In human-controlled environments and in cultivated landscapes, the plants accommodate social, cultural and economic needs. This article will focus on the use of plants for agriculture, urban planning, forestry, environmental education and indoor decoration in The Netherlands. This exploration, based on literature review and observations, reveals mostly anthropocentric, instrumental and unsustainable practices. In urban landscapes plants are pushed to the margins, if not entirely eradicated. This article shows that moral recognition of plants is an ethical imperative, which is also critically important to achieve environmental sustainability. In line with ecocentric ethics and in the interest of long-term sustainability, this article suggests alternative, more ethical and sustainable ways of relating to plants in The Netherlands and beyond. This is the Author’s Original Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, on October 2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17549175.2018.1527780 https://doi.org/10.1080/17549175.2018.1527780
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In human-controlled environments and in cultivated landscapes, the plants accommodate social, cultural and economic needs. This article will focus on the use of plants for agriculture, urban planning, forestry, environmental education and indoor decoration in The Netherlands. This exploration, based on literature review and observations, reveals mostly anthropocentric, instrumental and unsustainable practices. In urban landscapes, plants are pushed to the margins, if not entirely eradicated. This article shows that the moral recognition of plants is an ethical imperative, which is also critically important in order to achieve environmental sustainability. In line with ecocentric ethics and in the interest of long-term sustainability, this article suggests an alternative, more ethical and sustainable ways of relating to plants in The Netherlands and beyond. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in "Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability" on 10/11/18 available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/17549175.2018.1527780 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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The concept of biodiversity, which usually serves as a shorthand to refer to the diversity of life on Earth at different levels (ecosystems, species, genes), was coined in the 1980s by conservation biologists worried over the degradation of ecosystems and the loss of species, and willing to make a case for the protection of nature – while avoiding this “politically loaded” term (Takacs, 1996). Since then, the concept has been embedded in the work of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, established in 1992) and of the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES, aka ‘the IPCC for biodiversity’, established in 2012). While the concept has gained policy traction, it is still unclear to which extent it has captured the public imagination. Biodiversity loss has not triggered the same amount of attention or controversy as climate change globally (with some exceptions). This project, titled Prompting for biodiversity, investigates how this issue is mediated by generative visual AI, directing attention to both how ‘biodiversity’ is known and imagined by AI and to how this may shape public ideas around biodiversity loss and living with other species.
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