Street Foundation

52 Located over two floors in the iconic Waterhouse Towers, the Anning Rooms are a suite of rooms for the use of Members and Patrons.

53 Corporate partners and members Patrons Chris Rokos Adobe Kamal and Anna Ahuja Dr Miranda Scanlon American Express Adele Anderson Dr Martin Schoernig Bloomberg LP Toby and Kate Anstruther Harvey and Angela Soning CBRE Managed Services Lawrence and Elizabeth Banks Professor Eleanor Stride Cisco Jolyon and Sam Barker Stuart and Ellen Lyons Charitable Trust DELL EMC Francis and Jo Beddington Simon Thompson Dixons Carphone Paul and Peggy Brett John and Marian Walden Fospha Lorraine Buckland Lucinda Watson Google Arts & Culture Julian and Jenny Cazalet We Have The Power GSK Sir Trevor and Lady Susan Chinn Martin Williams Johnson Matthey Andrew Cross Brian and Doreen Winterflood The LEGO Group Mr and Mrs P. Cunningham Camilla and Bruce Withington LUMIX by Panasonic Julian Darley and Helga Sands Ørsted Andrew and Lucy Darwin Natural History Museum Development Pukka Herbs Sean and Beverley Dennis Trust Trustees Rio Tinto Sir Michael Dixon Dame Frances Cairncross DBE FRSE Viktor&Rolf Mrs Maurizio Dwek Michael Herington Williams & Hill James Earls Colin Hudson Workman LLP Dianne Edwards Steven Larcombe Lord Stephen Green Natural History Museum Ambassadors Debbie Hannam Prince Hussain Aga Khan William and Heather Harris Brent Cheshire CBE FGS FEI Ian Henderson David de Rothschild Anthony and Gay Hoare Paul Edwards Lois Hunt Debbie Hannam Zane Jackson Dean N. Menegas Colin and Claudia Johnston Alessia Milner David Cantillon and Marisa Knightley Chris Milner Dr Ned F. Kuehn Jonathan Milner Sir Sydney Lipworth QC Saker Nusseibeh CBE and Lady Lipworth CBE Lisa Ronson Nicole Lagneau Helena Wayth Steven Larcombe and Sonya Leydecker Roger Latham Those who remembered Jasmina Ljuhar the Museum in their will George and Angela Loudon Philip W. Darwin Julian Lush Peter Hearson The Makin Family Archibald Lang Marsh Christian Trust The Michael and Nicola Sacher Other supporters Charitable Trust We would also like to thank those Raksha Sriram and Sriram Nadathur supporters who wish to remain Hilary Newiss anonymous, those who support us Robert Noel through regular giving, Natural History Holly Smith and Neil Osborn Museum Members and those who have Tessa Packard and Oliver Rampley participated in challenge events in Simon Patterson support of our work. Stephen and Anne Pearson Nathaniel Paul Michael Porterfeld Nicholas and Jane Prentice Jenny Halpern Prince David Quirolo and Brian Tjugum Sinead Read The Roden Family

54 Credits Natural History Museum Front cover: © Alan Hamer Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD Inside front cover : The Final leap +44 (0)20 7942 5000 © Stefan Christmann, https://www. nature --in focus.de; instagram: Natural History Museum at Tring @christmannphto Akeman Street Tring Inside back cover: Night Glow ©Cruz Hertfordshire HP23 6AP Erdmann +44 (0)20 7942 6171

P8: Station Squabble ©Sam Rowley © Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, 2020 P9 (top left): ©Julian Hume/Sonia Ribes ISBN 978 ---- 0 565 09513 0

Pp26 – 27: © Bahrain National Museum, Published by the Natural History Courtesy of the Bahrain Authority for Museum, London Culture and Antiquities This publication is sustainably printed Pp30 – 31: The Moment ©Yongqing Bao by St Austell Printing Company (SAPC), an ISO 14001:2015 and FSC certifcated P41 (bottom): ©Pratyush P. Mohapatra company. The factory is rated BREEAM excellent, powered by its own solar farm All other images: ©Trustees of the and features rainwater harvesting. SAPC Natural History Museum, London use vegetable - based inks, energy - saving instant- drying technology, only recycled or sustainably - sourced paper and recycle 100% of their paper waste. This review is printed on Nautilus SuperWhite, made from 100% post- consumer recycled paper with FSC recycled and EU ecolabel certifcations.

Night Glow by Cruz Erdmann, winner of the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019.

55 ‘The Museum has taken the unprecedented step of rewriting its strategy, setting out the role it will play in tackling this planetary emergency as a global scientifc and cultural leader.’

BBC Radio 4 January 2020. Strategy Launch.