Carolus Clusius, the Dutch Tulip pioneer, and in the Global weakening of Biodiversity ?

The Netherlands is immediately identified as "the Land of Tulips", and this offers the opportunity for many picturesque postcards and posters, where the countryside displays in spring beautiful bands of brightly colored tulips.

It is true that the Netherlands produces two billion cut flowers every year, making it "the largest flower factory in the World". Every day, in the warehouses of the Royal FloraHolland cooperative, in Aalsmeer, the "Wall Street" of flowers which sales 30,000 different varieties, from and then distributed throughout the Planet, more than 20 million flowers are received and auctioned, for a turnover in 2019 of 4.7 billion euros.

But, tulips are not native to the Netherlands, nor to Europe, and their introduction as their "industrial" culture, then the huge flower World market which was formed thereafter, reveal the general movement of a Mankind which domesticates Nature, modifies and disrupts biodiversity on a Global scale, to the point of generating an genuine weakening of its wealth, and also of its resistance.

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The full text of this cultural postcard, and other longer articles to come will join the book "The Netherlands for the optimized Anthropocene", with all informations regarding references.

A picture of Carolus Clusius, in the "Zwarte Tulp" Museum, in the village of Lisse, in the heart of the historic region of tulip cultivation in the Netherlands