Flower Power - Why plants deserve rights too

with Dr Alessandra Viola Science journalist & author

Description

Why do we name our pets and talk to them but we do not do the same with plants? This happens because we all share the same 'dysfunction': plant blindness.  

Most of us are deeply convinced that plants are an inferior life form, that they are 'less alive' than animals and less important for our lives. This is an ancient belief which scientific research has today contradicted. Plants are sensitive, social and intelligent beings.  

Who decided that men, women, children, animals deserve rights, while plants do not?  Some say that plants cannot have rights because they do not suffer, but is this really the case?  
Two countries have already introduced the "Rights of Nature" in their Constitutions and many are following. But 99% of nature as we know it is made up of plants, so why not extend the rights' concept to include plants?

Alessandra Viola has written the first 'Universal Declaration of Plant Rights', claiming we need to recognize plant rights to build a more equitable, fair, and beautiful world for all living beings.

Dr Alessandra Viola

Science journalist & author

Journalist, writer, television producer, she is the author of scientific essays including Flower Power (Einaudi, 2020), Trash. All you should know about waste (with Piero Martin, Codice Edizioni, 2017), awarded in Italy and abroad. She co-wrote Brilliant Green with professor Stefano Mancuso. She won the National Prize for Scientific Dissemination twice and has a PhD in Communication Sciences and one in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. In 2021 she published The Planet of Greta (with Rosalba Vitellaro, Einaudi).

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