Animation Documentaries and Biodiversity Issues – is ‘Plant blindness’ a concept worth keeping? Insights from the Portuguese animation documentary ‘Viagem a Cabo-Verde’ (2010)

Abstract

From the contemporary panorama of creative media, the animation documentary A Journey to Cape Verde (2010, Viagem a Cabo Verde) is analysed in terms of its content concerning biodiversity and plant issues. The concept of ‘plant blindness’ is revisited, a term introduced by Wandersee and Schussler in 1998 (Allen, 2003) to describe “the inability to see or notice the plants in one’s own environment” and their importance in the biosphere. Some future considerations are discussed. It is hoped this case-study displays a picture of what can be done to improve collective knowledge about biodiversity issues and could inspire and help others to develop awareness raising projects about them.