WBI Studies Repository (WellBeing International)
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Wild Birds: Human & Animal Welfare, Environment, and Global Sustainability
Get PDFBirds provide many ecosystem services and contribute to human well-being, but their numbers are falling worldwide
Plant sentience: Getting to the roots of the problem
Get PDFSegundo-Ortin’s (2023) target article invites us to consider the possibility that plants can experience subjectively felt states. We discuss this speculation on the basis of the functional neurobiology of consciousness. We suggest that demonstrating plant sentience would require that we identify not only behaviors analogous to those exhibited by sentient creatures, but also the functional analogues of the mechanisms causing such behaviors. The lack of clear evidence for any kind of integration between self-states, self-movement, environmental states, memory, or affective communication within plants suggests that plant sentience remains an admittedly fascinating, but ultimately merely provocative speculation
Animal communication and sentience
Get PDFSegundo-Ortin & Calvo (S&C) argue for sentience in plants on the basis of several studies of what they describe as cognitive abilities in plants. As other commentaries (e.g., Brooks Pribac, 2023; Damasio & Damasio, 2023; ten Cate, 2023) have pointed out, however, there is some misuse of several concepts, and a lack of evidence for sentience. We try to clarify three questions in S&C’s discussion: (1) How is communication defined and conceptualised in animal research? (2) Is plant communication comparable to animal communication? (3) Is communication (or the process we see in plants) a good basis for inferring sentience in plants
Plant sentience: Bias and promise
Get PDFWhichever side of the debate one chooses, plant sentience is a fertile research area that challenges received views and assumptions, generates novel insights, and suggests new ways that felt states might arise. My commentary discusses methodological and philosophical implications
Cognition is not evidence of sentience
Get PDFThe ability of plants to detect their environment, including other organisms within that environment, is unquestioned. The ability of plants to differentially process, integrate and respond to complex combinations of environmental information could perhaps be described as cognition. But no amount of evidence for cognitive abilities in plants equates to evidence for plant sentience. Nor is plant sentience required to understand or interpret the behaviour of plants in their environment
Associative learning: Unmet criterion for plant sentience
Get PDFIn a thought-provoking target article, Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (S&C) discuss the possibility that plants are sentient, focusing on a series of capacities normally attributed only to human and nonhuman animals. S&C propose learning as a marker for sentience. We review studies reporting associative learning in plants and find that they either lack essential controls or fail to produce replicable results. The capacity to learn has not yet been demonstrated in plants, so it cannot be used to support the hypothesis that plants are sentient. Further studies are needed. But agnosticism about sentience should not deter us from investigating unexpected new capacities in plants
Wildlife, Economics, and Well-Being
No full textIn most countries, wildlife is owned by the state. However, there are exceptions. In Southern Africa (e.g., Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe), laws passed thirty or more years ago have given private landowners property rights over all the wildlife on their land. These property rights are subject to certain conditions (such as using appropriate game fencing that prevents wild animals from encroaching on land owned by others). Following this change in wildlife law, tourism on private lands has boomed and has had a very positive impact on biodiversity in southern Africa
COP28, Climate Change, and the Global Stocktake
Get PDFCOP28, the 2023 climate conference held in Dubai, included a report card, Stocktake, on how the world is doing in its efforts to limit global warming
Methane and Climate Change
Get PDFMethane is a potent greenhouse gas, but technology already offers many abatement opportunities
A Year of Wins for Farmed Animals
Get PDFAlthough the European Union shelved its ambitious farmed animal welfare reforms, there were other “wins” for farmed animals in 2023. There were 130 new corporate pledges to eliminate cages for laying hens and the worst abuses of broiler chickens. So far, over 1,000 corporate pledges have been fully implemented, and 39% of American hens, 60% of European hens, and 80% of British hens are cage-free, up from 6%, 41%, and 48%, respectively, a decade ago. The US Supreme Court upheld California’s Proposition 12, which bans the sale of eggs, pork, and veal from caged animals and their offspring in California. Denmark unveiled a plan to promote plant-based eating, and South Korea announced it would unveil such a plan soon. The European Parliament called for an EU-wide action plan for increased plant-based protein production and consumption. Other advances included positive actions on crustaceans in Britain and fish in the EU