On how and why I started this journey…

Hello everyone! I’m Tugce (or foxduplanty if you please:)). I’m, first of everything, a biologist. I just got my M.Sc, in ecology and earth system science. Nice to meet each one of you! Now let’s get to why and how part…

I have always wanted to be a conservation biologist, or at least theoretically work on biodiversity related issues. So, I got my master’s degree in ecology and my thesis was about university students’ perception of and attitudes towards biodiversity. It was consisted of a questionnaire, which was including very basic questions about biodiversity and related subjects. When I say basic I do mean super basic, but the results were very disappointing. For example, the first question, that asks the students, ‘Name 10 living things’. Seems like joke more than ‘basic’ doesn’t it? Alas I even encounter students who asks ‘When you say living thing, you mean… like what?’. Only 57% of students could name exactly 10 living things, not to mention most of these ‘living things’ they named were edible animals/plants, animals which were football team mascots and flowers which were around at the time the survey was conducted. I’m not gonna enlong exampling, I guess you’ve already gotten the idea!

No doubt that, how great measures you took to protect nature, it is simply impossible without people’s voluntarily and fully participation. After my thesis and my research on the subject why we fail to raise nature protection awareness, I decided that the lack of information on very basic subjects is one of the main problems which lead people to… well, simply not care ‘enough’. When you talk to a person who doesn’t know about ‘how’ all of us are connected, about a species which is under extinction threat in a far far away land, would you expect this person to get the importance of the situation? Or in the simplest way, can we expect someone to protect biodiversity when she/he doesn’t even know what biodiversity is? It’s easy just like that.

Again, during my research on the matter, I got the conclusion that people care about animals more than they do plants. I think this is an everyday reality that all of us can observe. You wouldn’t step on a cat when you are walking/running in a hurry, now would you? But I’m sure (even if you never have done that yourselves) everyone has seen someone step on plants on their way when they walk.(I’ll write on this subject in another entry because I think it is very important for what I’ll try to do here but in short, I decided to go (not entirely of course but more often) for plants here, dear friends!) I guess one of the reasons which leads to this result, is that we know animals better than plants so love and respect more (I don’t mean that animals are in a ‘safer’ position than plants I just think that they can get the attention more easily than plants because of that) Have you seen someone who says ‘Plumbago is my soul plant!’ or ‘I look glorious today just like a baobab!’? But I’m sure you saw plenty of people who declares pandas, lions, cats, dogs, scorpions… etc. as their soul animals or just to describe themselves in physical or behavioral contexts. This stems from the fact that we attribute so much things to animals such as; power, cuteness, dominance, beauty, laziness, brains,… and so on. Why not plants? I think the answer is because we don’t know them enough to do that. One of the birth facts of this blog.

And then came my IG journey. I’ve always loved taking plant photos since I got my first camera phone and when I discovered IG I was so happy to find a place for my plant photos finally. (I must underline this here, I am not a photographer and I would never dare to claim to be one:D Let’s say just a person who takes nature photos occasionally;))Then I realized how many people were out there taking stunning photos of plants but they don’t know the plants they were photographing and most of them were actually curious about them and asking for help. There are people who got genuine interest in plants and there are also great botanists who helps them if they can reach eachother (But yes the the tricky part is ‘if’ here). My personal opinion is that all these people deserve to know what they are immortalizing with their cameras, and how they might be last person to document an exctinting species without even realize. And in this matter IG fascinated me so much that I’ve seen so much plants that I probably will never be able to go and see in my entire life! So yes, my IG friends also inspired me greatly.

Ok, so what I’m planning to do… I think simple identifications with the least complicated way will be the start. And also trivial, strange, historical and fun facts about the plant. How much we knew about that plant in past, and how much we know right now. Who used that fruit to poison who, or which tribes used it for healing diseases… Some terms and subjects which you might find useful to learn, are also be here explained, again in the simplest way (when I say simplest I mean the least intimaditing way) I can, without confusing you. I’ll also start making a vlog as soon as I get used to hearing my own voice recorded(:D) but for now this is the plan. I must say it right here in the beginning, as I mentioned before, there are lots of great scientists, which I’ll recommend you (and also I’d like to work together)to follow during our journey together. So this is an open invitation for every scientist, gardener, garden owner or nature lover, if you say that you can explain a certain subject of your own choice in the simplest way feel free to join me here!

If you wish to follow me or contact me on other platforms here are the addresses you’ll find me;

Twitter: @foxduplanty

Youtube: Fox du Planty

Tumblr: @foxduplanty

So much for my meeting post friends (could it be any longer? Don’t dare me on that!:D). Again – nice to meet you all of you and hope to see you here again!

Until next time; take care and be curious!