workshop on 20121012 and 20121013. participants; Heath Bunting, An Mertens, guillaume neu-rinaudo, reg carremans, karin ulmer, lucia penninckx, els de greef, rasa alksnyte, nik gaffney, maja kuzmanovic.

Concept: Legal identity of trees in period of quick extinction

Day 1

Look at trees in Forest de Soignes / Verdronken Kinderen-Enfants Noyés

Different elements of identity we looked at:

* origin

* age

* gender

* position/postcode

- General parameters that create a 'normal' identity:

* minimal: name, date of birth, nationality ~ what's your name? where are you from? how old are you?

→ nationality is complex in general, and also for the tree

→ can nationality be replaced by citizenship? Or by 'family'/species the tree belongs to?

* functional: telephone, email, postal address, gender

* extra: health insurance number, debit card/bank account, tax number

* actual: website, facebook, linkedin, myspace…

* 'What can x do?'

→ create a 'corporation' around the tree?

A new legal persona is not necessarily a natural persona

Personhood can refer to

* a human being (material essence, person living on the street)

* a natural person (ID)

* an artificial person (corporation)

Personhood is defined by

* institutions

* a bureaucratical system

* data: if you have enough data you can find/create meaning → 'invocation' of persona

'Natural and articifial persons' are considered to be the property of a human being, any property can be

* kept

* passed on

* destroyed

→ we could wrap a corporation around the tree, insert some human dna-fragment in it…

→ if you don't have a birth certificate, you need a story

How do we proceed?

1/ “proto-personhood” for trees: 'law', relationships of management & property

2/ “philosophical”: why

3/ “physicality”: 'functionality', relationships to other people/things

A lot of trees have numbers, all trees have a owner in Belgium but with different status (forest, private property, city of bssls)

So maybe interesting to add the parameter of 'owner/user' to the series of tree-parameters and talk about 'lineage/species' instead of nationality

→ who owns it? Who has an interest in using it?

A tree is defined by lineage but also by 'the context': a tree in the city will be different, climbed, polluted, dependant on humans (candle stick prunage)…)

→ where do the seeds come from? where did it grow up?

We make a checklist and look at it from different perspectives

Perspective of a tree: does not want to be chopped off & wants the right to light, soil & water

Day 2

- looked at 'Oak du marais' in rue des Minimes, transplanted 6 years ago from somewhere else, serves as a 'bar', a meeting place, lighted by humans, hosts birds…

- look at trees in front of Walvis, planned to be chopped: platans, protest because they are the 2 only trees at that side of the Boulevard (between Yser & Porte de Ninove), and because they will be replaced by 3 new trees planted 3,5 m closer to the bar (effect: the terrace will be half as big)

- discussion on the 'arboresceal persona'

We create it and integrate it in our daily language, start taking it into account → method of 'invocation', it will start to exist

Look at the bigger picture: what if trees have legal identity & rights? How will we co-live with them: as separate entities or as chimera of tree/humans

• Compendium of Symb & ritual plants in Europe
• Guide to wild foods
• Mycelium running: how mushrooms can help save the world
• The revenge of Gaia
• The end of the wild
• Hildegard's healing plants
• A new green history of the world