The Land Ethic: The “Key-Log” for the Vegetal Turn?

Recent work in the vegetal turn movement has helped to cement the idea that plants should be seen less as nearly inanimate objects and more as highly complex agents that actively interact with the natural world. Various traditions in environmental philosophy are amenable as theoretical frameworks for the vegetal turn, including biocentrism, deep ecology, and the land ethic. Upon chronicling the vegetal turn and its intersection with these traditions, the author argues that the land ethic is best suited to serve this purpose. Published in 1949, Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac outlines his land ethic that attempts to move away from the understanding of human beings as masters over nature and towards viewing humans as plain members and citizens of the biotic community. Not only is the land ethic a fitting framework for the vegetal turn, the combination of the two may serve as a key-log to initiating a paradigm shift in our understanding of the human-nature relationship, which, the author claims, is desperately needed to confront the environmental crisis.