‘Returning fossils is repairing scientific colonialism’ – 08/08/2023 – Science

Paleontologist and professor at the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), Juan Carlos Cisneros is one of the names behind an international campaign for the repatriation of the dinosaur fossil irritator challengeriheld since 1991 at the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

The action follows in the footsteps of a similar articulation undertaken by Cisneros and other Brazilian scientists in 2020, which resulted in the return to Brazil of another dinosaur fossil, the Ubirajara jubatus — according to him, “a watershed” in Brazilian paleontology.

The initiative is part of an international debate on the maintenance, in museums around the world, of artifacts of historical value taken from other countries in uncertain or morally/ethically questionable circumstances. In Brazil, the subject gained traction again with the recent return, by Denmark, of a Tupinambá mantle made in the 17th century.

“A very important part of our paleontological heritage, perhaps the most interesting and valuable, is not in Brazil — which is unfair”, says Cisneros in an interview with DW.

He attributes the phenomenon to the illegal smuggling of these pieces, but also to an “Indiana Jones” mentality that prevailed in the 20th century, “of the trailblazer who brings things as if they were trophies” that benefit other countries “economically, culturally and educationally”.

“Using resources from a poor country for the benefit of a rich country is colonialism. We know that this word hurts, bothers. And it has to bother. Because only by bothering people is heard in this case.”

Cisneros is one of the authors of a study published last year that points to Germany as the destination for most of the fossils removed from Chapada do Araripe, a region in the Northeast rich in fossils, based on research published over the last three decades.

There is a global movement for the return of goods of scientific and heritage value to their countries of origin. Why does it matter?
A very important part of our paleontological heritage, perhaps the most interesting and valuable, is not in Brazil — which is unfair. We try to recover objects that, from a historical and scientific point of view, are of incalculable value — objects sold illegally, because the sale of fossils in Brazil is illegal. And those who had money stayed with them.

Most of the fossils with studies published in the last 30 years and that came from Chapada do Araripe, which is the richest region in fossils in Brazil, are today in museums in Germany — the irritator is one of them. This is what we know, because it is published. We don’t know how many fossils are in museum cabinets. Not all databases in these collections are public, and not all that are public mention everything in there. We also don’t know what’s in private collections.

What difference does it make in the lives of ordinary people?
People in Ceará, Piauí, do not know that there were dinosaurs in this region, because they have never seen one in a museum. And they’ve never seen it in a museum because they’re in other countries. One cannot appreciate and value what one does not know. To be able to know, to know that something exists and to appreciate, value, love and defend, you have to be able to have contact.

The regions from which these fossils were extracted have very low human development rates. We are talking about the northeastern sertão. Precisely the people who need more self-esteem and more economic options that could come through tourism and museums are the most harmed by fossil smuggling. A beautiful fossil in a museum drives the local economy. But which economy is being moved? That of German cities, the United States, Japan, which are benefiting economically, culturally and educationally with Brazilian resources.

Is this the colonialist aspect of paleontology that you criticize?
Exactly. That — using a poor country’s resources for the benefit of a rich country — is colonialism. We know that word hurts, bothers. And it has to bother. Because only bothering people is heard in this case. We’ve been asking for decades to stop buying, doing research with smuggled fossils. We started to be listened to when we started using the term colonialism.

I imagine that there are people from the region participating in this smuggling that you point out, no?
Those on the other side of the ocean defending these practices often say that we are depriving poor people of an economic benefit, but they are actually being exploited. Who benefits is the middleman who takes it from here to the other side of the ocean and the museum who buys it. In the case of Ubirajara, I think it was around 10 thousand euros [pagos pelo museu]. With that money, the researchers show productivity and the museum later gets federal funds well above that value. The worker who has a pickaxe breaking rocks in the hinterland is selling fossils for the price of a cachaça. Worse: a dependency is created [econômica] something that is illegal.

Isn’t there a lack of public policies that are a little more incisive to curb this type of situation?
The Federal Police has made numerous seizures in recent years — in Ceará alone there were more than 10,000 fossils in the last decade —, there is inspection at airports and greater scrutiny of the movement of these objects. Not to mention the port of Santos, because many are disguised as some kind of ore. Anyone who wants to smuggle today is taking a much greater risk than 10, 15 years ago.

