[APWG] Microstegium in West Virginia--get a truckload of money together!

[Craig Dremann]

Dear Patricia and Russ,

Stiltgrass in West Virginia is becoming a tiny, little problem?

Unfortunately, everyone who is watching the Stiltgrass starting to get a
root-hold in WV in 2004,  is like the unfortunate Californians in
1769-1820 watching the annual European grasses smother about 100 million
acres of native perennial grasslands here.  

And after 150 years, we're Californian's are barely making any headway
in figuring out how to manage any of these 1,000 exotic plant that are
now "naturalized", nor has there been any substantial economic interest
so far in making any serious investments in managing the exotics in the
California or the rest of the USA (with the exception of Rook's project
in Florida).  

Plus, the Federal government is still developing (ARS, NRCS, etc.) and
releasing new invasive exotics every decade, and BLM and the USFS still
purchasing exotic invasive plant seeds by the millions of pounds
annually, and sowing them onto public lands.  You can read about that at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/juicy.gossip.six.html

We must start making the investment necessary to invent the processes
and technologies that can successfully convert each exotic
species-infestations back to local native ecosystems.  

Otherwise,  I'm afraid that each State in the USA should pull up their
chairs, grab a box of popcorn and watch a rerun of the horror-film that
Californians saw 150 years ago---when our state (outside of the Mojave
desert) from sea level to 3,000 feet elevation was 99.99% carpeted by
about 1,000 exotics. 

I gave a talk last year on this issue in Monterey at a BLM conference on
Weeds, that you can read about at http://www.ecoseeds.com/talk.html 

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann, The Reveg Edge (650) 325-7333
Box 609, Redwood City, CA 94064