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Dongba painting is an ancient art form created by the ancestors of the Naxi people. As a masterpiece of Dongba scroll painting, The Road to Heaven, exemplifies the simplicity and beauty of the primitive Dongba religion and stands as a unique treasure within Naxi painting, possessing significant value for both art and religious research. The Road to Heaven serves as an essential religious ritual artifact in the Dongba religion of the Naxi people. Utilizing the format of a long scroll painting, it depicts the Naxi people’s reflections on the origins of life; the relationships between humans, nature, and society; and the exploration of life’s ultimate destiny, thereby presenting a distinctive worldview. This article constructs a theoretical analysis framework based on an iconographic study of The Road to Heaven, exploring the unique artistic representation, aesthetic spirit, worldview, and religious origins of the Naxi people to gain a deeper understanding of the construction of their spiritual homeland. At the level of pre-iconographic description, this article primarily analyzes the subject matter and contents of The Road to Heaven, the materials employed in the painting, and its artistic features. The iconographic analysis examines the thematic elements of The Road to Heaven; the virtual world structure of the Dongba religion’s imagined realms of gods, humans, and spirits; and its simple, natural, vivid, and imaginative aesthetic style. At the level of iconological interpretation, in this article, the characteristics of the religious beliefs shown in The Road to Heaven and the main factors influencing its aesthetic spirit are analyzed. We reveal that although the Dongba religion intersects and integrates with Tibetan Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Daoism, and other ideologies and cultures, ancestor worship remains a dominant force guiding Naxi behavior. The unique natural environment, historical migrations, and multicultural exchanges of the Naxi people are the primary factors shaping their aesthetic spirit. By systematically analyzing The Road to Heaven from the perspective of iconology, this study provides evidence of its profound connections with Naxi social history, offering a more comprehensive view of the Naxi people’s aesthetic spirit and cultural connotations while presenting new approaches for researching The Road to Heaven. Full article

Invasive species are a major threat to biodiversity worldwide. Controlling their rapid spread can only be effective if we consider the geographical factors that influence their occurrence. For instance, roads, railway networks, green and blue infrastructure, and elements of ecological networks (e.g., ecological corridors) can facilitate the spread of invasive species. In our study, we mapped the occurrence of five invasive plant taxa (tree of heaven, common milkweed, Russian olive, black locust, and goldenrods) in Hungary, using field photos from the EUROSTAT Land Use and Coverage Area Frame Survey (LUCAS) database from the year 2015. Species point occurrence data were compared with the spatial characteristics of linear transport infrastructure and with the green and blue infrastructure. We found that the occurrence of tree of heaven and Russian olive was strongly related to the road and railway network. The average Euclidean distance of LUCAS points infected with these species from railway embankments and roads was much smaller than that of uninfected points. However, black locust and goldenrods were more common only along the road network. According to our results, the occurrence of some investigated invasive plants was over-represented in the HEN and within Natura 2000 areas of Hungary compared to non-infected points. Our results may provide important information for predicting the rate of invasion and for applying targeted management within the HEN, and Natura 2000 protected areas. Full article

A large quantity of past research in philosophical Daoism has been dedicated to the authenticity of “dao”; this essay shifts the focus to the authenticity of the “myriad things 萬物 (wanwu)” in the Zhuangzi. The concept of “myriad things”, which later gains paradigmatic importance in Chinese philosophy, was first introduced in the Laozi and developed in the Zhuangzi. Under the collective heading of “myriad”, “myriad things” encompasses all of the variegated existing entities in the empirical world, while also taking into account the individual particularities of each entity without calling forth any singular or set of qualities, or “essence”, that is shared by all individuals. As a concept that safeguards individual particularities, the use of “myriad things” in the Zhuangzi serves to counterargue against the essentialist tendency to treat “humans 人 (ren)” as a collective of moral agents with a singular and identifiable moral essence. By the same token, Daoist thinkers re-interpret the meaning of “heaven 天 (tian)” with “the collective name of the myriad things 萬物之總名”, thus transferring the transcendent meaning belonging to the former as a transcendent moral authority to the myriad variegated principles that are inherent to each existing and transforming individual. The Daoist theoretical frame breaks away from that of “heaven–human” and connects the re-interpreted “heaven” with concepts of “self-so/self-affirm 自然 (ziran)”, “essentials 情 (qing)”, “nature 性 (xing)”, and “potency 德 (de)”. In this respect, “authenticity 真 (zhen)”, as it is warranted by “non-action 無為 (wuwei)”, is proposed as an ultimate state of attainment that is identified with the self-realization of each individual being as herself, over and above the so-called moral goodness and its opposite. Furthermore, the self-realization of the authenticity of the myriad things is seemingly paradoxical in the sense that, from the perspective of the “transformation of the myriad things 萬物之化”, the separation between object and subject both exists and is non-existent. The proposition of “myriad things” opposes the essentialization of human beings, whereas the doctrine of the transformation of the myriad things opposes the belief in fixed essentials in individual entities. The road to realizing “authenticity” as herself is thus a never-ending process for each individual member of the myriad things. Full article

Non-native invasive species frequently appear in urban and non-urban ecosystems and may become a threat to biodiversity. Some of these newcomers are introduced accidentally, and others are introduced through a sequence of events caused by conscious human decisions. Involving the general public in biodiversity preservation activities could prevent the negative consequences of these actions. Accurate and reliable data collecting is the first step in invasive species management, and citizen science can be a useful tool to collect data and engage the public in science. We present a case study of biological recording of tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle) using a participatory citizen model. The first goal in this case study was to develop a cheap, widely accessible, and effective inventory method, and to test it by mapping tree of heaven in Croatia. A total of 90.61 km of roads and trails was mapped; 20 single plants and 19 multi-plant clusters (mapped as polygons) were detected. The total infested area was 2610 m². The second goal was to educate citizens and raise awareness of this invasive species. The developed tool and suggested approach aided in improving invasive risk management in accordance with citizen science principles and can be applied to other species or areas. Full article