These fossils are often found in limestone miners. There should be inspection by the National Mining Agency, but they only have three paleontologists for the whole of Brazil. This is not enough even for Ceará. It is necessary to invest more.

What is the evidence that these fossils you speak of were smuggled?
Since 1942 our fossils have been declared property of the Union, [portanto] cannot be bought and sold by private individuals. If someone bought this fossil, it’s a violation of our laws. The Irritator article itself [publicado em 1996] says that the fossil was purchased and that the sellers damaged the material.

If you are from the Union, you have to ask the Union for permission to take it from Brazil. And I doubt they [museus] have a document proving that you left legally. Museums that care about the laws of other countries should have this — one of the traits of colonialism is flouting local laws.

Since 1990 we also have a law that prohibits the permanent export of fossils that represent species new to science. If it is cataloged in a foreign museum and represents a species new to science, it is against our laws.

I imagine that things have changed a few years ago, but we still see pieces on display in museums without information about how they ended up there.
The Indiana Jones philosophy prevailed. The mentality of many people throughout the 20th century was this, of the trailblazer who brings things as if they were trophies. It’s a caricature, but it describes the problem that our fields of work — archeology, but also paleontology — face. Nowadays very few museums would buy a fossil without having some document showing the legal origin of it.

Yes, but what to do with goods of dubious origin that are already in museums?
Ask the British museum what they want to do with the images from the [templo grego de] Parthenon, and then ask the Greeks. The answers will be very different.

I would like to see Brazilian heritage in Brazil — especially when it was obtained illegally. You don’t have to send everything, but it’s not them who have to decide that, it’s us. If you ask Egypt if they want all mummies back, I think the answer will be no, because not everything has the same historical and scientific value for them. We don’t want all Brazilian fossils, we want some that can help advance our science and that will be of great cultural importance for the inhabitants of the region where they were found.

I’ve heard a paleontologist say that these objects don’t belong in Brazil because Brazil didn’t exist at that time. Does Petrobras also think that oil is not Brazilian because the country did not exist at the time it was generated?

Are the ethical standards of science regarding these historical artifacts changing?
I think we are forcing researchers, some journals and museums to change. The case of Ubirajara was a watershed in paleontology. It made people think about what is the right way to work with a material. Scientific journals are reviewing their policies on articles based on fossils from other countries — some are asking for documentation about the legal origin of fossils, and are asking about local contributors. This is new in paleontology, but it was already being done in other sciences, where they talk about “scientific skydiving”: arriving, collecting data, using local researchers only for logistical support.

But the Ubirajara is an echo of a previous, very emblematic case, in Mongolia, which ten years ago managed to recover a dinosaur that was illegally in the United States. My inspiration was the Mongolian paleontologist Bolortsetseg Minjin.

This discussion about scientific colonialism has been taking place in other areas of knowledge for decades. In paleontology, it is a taboo that we are managing to break. There should be softer words for this, but really appropriating resources from developing countries is not right and it has to be said.

Where did this idea of ​​going after the origin of fossils come from?
Ever since I got into paleontology, in the late 1990s, I’ve heard talk of trafficking in fossils that were being shipped abroad. It becomes a burden and a taboo, because when we go to an international congress and find people who work in these institutions who we know are buying illegal fossils, we feel coerced: “If I speak, I’ll be ridiculed or, worse, they’ll throw me off that field.” The reviewer of an article of mine might be a paleontologist at one of these museums.

When we speak out, we are putting our careers at risk. But with Ubirajara it was a calculated risk. And today we have social networks. We also outlined a strategy for producing scientific articles, because scientists who ignore social media cannot ignore a scientific article.

In Brazil, we are accused of disturbing cooperation with foreign researchers. I’m not complaining about cooperating with foreign researchers, but cooperation has to be ethical and balanced, with mutual benefit. We want them to respect our laws and regulations — as they demand of us when we go there.