Like the rest of the animal kingdom, human beings depend upon
the plant world for their survival, let alone the maintenance
of their current lifestyles.
With hindsight it is obvious to most people today that both
the hunter-gatherers and the hunter-gatherer-fishers relied on
plants and animals for food, medicine, fuel, shelter and clothing.
Their settlement, initially in small groups, is believed to have
begun at least 8000 years ago (the Middle Stone Age) independently
in various parts of the world. This is witnessed in archaeological
discoveries for instance in western Europe, eg. Robenhausen in
Switzerland, and in the Spokane region of Washington DC in the
North American United States. While possibly 2000 years earlier
still, in eastern Asia, evidence has been found suggesting that
rice could have been planted in paddyfields in that region, with
small settlements nearby. In other words the birth of agriculture
worldwide (the cultivation of plants previously harvested in
the wild) would appear to have begun about 8-10,000 years ago.
The need to harvest, reserve and recognize
stored seeds for the following year’s crop would have contributed significantly
to the development of managerial practices, a larger harvest
than needed for the group of people in question would have encouraged
bartering and exchange between groups (not only of the crop itself
but the seeds as well – and artefacts) and the need for
tools to cultivate, protect and maintain plants would have led
to inventions for which plant material from ever-increasing sources
in the wild would have been sought and experimented with. During
their earlier nomadic life human beings’ gradual dependence
on plants ever increased. The move to static communities only
served to accelerate that dependence and extend it into virtually
every aspect of human civilisation – a process which still
continues today.
From the outset information on all aspects of plant involvement
in human affairs was passed down through the generations from
parent to child, certainly in the West until relatively recently.
About 10-15 years ago some authorities noted that at the end
of the 20th Century over 60% of parents in the Western World
no longer told their children anything about plants at all. This
state of affairs is exacerbated by a view among some authorities
in the gardening world in Britain today that 30-45 year olds
appear to show a marked lack of interest in gardening. Educationally
too, in recent years, the media and various authorities have
noted that at secondary and higher levels not only have a significant
number of educational bodies dropped botany and horticulture
from their curriculum but also that a tendency seems to be emerging
at those levels (especially secondary) for any botany to be merged
under biology as in centuries past. (This significant reduction
in teaching botany flies in the face of growing primary level
attempts to interest young children in botanical matters,
gardening and the wider usage of plants.)
Additionally an expanding wealth of anecdotal
evidence from the last couple of decades (and still added to
today) illustrates amazing ignorance and indifference about
anything relating to the countryside in the populace as a whole.
These anecdotes involve a majority of people from all walks
of life, most generations – and
even rural dwellers. Examples of such anecdotes below range from
a newspaper article about 10-15 years ago to a disturbing farming
illustration (granted, not plant based) from the Summer of 2007.
- The article, which appeared in an English West Country regional
newspaper, drew attention to a young boy of about nine (living
in a County town surrounded by farmed countryside) who was
surprised to find mud on a potato.
- Then there is the French author living in New York, Mireille
Guiliano, who had a book published in 2006, French Women
for All Seasons, in which she encourages the adoption
of a healthy diet. In her introductory chapters she describes
how, in 2005, she met an eight year old boy attending the Union
Square Greenmarket in New York. He was unable to recognise
an apple, let alone a variety of one.
- A BBC radio reporter in July 2007 mentioned
the response of young children when asked where carrots came
from. She noted that less than 10% volunteered ‘the earth or the ground’ and
that the rest believed carrots came from ‘the supermarket’.
I heard the last anecdotal example directly from an unimpeachable
participant.
- In the Summer of 2007 a nutritionist/senior
executive of a major supermarket chain was watching kindergarten
children accompanied by their headmistress on a farm visit.
In the milking parlour the headmistress informed the executive
of her delight that these children could watch how cows are
milked. She then sought personal advice from that executive
with words to the effect ‘which cow provides the skimmed milk, which the
semi-skimmed milk and which the pasteurized milk’.
If you need to be convinced further
- in July 2008 personnel from the National
Trust were being interviewed on a BBC radio news programme
about a new National Trust initiative about to be introduced. It aimed to
address the Trust’s observation that a significant number
of children are unable to identify the most common flora and
fauna;
. and
from personal experience
- the word ‘plant’ has little resonance among
a major part of the general public from all walks of life in
this shallow celebrity-driven society. It can attract an oft-repeated
reaction of, in the modern idiom, ‘I don’t do plants’.
