Phylica buxifolia flowers in dappled shade

The flowers of Phylica buxifolia are not the plants greatest asset in finding favour with people. That is, however, not the primary purpose of any flower: they are there to sustain their species. Pleasing insects and other pollinators sufficiently for paying visits to the flowers is, on the contrary, vitally important.

The planting of various, selected crops and their genetic modification are key contributors to the survival of the human species. Much controversy surrounds the second practice developed only in modern times for enhancing crop volumes and other features.

Planting flowers, trees or food crop plants and refining them deliberately into "better" cultivars is certainly done for the benefit of people. One could argue that the plants benefit as well from being cared for. (Surely not from being harvested?) This doubtful, indirect boon for the "chosen" plant species would only become relevant or established in a world where every species receives defendable rights to live on earth and, of course, given by people.

That eventuality is faintly on the horizon in legislation regarding biodiversity. The benefits from biodiversity are argued from a perspective of human interest, however. This line of thinking may elevate animal husbandry to being beneficial to the animals concerned... slaughtering warranted as a trade-off for security in the numbers bred.

Every living entity depends for survival on the contributions of countless other living entities that also use its neighbours in mutually beneficial symbiosis. People can attain aspects of this concept intellectually, while most of their fellow living beings on earth can’t think it but have evolved to do it. People are (sometimes) known to say thank you for life, be grateful to supporting, servant species.

The ability to manipulate some variables concerning "the other" living things on earth continually leads to a myriad of active interventions on all fronts, as there is no interspecies court of law where the victims, the other species can seek redress. People do to everything else that lives on earth as they please.

Might is right was the first implicit (and sometimes explicit) law that governed human existence, modified by later additions as the mind became sharper. Concepts such as justice and ethics became reified into accepted reality and everyday implementation; not mere philosophical niceties for armchair discussion.

The human capacity for interference and disruption of its environment for its own benefit is too often not curbed by the fact that much of the complexity of life is not properly understood by the manipulative human race. Unintended consequences after many breakthroughs accompany the achieved goal. Every improvement aimed at human life brings bigger or smaller consequences requiring countermeasures when the ill effects are discovered, usually only by later generations. It keeps the species busy, at least, while a continually bigger picture is borne in mind.

The sobering effects that dawn on people after a major innovation launch include that human survival risk is too often not really improved by the machinations of the cleverer brethren. The opposite hits home after the monuments turn green. Think of lead in fuel or water pipes, CFCs, energy from coal, squeezing out species by reducing human infant mortality, and whatever (Bean and Johns, 2005; Coates Palgrave, 2002).