The Meaning of Weed, A Conceptual Invasion against the Planet Biodiversity

Industrial green Revolution introduced a worldwide agricultural development,but at the same time forced a bunch of harsh concepts to this sectionpractitioners. The new power originated from powerful technologies as wellas extraordinary promotions rapidly affected the sustainable utility of naturalresources and caused the current world’s crises. Man>s attitude of competitionagainst nature changed for violation against the environment, so the naturalsustainable balances were interrupted one after another. Also agricultural tradeMarkets imposed man towards atrocity in many aspects especially about to beor not to be of herbaceous plants.Racially thinking, Human being nominated each non-fast-commercial plant bythe word ≪weed≫ which it means the sordid or unpleasant plant, this happeneddespite the perception that most of the ecological benefits are rooted from theexistence of these plants. When everyone addresses a plant with a negative wordsuch as weed, however, he most probably stimulates negative emotions in publicagainst the particular plant, finally results in an endless attempt for its eradication;what has been exactly followed during the last decades.But indigenous people of eastern Iran had never used such kind of immoral words to address a neighbor creature. Although they believed in the principlesof economical market, fortunately their greediness was often under control.This awareness may be obtained from the fact that people had been realizedthat their lives deeply depend on these plants, such as feedstuff, foods andpharmaceutical demands. So, in stead of calling those plants as weeds, theyentitled them Outsiders.Due to the semantic features of the weed word which is substantially differentwith an outsider one, people can be often welcomed and allowed an activelyinteraction with a foreigner in many cultural and agricultural systems. Thus,a little more friendly title on plants persuades all to shift their reactions froma conflicting feeling to a softer mutual interaction. Needless to say that suchinimical approach during the time has dramatically affected and destroyedmany valuable plant species in all over the world and caused serious damageson the planet biodiversity.In this paper, we present a new moral point of view concerning the falsenomination on useful plants as weeds, looking forward the consequences ofsuch huge mistake in the environment. Then it would be tried to analyze theindigenous knowledge for doing fine by man in the environment.

Keywords:

Weed , Outsider plant , Indigenous knowledge , Environmental morality , Biodiversity