I believe that the following factors (which are not exclusive)
contribute to this situation:-
I. Knowledge
As centuries and millennia pass, the amount of information
expands and the need to impart knowledge to more and more human
beings becomes increasingly demanding. In order to manage that
information it has been broken into disciplines. Then as the
volume of a specific discipline’s information enlarges and its complexity
increases so that discipline is further divided – thus
enabling knowledge of that subject to be accessible, assimilated
progressively and extended yet further.
Western World academics in earlier centuries studied plant structure
and properties under ‘biology’ but, with time, this
was segmented as a distinct scientific subject ‘botany’.
Academically in theory and actuality ‘botany’ includes
every aspect of the plant world. BUT at less academic levels
and among layman the subject of ‘botany’ focuses
primarily on both the structure and the physical and chemical
properties of plants – as biology does of human beings – and
information on the usage of plants and their modern and historical
involvement in human activities would be more likely to be sought
under, for example, geography or economics.
Discipline terminology, although necessary, has only exacerbated
further the general public’s isolation from and indifference
to plants. It has also encouraged today’s culture, in the
non-academic environment, of ‘boxing’ and emphasising
the plant world under a few dominant and confined headings – primarily
gardening, botany, cooking and medicine. Although these aspects
are important in themselves they are the tip of a massive iceberg
and their continued high profile tends to imply by default the
extent of the human relationship with the plant world.
Plants are fundamental to virtually every aspect of human existence and
therefore impinge on and are found in the overwhelming majority of disciplines (See
below Summary of the General Index for Plant Biographies used
on the CD).
II Urbanisation
There are several relevant side effects of the Industrial Revolution
in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries in the Western
World (particularly in Europe) :-
- an accelerating movement of large numbers of people from
the countryside to urban areas not least as industrial and
commerical work beckoned;
- progressively easier access to and reliance upon merchandise
(the majority of which depends upon the plant world in some
way) instead of personal involvement in harvesting ingredients
(wild or cultivated) and inventing and making/preparing products;
- the gradual emergence in those urban areas, with the passage
of time, of an ever more plant-free environment
- advancing urban sprawl – which
distances/divorces people who live and work geographically
in the concrete urban centre.
III. Publications
Today’s plethora of journals, magazines, books and other
published material invariably address a specific audience, eg.
academia, experts, general public, specific disciplines, entertainment,
news, etc. Thus the material all of us read in our professional
sphere, eg. carpenter, politician, scientist, inventor, historian,
etc., may be completely different from that in our private capacity – and
we do not always relate the two. Where the botanical world is
concerned, this means that most botanical books written for academia
are not readily available in general bookshops even when they
may have a large proportion of information of general interest.
IV Media
and Publishers
‘Boxing’ plants primarily under the headings gardening, botany,
cooking and medicine is perpetuated by the media and general publishers. A
recent personal experience well illustrates such practices. Despite all my
efforts I was unable to overcome editorial ‘house rules’ after
an interview with a respected local journalist who appeared to be fascinated
by the Plant Biographies project. Her subsequent article was not printed
under a general heading at the front of her thick weekly regional paper where
it would have been likely to have reached a wider audience. Instead it appeared
in the body of the issue at the beginning of the gardening section.
The extreme rarity of film or television
programmes exploring the extensive, fascinating and entertaining
history and usage of plants, up to and including modern times,
contrasts dramatically with those made about the animal world,
or plants under the ubiquitous ‘boxed’ headings.
One can only wonder whether the programme makers themselves have
unwisely succumbed to
- to ‘boxing’ sirens ie.
gardening, botany, cooking and medicine;
- to fears that the relatively inanimate nature of plants when
compared with animals could be boring for the majority of audiences,
and
- to a belief among some people that humans can relate to animals
more easily than the relatively static plant world.
As members of the general public most of us accept unquestioningly
such media constraints and, in so doing that, unawareness and
indifference to the vital and extensive part plants play in virtually
every aspect of human life (and in the life of the planet) is
exacerbated yet further.
V Language
Gardeners tend to refer to ‘garden plants, trees, bulbs,
flowers, etc.’ not to ‘plants’ : cooks
talk about ‘vegetables, fruit and herbs’ : and
medicines are made with ‘herbs’. This approach can
spill over into our professional lives too as, for instance,
farmers are likely to talk about ‘crops, animal feed, wheat,
etc.’ with little appreciation (or even awareness in many
cases) of the many end-uses for which plants on their farm could
be destined beyond the income their harvest will produce.
