(Or Why Plants Matter )
Like the rest of the animal kingdom, human beings depend on 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 in eastern Asia evidence has
been found suggesting that rice could have been planted in paddyfields
in that region possibly 2000 years earlier still, 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
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 primary level attempts to interest children in botanical matters,
and in gardening, attempts which are burgeoning in many places.)
Additionally an expanding wealth of anecdotal evidence from the
last couple of decades (still added to today) illustrates amazing
ignorance and indifference about anything relating to the countryside.
These anecdotes involve a majority of people from all walks of
life and most generations – even rural dwellers. Examples
of such anecdotes range from a newspaper article about 10-15 years
ago to a disturbing farming illustration from the Summer of 2007.
- The newspaper article, which appeared in an English West
Country regional newspaper, described how a boy of about nine
(living in an English County town surrounded by farmed countryside)
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 the
introductory chapters she describes how, in 2005, she met an
eight year old boy attending the Union Square Greenmarket in
New York who 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 come
from, and commented that less than 10% volunteered ‘the earth or the ground’ while
the majority believed it was 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
was watching kindergarten children accompanied by their headmistress
on a farm visit. In the milking parlour the headmistress informed
that executive of her delight that the children could watch
how cows were milked. She then sought advice from the executive – which
cow provided the skimmed milk, which the semi-skimmed milk
and which the pasteurized milk.
If this was not enough, in July 2008 personnel
from the National Trust were being interviewed on a BBC radio
news programme about a new National Trust initiative which aimed
to address the Trust’s
observation that a significant number of children are unable to
identify the most common flora and fauna. From personal experience
too, the word ‘plant’ has little resonance among the
general public from all walks of life in a celebrity-driven society
and 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 the 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 the history of their 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 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 dominance tends to imply by default the extent
of the human relationship with the plant world.
But plants are fundamental to virtually every aspect of human
existence and therefore impinge on and are found in the overwhelming
majority of disciplines (See Summary of the General Index
for Plant Biographies below).
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 Britain) :-
- an accelerating movement of large numbers of people from
the countryside to urban areas not least as industrial and
commercial jobs beckoned;
- progressively easier access to merchandise (the majority
of which relies on plants in some way) instead of personal
involvement in harvesting ingredients (wild or cultivated)
and creating products;
- with the passage
of time in those urban areas, the gradual emergence of an
ever more plant-free environment;
- advancing urban
sprawl which distances/divorces people who live geographically
in the concrete urban centre.
III. Publications
Today’s plethora of journals, magazines, books and other
published material address a particular 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. This also 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’ plant matters under the headings gardening,
botany, cooking and medicine is perpetuated by the media and
general publishers. A recent personal experience well illustrates
media practices. Despite all my efforts I was unable to overcome
editorial practice after an interview with a respected local
journalist who appeared to be fascinated by the Plant Biographies project.
Her subsequent article was not printed at the beginning of the
thick weekly regional paper under a general heading which would
have been likely to have reached a wider audience. Instead it
was placed in the body of the issue at the beginning of the gardening
section. As members of the general public most of us absorb the
constraints imposed by the ‘boxing’ adopted by the
media and general publishers, ie. cooking, gardening, botany
and medicine – and in so doing, as indicated above, unawareness
and indifference to the vital and extensive part plants play
in virtually every aspect of human life 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 the whole planet in the near future if they do not do
so already not just the Western World.
It could be argued also
that in addition to climatic changes, human indifference to
the plant world could only exacerbate the already uncertain
future for many plant species. As it is, botanists and environmentalists
predict the loss of a large number of plants in the immediate
decades, including many of the relatively few especially familiar
to man. This will leave a multitude of unknown ones that will
require time-consuming professional examination and investigation
by many specialists before such unfamiliar species can be adopted
as ‘alternative’ sources of
food, medicine, materials and other valuable assets.
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 lack of appreciation
by most of the working populace (both employee and employer)
of the plant world’s significant contribution to civilisations
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 than now. 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 issues.
It would be disappointing if a future insufficiency of these
experts undermined this burgeoning recognition of their knowledge
and experience. The birth of an expert depends upon the enthusiasm
for and appreciation of plants by families and their demand for
botanical education to be available.
If the foregoing arguments
are credible the need to entertain and inform/educate the general
public on a large and concerted scale, and 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 indifference to plants and it is highly unlikely that
this incapacitating situation can be reversed without society’s
and the family’s support.
© Sue Eland, July, 2008
-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 |

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