'Our Broken Planet: How We Got Here and Ways to Fix It’ at the Natural History Museum to close on 29 August

·       Since opening on 21 May 2021, the display has received over 1 million visitors.

·       The display allows visitors to experience the Museum’s ground-breaking science first-hand through objects chosen from the Museum’s vast collection of more than 80 million objects by its scientists.

·       3D posters made of recycled materials to promote the display’s final weeks will be placed in Cable Street, Limehouse, and Camberwell New Road, Camberwell.

The Natural History Museum’s free display ‘Our Broken Planet: How We Got Here and Ways to Fix It’ is set to close on 29 August, after receiving over a million visitors since opening in May last year.  The display consists of over 40 objects chosen by Museum scientists, which reveal the environmental consequences of our actions and examine some of the solutions that could help mend our broken planet.

Some stand-out specimens in the display include:

·       A 3m long black marlin skeleton.

·       A Chinese mitten crab pulled from the Thames alongside a ball of over 100 plastic fibres removed from its stomach.

·       A whale earwax plug, which has been analysed by Museum scientists who identified toxins including DDT and PCBs, used in paints, plastics and as pesticides.

·       A juvenile European bison, telling the story of an experimental rewilding project in Kent that will investigate if bison feeding habits will improve the forest’s biodiversity and store more carbon in the soil.

·       The recently extinct Chinese paddlefish, a casualty of the global boom in hydroelectric dams.

To promote the final weeks of Our Broken Planet, two 3D posters featuring recycled materials have been created, one in Limehouse and one in Camberwell. The Limehouse installation consists of a billboard alongside a cycleway, with the Our Broken Planet text supplemented by recycled plastic waste, a symbol of the unsustainability of single-use and disposable plastics.

The Camberwell installation consists of a 6-sheet poster made entirely of recycled posters from former adverts and campaigns. The Our Broken Planet text and graphics have been painted over the top of the recycled posters.

Dr Alex Burch, Director of Public Programmes at the Natural History Museum, says: ‘Our Broken Planet has been a huge success for the Museum, attracting over 1 million visitors. The specimens on display combined with the Museum’s scientists and scientific research tell powerful stories about the impact we’ve had on our planet and the solutions that exist, inspiring visitors to care and take action for the world around us.’

Entrance to Our Broken Planet is included with a free ticket to the Natural History Museum, which can be booked via the ‘Visit us’ page on the website.

Notes to editors

More images of both installations can be found here and are free to use with the credit ‘Jack Arts / BUILDHOLLYWOOD’

Natural History Media contact: Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5654 / 07799690151 Email: press@nhm.ac.uk

The Natural History Museum is both a world-leading science research centre and the most-visited indoor attraction in the UK last year. With a vision of a future in which both people and the planet thrive, it is uniquely positioned to be a powerful champion for balancing humanity’s needs with those of the natural world. 

It is custodian of one of the world’s most important scientific collections comprising over 80 million specimens accessed by researchers from all over the world both in person and via over 30 billion digital data downloads to date. The Museum’s 350 scientists are finding solutions to the planetary emergency from biodiversity loss through to the sustainable extraction of natural resources. 

The Museum uses its global reach and influence to meet its mission to create advocates for the planet - to inform, inspire and empower everyone to make a difference for nature. We welcome millions of visitors through our doors each year, our website has had 17 million visits in the last year and our touring exhibitions have been seen by around 20 million people in the last 10 years.