In this playful yet informative manifesto, a leading plant
neurobiologist presents the eight fundamental pillars on which the life
of plants--and by extension, humans--rests.
Even if they behave as though they were, humans are not the masters of
the Earth, but only one of its most irksome residents. From the moment
of their arrival, about three hundred thousand years ago--nothing when
compared to the history of life on our planet--humans have succeeded in
changing the conditions of the planet so drastically as to make it a
dangerous place for their own survival. The causes of this reckless
behavior are in part inherent in their predatory nature, but they also
depend on our total incomprehension of the rules that govern a community
of living beings. We behave like children who wreak havoc, unaware of
the significance of the things they are playing with.
In The Nation of Plants, the most important, widespread, and powerful
nation on Earth finally gets to speak. Like attentive parents, plants,
after making it possible for us to live, have come to our aid once
again, giving us their rules: the first Universal Declaration of Rights
of Living Beings written by the plants. A short charter based on the
general principles that regulate the common life of plants, it
establishes norms applicable to all living beings. Compared to our
constitutions, which place humans at the center of the entire juridical
reality, in conformity with an anthropocentricism that reduces to things
all that is not human, plants offer us a revolution.
