Overlooked and Underappreciated
Our ‘Plant Blindness’ is Hurting the Planet
Let’s play a game.
From the moment you wake up to when you rest your head at night, make a note of all the plants and plant-based items you encounter.
The mint in your toothpaste, the cotton of your shirt, the salad you had for lunch, even the fuel in your car. The exercise may seem mundane at first, but as the day goes on, you'll notice the list becomes longer and longer. Not without surprise, you may easily count more than 50 different plants by the end of your day.
The first time I tried this exercise, it left me in awe; almost everything in our life is somehow connected to plants. They feed us, they keep us warm and help us cool down, give us shelter, entertain us, and are in most of our health and beauty products.
And yet, more often than not, we don’t even see them.
What is ‘Plant Blindness'?
‘Plant blindness’ refers to the tendency to overlook, ignore, and underestimate the importance of plants in our environment. The term was first coined 20 years ago by American botanists Elizabeth Schussler and James Wandersee, who had noticed that young students were overwhelmingly more interested in studying animals than plants.
In their paper, Preventing Plant Blindness, Schlussler and Wandersee describe the phenomenon as a “misguided anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals” which leads us to think of the plant world as a backdrop for animal life, including our own.
More recent research confirms that most people have a cognitive bias, which prevents us from noticing plants as much as animals. If shown images in rapid sequence, for example, people are better able to detect animals than plants. As humans, we instinctively tend to empathise more with species that we consider closer to us in looks and behavior. Plants are considered non-sentient beings and therefore less worthy than animals of our attention and care.
Urbanization has also certainly played a role in our lack of appreciation for plant life as people are increasingly moving into cities and away from natural environments. The physical detachment from nature contributes to an emotional loss: We feel less and less connected to plants in our everyday life to the point where we lose the ability to recognise them.
A UK study revealed that 82% of children between the ages of five and 16 have trouble recognising common native plants, such as oaks. With 70% of the world’s population moving into cities by 2050, the disconnect will only become more apparent.
Why Plant Blindness is Bad News for the Planet
The inability to notice plants and the role they play in our lives is not a new phenomenon, but its implications are grossly underestimated. Plant blindness is a symptom of a more widespread disconnectedness from nature, which is rapidly worsening with jarring consequences.
The more aware people are of the natural world around them, the more inclined they feel to take action to protect it. We care for what we know, value, and feel connected to. But when the connection is lost, it leaves room for neglectful and exploitative behaviors that harm our planet.
At a systemic level, plant blindness makes it more challenging to generate public support and political will for necessary conservation measures, such as policies to mitigate climate change, protect habitats, and restore ecosystems. In 2011, plants made up 57% of the federal endangered species list in the US, but they received less than 4% of federal endangered species funding.
Lack of plant awareness also affects our food systems. By overlooking the incredible diversity of plant species that exist and have fed us for centuries, we are bound to lose them. There are over 20,000 species of edible plants in the world yet fewer than 20 species now provide 90% of our food. If we learn more about the plants that feed us, we will better value agricultural practices that protect biodiversity instead of threatening it. The planet will be better for it, and so will our health.
Is There a Cure?
Plant blindness may be common but it’s not inevitable. Many groups around the world cherish their strong bonds with plants and have specific languages and practices to detect, describe, and value them. This means that our disconnect stems primarily from culture, upbringing, and education.
While people living in rural communities are likely to have a more thorough knowledge of plants due to dependence on natural resources, living in urban areas does not necessarily lead to this knowledge being lost if communities still have access to nature in their cities.
In semi-urban areas, for example, younger generations are exploring the world of plants through foraging. Searching for wild edible plants shows us that they have direct relevance to our lives.
The knowledge of edible and useful plants in our local environments is one of the first things that urbanization took away. In this sense, collective history, art, and storytelling can help people establish a personal sense of connection with nature — a sort of environmental identity.
Our connection to plants is rarely individualistic, it’s more often a matter of family and community heritage. Reconnecting with that knowledge is a powerful way to reflect on and appreciate the role that plants play in our lives.
Plants do so much for us, it’s time we return the favour.
Camilla Capasso (@root.to.tale) is a writer, creator, and storyteller. For the past decade, she has been writing and covering stories on environmental and human rights issues for a number of publications and international organizations. Recently, her focus has been on stories about people and plants, our relationship with Nature, and how we can learn to coexist and thrive together.
Image Source: Claire Suzanne