PLANTS ARE THE KEY TO ALL LIFE ON EARTH . . .
Plants have been around, surviving and adapting to environmental events, for some 4 billion years. So, perhaps one should conclude that Plants are both smart and experienced! Science makes it clear that: 'without plants there simply is no life!' Those are just two of the many reasons plants matter! Consider the possibility that plants are even more important than energy, politics, peace or whatever. By understanding the value of plants, all the other issues facing us today become clearer, more understandable and manageable.
While we need plants, we've mostly ignored plants and mostly ignored what we might learn from them. That's one reason why in September of 2014 UNESCO held a world conference on plants and botany.* Speaking at that conference, then BGCI Chairman, Dr. Stephen Blackmore, cited chemist's James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis making the point that: "Without plants we cannot overcome any of our global challenges, [while] with plants we can achieve a ... sustainable and equitable future."
As an individual, and as Executive Director of The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai, I believe teaching "Why Plants Matter" to each and every botanic garden visitor, and to each and every person worldwide, is THE KEY to our future.
Plants produce and store energy yet, unlike we humans, plants create only biodegradable waste. Plants have figured out how to do all this, efficiently! To survive this century, we need to learn to do the same. Rather than simply using plants as a energy source, we need to learn from plants.
Learning from plants is just one more reason "Why Plants Matter." Proffering this belief is the reason The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai was born. Our mission of Education-Transformation-Restoration has been at the core of our public TYUP™ and our UKFC in-school environmental education program since 2011.
In getting to know the botanic world over these last 5 years, it's become clear to me that botanic gardens do a fantastic job with plant collection, conservation and restoration. However, in my view, most botanic gardens are not truly confronting our future. Only by Transforming Your Understanding of Plants™ will botanic gardens fulfill their 21st Century responsibility to humankind and all other life here on earth.
Botanic Gardens primarily appeal to people who see beauty in plants, but even many of those people cannot truly tell you "Why Plants Matter." Botanic gardens attract less than 10% of their potential visitors, by not appealing to the rest of us. Yes, of recent, botanic gardens have employed fashion shows, art exhibits, wine and food festivals and more to attract people to their gates - and it has worked in bringing more people into the gardens. By TYUP™(ing) those very visitors, more and more people would come to understand "Why Plants Matter." And those people will tell others ,who will then also visit botanic gardens, and tell even more people who would come to botanic gardens. In this one simple way, botanic gardens can help humanity overcome "plant blindness," a problem that most of us don't even realize is a serious disorder causing many of our environmental problems.
By focusing on the future, explaining to old and new visitors alike, "Why Plants Matter," botanic gardens would make a huge difference in humankind's understanding of and thriving in the 21st Century. Once people learn that plants are much more than pretty green things with flowers decorating people yards, nurseries and flower shops, they will come to understand "Why Plants Matter." So, botanic gardens can help us confront our future by offering their own TYUP™. This is why this, the 21st Century, as UNESCO has suggested, is the century of the botanist!
And, by better understanding the role plants play in our biosphere, more individuals in other disciplines, such as technology, engineering, physics and chemistry would focus on studying plants for what they can teach us about producing, storing and recycling energy, unlocking important keys to our future.
Visit the About 21st Century Botany and the Increase Your Knowledge sections of our website to grow your knowledge; you'll be surprised how much fun it is learning "Why Plants Matter." Coming soon, watch for our new "12 Points" TYUP™ section on this website, so you too can carry the message about "Why Plants Matter" to friends and family. Do it for yourself; do it your family; do it for your friends and do it for our future.
March 10, 2016Joe C. Harris, Jr.,Executive Director,Key Largo, Florida
© 2011 - 2020
*visit our 21st Century Botany Books page to read a summary and full details of that very important BGCI worldwide conference. Scroll through the page until you come to "Botanists of the 21st Century." Click on the .pdf and link for the full report.
The link to "plant blindness" is this: http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/10/926.full