Beyond “Zoochauvinism”

University of Stellenbosch biotechnology professor NOX MAKUNGA reflects on the ways in which urbanisation and modern technology can distance us from the natural world.

MMY WORLD as a five-year-old simply

included the

“GREAT OUTDOORS”

as a given –

MY PARENTS’ only rule was “return

before sunset”.

y fondest memories of growing up on the University of Fort Hare campus with a father who lectured botany – the late Professor Oswald Makunga – and a mother who was renowned in our little town of Alice for her spectacular garden, are linked to having the freedom to play and just be outside. My world as a five-year-old simply included the “great outdoors” as a given – my parents’ only rule was “return before sunset”. This was before I could actually tell time.

I might have taken the simple pleasures of long days spent outdoors for granted, but they have fast become a luxury for many as movement to urban environments increasingly keeps us indoors, and our society becomes more plant-blind and, at times, totally oblivious to nature – even when we are in the most beautiful natural spaces.

What’s more, technology can keep us locked inside even when we are outdoors. The modern trappings of life, such as mobile electronic devices, entangle us in their social-networking webs. Table Mountain is one of the natural wonders of the world, but many of its visitors seem to be simply trying to take the perfect selfie. They remain unaware of the endemic erica flowering in all its splendour, and the significance of its unique adaptive traits, which span millennia in their evolution.

Then there’s the influence of “zoochauvinism” – the notion that plants are inferior to animals – recognised as being pervasive in our society in the late 1980s and most definitely continuing today, with plants so often devalued (or entirely ignored). Unfortunately, I often hear people say, “Plants are boring.” But as a plant scientist by training, I can assure you they are not.

There are some positive shifts away from this thinking afoot these days, however, with current interior and exterior design trends drawing inspiration from plants and moving away from stark, minimalistic spaces. It seems that sales of indoor plants are booming – or, dare I say, “blooming” – as many people who live in small urban spaces attempt to reconnect with nature. Conversations around climate change and activism in this area are also encouraging urban dwellers to plant more plants, and to choose water-wise and carbon-efficient species that could help to re-engineer our environment.

Any trends that enable us to see plants more clearly give me a sense of hope, as this means that our attitudes are slowly shifting. Perhaps one day, when I stand in front of a first-year biology class, I will not need to remind my students that it is plants that give us the air we breathe, the clothes we wear, the food we eat and even the medicine that heals us.

I often wonder how different my career choice would have been had I grown up in an environment where plants were deemed unimportant. Instead, the great outdoors was so much part and parcel of daily living for me that it seemed entirely natural for botany to become – and remain – my focus in life.

PROFESSOR NOX MAKUNGA teaches undergraduates, supervises postgraduate students, and does research at the University of Stellenbosch. Her research takes “a multidirectional approach that combines biotechnology, ethnopharmacology and phytochemistry”. Its main focus is investigating how plants – in particular the unique plants of the Cape floral kingdom – might be used to create treatments for complex medical conditions in human beings.