Castilleja neglecta, endangered endemic perennial Tiburon paintbrush

“This is even more acutely so for Indigenous peoples who are on the frontlines of ecological change, who face serious pressures of competing wants and uses of their lands and resources, who rely on the environment for their livelihoods and survival, who have responsibilities of environmental stewardship not only for today but for the generations ahead, and who are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and climate change — problems that were not created by them in the first place.”

Respecting Human Rights is Essential for Sustainable Conservation

    Often the most disenfranchised individuals on the margins of society are the ones to most keenly and quickly feel the repercussions of our industry. We see this over and over again, in the indigenous peoples of our Arctic regions, the Pacific Islanders who are now being systemically flooded out, on and on. However, this idea that the land and biodiversity are somehow more important to protect for certain individuals is perhaps not the right perspective. Some are certainly more vulnerable than others, but ownership must be taken also by the instigators in order to properly internalize a true desire for change.

How Smart Are Plants?
“Gagliano concluded by suggesting that “brains and neurons are a sophisticated solution but not a necessary requirement for learning,” and that there is ‘some unifying mechanism across living systems that can process information and learn.'”

” Citing the research of Suzanne Simard, a forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia, and her colleagues, Mancuso showed a slide depicting how trees in a forest organize themselves into far-flung networks, using the underground web of mycorrhizal fungi which connects their roots to exchange information and even goods. This “wood-wide web,” as the title of one paper put it, allows scores of trees in a forest to convey warnings of insect attacks, and also to deliver carbon, nitrogen, and water to trees in need.”

“To define certain words in such a way as to bring plants and animals beneath the same semantic umbrella—whether of intelligence or intention or learning—is a philosophical choice with important consequences for how we see ourselves in nature. Since “The Origin of Species,” we have understood, at least intellectually, the continuities among life’s kingdoms—that we are all cut from the same fabric of nature. Yet our big brains, and perhaps our experience of inwardness, allow us to feel that we must be fundamentally different—suspended above nature and other species as if by some metaphysical “skyhook,” to borrow a phrase from the philosopher Daniel Dennett. Plant neurobiologists are intent on taking away our skyhook, completing the revolution that Darwin started but which remains—psychologically, at least—incomplete.”