In the middle of this first decade of
the 21st Century international authorities have declared that
over 50% of the World now
resides in urban areas. Thus the points made above could well
apply to all regions of the world in the near future if they
do not do so already – not just the Western World.
It could be argued as well that in addition
to climatic changes, general human indifference to the plant
world could add a further negative dimension to the already
uncertain future for many plants. As it is, botanists and environmentalists
predict the loss of a large number of plant species in the
immediate decades, including many of the relatively few familiar
to man. This will leave a multitude of unknown species that
will require time-consuming professional examination and investigation
by specialists from many disciplines before these unfamiliar
plants can be adopted as ‘alternative’ sources
of materials and other valuable assets (including food and
medicine).
Three further unrelated points:-
A For
many years the phrase ‘you are what you eat’ has
been bandied about and today more and more people are beginning
to appreciate its meaning. If the relatively recent British Jamie
Oliver television programme on the content of school meals did
nothing else, it illustrated dramatically the nigh immediate
positive effect on children’s brains when fresh food is
substituted for junk food.
B. Less
easily-defined but nevertheless valid is a lack of appreciation
by most of the working populace (both employee and employer)
of the plant world’s significant contribution to civilisations.
This can/could be a severe handicap in fulfilling the urgings
of authorities to consider and implement environmentally-friendly
working practices. And, of course, this principle applies equally
to persuading members of the general public to react similarly
in their private lives.
C. There
is a concern among some authorities that reduced opportunities
to pursue botany and horticulture at secondary and higher educational
levels could lead to a future shortage of botanists, horticulturists
and professional gardeners at a time when they will be in even
greater demand by other disciplines. Today a few bodies (commercial
and industrial) are actually beginning to seek advice from ‘botanical’ experts
on how plants could be involved in resolving environmental and
other issues. It would be disappointing if a future insufficiency
of these plant professionals undermined this burgeoning recognition
of their knowledge and experience. The birth of an expert on
a particular subject begins in childhood. It is not only nurtured
to a large extent by the enthusiasm for and appreciation of plants
by families and friends but also their recogniton of the need
for for botanical education to be available for their children.
……………………………
If the foregoing arguments are credible
the need to entertain and inform/educate the general public
on a large and concerted scale, and to encourage dialogue between
all generations, grows ever more important. Environmentalists,
botanists, politicians and other authorities all press humanity
to improve their stewardship of the planet – an empty
plea if nothing is done to reverse so much indifferencein society
as a whole towards plants.
© Sue Eland, July, 2009
-oOo-
Summary of the General Index
extracted from Plant Biographies
Adornment, Anecdotes, Animal/bird, etc., Archaeological finds,
Art, Basketry, Bodies, Charcoal, Chemicals, Cleaning, Clothing,
Construction, Cosmetics, Cultivation, Currency/barter, Dental/oral
uses, Divination, Dogma, Drink, Dyeing/staining, Emblem, Engines,
Environmental issues, Equipment, Events
Famous objects/substances, Feed (amphibian), Feed (animal), Feed
(bird), Feed (crustacean), Feed (fish), Feed (insect), Feed (mollusc),
Feed (reptile), Feed (rodent), Festivals/rituals, Fictitious/mythological
figures, Fireworks, Flooring, Flowers, Food, Food chain, Fuel,
Furniture, Games/sports, Genetics, Glass, Groups of like people,
Gum
Hairdressing, Hedging/fencing, Household items, Hunting/fishing,
Ink, Legend, Lighting, Literature, Longevity, Matches, Material,
Measurement, Medical/surgical issues, Military associations,
Mining/oil drilling, Mourning, Music, Musical instruments, Needlework,
Paints/varnishes, Paper, Perfume, Pesticide, Pharmaceuticals,
Place/object/other names, Places, Plant, Plastics, Pollination,
Product names, Repellent, Rope, Rosaries, Rubber
Sayings, Settlers, Sex, Slavery, Smoking, Soap, Society, Stoppers,
Storage, Stuffing, Superstition, Symbolism, Tanning, Taxidermy,
Toiletries, Tourism, Traders, Transport, Treaties/Projects/Schemes,
Veterinary medicine, Walking sticks/umbrellas, etc., Waterfaring,
Weapons, Weddings
* as well
as nations/peoples, individuals, religions |
|
