If plants could speak, they would tell us that humans are not the masters of planet Earth, merely one of its most unpleasant and irksome residents.
As humans we’ve been on this planet for about 300,000 years, which is not a lot when we think of the three billion years of plant evolution. Yet our species has changed the conditions of the planet so drastically that it is now a dangerous place for our own survival.
It’s time for plants to offer advice. So thinks Stefano Mancuso, an expert on plant intelligence. In his recent philosophical manifesto, The Nation of Plants: a radical manifesto for humans, he offers a new constitution on which to build our future as beings respectful of the Earth and all its inhabitants.
In just eight articles, Mancuso presents the fundamental pillars on which plant life is based, and which must regulate all living beings if a range of life is to be viable survive on planet Earth.
The Bill of Rights of the Nation of Plants
Article 1
The Earth shall be the common home of life. Sovereignty shall pertain to every living being.
Article 2
The Nation of Plants shall recognise and protect the inviolable rights of natural communities as societies based on the relationships among the organisms that compose them.
Article 3
The Nation of Plants shall not recognise animal hierarchies, founded on command centres and centralised functions, and shall foster diffuse and decentralised vegetable democracies.
Article 4
The Nation of Plants shall universally respect the rights of the currently living and those of future generations.
Article 5
The Nation of Plants shall guarantee the right to clean water, soil and atmosphere.
Article 6
The consumption of any resource non-reconstitutable for future generations of living beings shall be prohibited.
Article 7
The Nation of Plants shall not have orders. Every living being shall be free to travel, move and live there without limitation.
Article 8
The Nation of Plants shall recognise and foster mutual aid among natural communities of living beings as an instrument of coexistence and progress.
The Nation of Plants by Stefano Mancuso (Profile Books, 2021) complements the concept of the wellbeing garden well and is recommended reading.
