Webinar series: Beyond Plant Blindness – Understanding and Protecting Native Biodiversity

Introduction

This webinar explored how scientific understanding of human–plant relationships has evolved from the concept of plant blindness toward the more constructive framework of plant awareness. Against the background of the global biodiversity crisis, Dr Peter Pany presented research highlighting why plants are often overlooked and how education can foster a deeper recognition of their ecological importance.

Key Speaker Highlights

Dr Pany presented insights from over a decade of interdisciplinary research in botany education, focusing on:

• The historical development and critique of the concept of plant blindness, including concerns around ableist terminology.
• The emergence of plant awareness as a positive, multidimensional construct encompassing perception, knowledge, attitudes, and valuation of plants.
• Empirical findings from Delphi studies and validation of the Plant Awareness Inventory.
• Research on students’ mental models of plants, showing that plant concepts are stable yet adaptable through education.
• Implications for biodiversity conservation, education, and sustainability goals.

Key takeaway

Plant awareness can be deliberately developed through education and is essential for meaningful biodiversity action.

Participant Insights and Key Questions

The Q&A session addressed critical themes, including:

• The relationship between plant awareness, nature connectedness, and willingness to protect nature.
• How educational practices can counteract zoo centric perspectives without pathologizing learners.
• The importance of experiential learning while ensuring transfer from individual plants to broader ecosystems.

Overall, participants emphasized the need to move beyond deficit based narratives and support educational approaches that build lasting, meaningful human–plant relationships.

Key Speaker Highlights

Prof. Olafsson and Dr. Garcia Antúnez presented recent research on human–nature relationships in increasingly urbanised societies. Key themes included:

• Urbanisation and disconnection: How accelerating urbanisation contributes to declining experiential contact with nature and growing mental and societal detachment.
• Nature connectedness in Denmark: National data showing stable nature visitation but increasing reliance on urban nature; 80% of visits occur within 2 km of cities.
• Gender and age differences: Women score higher in nature connectedness; teenagers—especially boys—show a marked dip.
• Wildlife friendly gardening: Research demonstrating that pro environmental value orientations (ecocentric/altruistic) significantly predict engagement in biodiversity supporting gardening behaviours.
• Childhood experiences matter: Diverse and frequent nature experiences in childhood correlate with biocentric and altruistic values in adulthood, which in turn predict higher acceptance of nature restoration measures.

Key Takeaways

• Urban green spaces—especially “everyday nature”—are essential gateways for strengthening nature connectedness.
• Childhood nature experiences are powerful predictors of adult environmental values and support for biodiversity policy.
• Social norms and community expectations strongly influence private garden biodiversity actions.
• Successful biodiversity transition requires fostering agency, participation, and relational values between people and nature.

Participant Insights and Key Questions

The Q&A session explored several critical themes, including:

• Backlash & acceptance: How to avoid resistance as EU driven landscape restoration accelerates; importance of early community engagement.
• Biophobia: Growing fear based reactions to ticks, wolves, and climate related extremes and how these shape nature relationships.
• Education: The need to integrate nature experiences and biodiversity knowledge into school curricula; concerns about reduced children’s free range outdoor time.
• Social norms: How neighbours, committees, and community expectations often outweigh personal environmental values in gardening decisions

Introduction

This third webinar presented insights from ten years of the “Buzz in Your Garden” campaign, led by Yannick Verstraete of Regional Landscape Houtland & Polders (Belgium). The initiative shows how gardens—covering 12% of Flanders—can play a vital role in reversing insect decline through native plants, community engagement, and long term awareness building.

Key Speaker Highlights

Yannick shared lessons from a decade of growing native plants with two horticultural schools and mobilising municipalities, volunteers, and citizens. He highlighted:

• How small gardens collectively form a vast habitat network beneficial to insects.
• Why native plants—co evolved with local insects—provide optimal pollen, nectar, shelter, and seasonal timing.
• The importance of making native, pesticide free, peat reduced plants accessible through annual packages.
• Education as a core strategy: teaching students, providing plant fact sheets, and raising public awareness through storytelling.
• The campaign’s success: steady growth, increasing demand, and stronger municipal partnerships.
• A key takeaway was that gardens truly matter: even small changes can significantly improve habitats when multiplied across a region.

Participant Insights and Key Questions

The Q&A addressed practical and strategic issues, including:

• Reaching homeowners with uniform, mown lawns and encouraging small first steps (e.g., a tree, a mini meadow).
• Providing seeds: seeds are offered mainly through guided workshops to ensure proper use.
• Campaign costs: €22 per 12 plant package, with €20 paid to schools.
• Market effects: native plants remain under supplied; the campaign aims to stimulate demand rather than compete with nurseries.
• Influence of neighbours: the campaign’s visibility and window posters help shift social norms.
• Plant care: guidance on cutting, seed saving, and maintenance is shared through plant fact sheets.
• For Campaigne webpage information: www.jouwtuinzoemt.be

Introduction

This webinar provided an overview of how Sweden’s volunteer based Butterfly Monitoring Scheme has grown over 16 years into a nationwide system generating essential biodiversity indicators. Lars B Pettersson explained how standardized methodology, citizen engagement, and long term data enable Sweden—and Europe—to track insect trends and understand environmental change.

Key Speaker Highlights

Assoc. Prof. Pettersson discussed:

• How the Swedish Butterfly Monitoring Scheme expanded to nearly 400 volunteers, covering ~700 sites, using harmonised transect and point count methods. 
• Why butterflies and day flying burnet moths are effective indicators—visible, climate sensitive ectotherms requiring specific host plants.
• Examples where simple management changes (e.g., delayed hay harvest) caused populations to rebound dramatically (50 → 14,000 individuals in three years).
• How regional and national data reveal contrasting trends: some species increasing (e.g., brimstone), others stable or declining, especially after drought years.

Key takeaway: Standardised, volunteer driven monitoring provides robust biodiversity indicators essential for conservation, land management decisions, and public engagement. Butterfly Schemes or Monitoring are today found all over Europe and also in N.A. 

Participant Insights and Key Questions

The Q&A covered critical topics such as:

• How to engage schools and local communities despite seasonal timing challenges.
• Impacts of climate extremes, including drought driven declines and species shifts.
• Expanding monitoring to moths, bees, and pollinators; tools and apps for easier identification.
• The role of local land use choices in shaping butterfly populations and habitat resilience.