‘All netted together’: is there a need for cultural consilience in the face of extinction? Dawn Sanders 1 Summary. Professor Stephen Hopper has suggested that ‘possibly the most significant future challenge facing plant conservation is the achievement of a global shift in value systems towards acceptance of the old cultural wisdom that humans are part of, not separate from, nature’. Here I examine this challenge for contemporary humanity experie- ncing increasingly divergent ‘lifeworlds’ and ask if it is possible to be ‘all netted together’, and achieve cultural consi- lience in the face of increasing plant extinction. The first part of the article explores a hybrid approach to botanical education, where ‘border crossings’ between ‘Pokémon’ and plant-based inquiry might facilitate 21st century urban children to engage more intimately with the living world. The second part highlights how botanic gardens can facilitate expressions of lost botanical knowledge carried through human migration from rural to urban contexts. The article ends with a discussion intended to provoke interdisciplinary discourse between botanical science and botanical edu- cation, contextualised within the wider literature that examines the role of botanic gardens. Key Words. Carnivorous plants, education, plant conservation, Pokémon, rural, urban. Introduction The recent review of progress on the implementation of the global strategy of plant conservation (GSPC) notes that ‘educationalists have not always been included in stakeholder consultations on the GSPC and there is a need for greater engagement with this community’ (The Convention on Biological Diversity 2009: 39). Here I intend to provoke interdisciplinary discussion relevant to such communities using mate- rial drawn from a doctoral study in the University of Sussex Geography Department (Sanders 2004) and a Royal Society Millennium Project (Sanders 1999), contextualised within the wider literature that exam- ines the role of botanic gardens. Professor Stephen Hopper has suggested that ‘possi- bly the most significant future challenge facing plant conservation is the achievement of a global shift in value systems towards acceptance of the old cultural wisdom that humans are part of, not separate from, nature’ (Hopper 1997). In this paper I examine Hopper’s challenge for a humanity facing increasingly divergent ‘lifeworlds’, and ask if it is possible to be ‘all netted together’ (Darwin Notebook ‘B’) and achieve cultural consilience in the face of increasing species loss. Nature-Deficit The phrase ‘extinction of experience’ (Pyle 1993) punctuated environmental education texts for much of the late 20 th century. More recently the term ‘nature-deficit disorder’ (Louv 2008) has surfaced. The following quote from Pyle (1993: 145) exemplifies this literature: ‘Direct, personal contact with living things affects us in vital ways that vicarious experience can never replace. I believe that one of the greatest causes of the ecological crisis is the state of personal alienation from nature in which many people live. We lack a widespread intimacy with the living world.’. This concern for the apparent extinction of expe- riences with nature is critical in a time of increasing urbanisation and species loss. However, returning to our own childhoods to model our response to this impending socio-biological crisis may not be appro- priate. We live in a world where, for many, social spaces exist in several ‘lifeworlds’, some of which are only present in virtual form, on a planet where untainted wilderness has all but ceased to exist. Children are now born into a mapped physical world (Shepherd 1997), which for some is complemented by a more familiar virtual world. Pokémon and Carnivorous Plants As a botanical scientist and educator I share Darwin’s passion for Drosera rotundifolia and carnivorous plants in general. While teaching a session on carnivorous plants, using both live specimens and sections of Attenborough’s ‘Private Life of Plants’ programme, I was fascinated to witness a group of children respond to the programme by calling out ‘Pokémon plants’. Accepted for publication November 2010. 1 Scientific Associate, Botany Department, Natural History Museum, London, UK. e-mail: dawn@gardensforlearning.com KEW BULLETIN VOL. 65: 677Y680 (201 ) © The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2011 0