[APWG] AGREEMENT on EXOTIC SEEDS into natural ecosystems?

[Bob Beyfuss]

Hi Craig
I guess I am a bit nit picking about language that people use. I really do 
not know what a "natural" ecosystem is. To me the word "natural" is pretty 
much meaningless. After all,  what product isn't "all natural" today. 
Madison Avenue marketers cash in on these "feel good" terms as I look at my 
"All Natural" High fructose aka corn syrup sweetened beverage with a nice 
picture of a strawberry on the label. It contains no strawberry at all. But 
it IS "all natural". Arsenic is a naturally occurring substance as is 
dioxin, uranium, mercury, lead etc. but not something I want to get too 
cozy with.  Sowing exotic seeds that may grow better than native plants may 
be bad policy for many good reasons but "biologically wrong" is surely not 
one of them since they grow and thrive. They are biologically correct in 
this sense. If they were biologically wrong they would not grow at all. One 
of the biggest problems in trying to re-establish native plants is that the 
environment they previously occupied has been altered substantially and 
they are no longer as well suited to that environment as the exotics. Bad 
policy is not based on bad biology. I am sure the ecosystems you love are 
beautiful as they formerly existed and your concern that they may be 
altered forever by sowing exotic plant seeds is sincere and perfectly 
legitimate but terms like "biological genocide" are emotional buzzwords 
that do not reflect scientific inquiry.
Bob
  At 11:00 AM 5/24/2007, you wrote:
>Dear Bill and All,
>
>Thanks for your comments on my last message, whose subject was
>"Agreement on Exotic Seeds into natural ecosystems?", which I have
>rewritten, below.
>
>Perhaps there should be some basic definitions regarding this
>conversation:
>
>1.) Sowing of any perennial exotics seeds into a natural ecosystem, is
>biologically the wrong thing to do.  Does everyone agree that this is
>true?
>
> >From everyone's conversation so far, Patricia DeAngelis message listed
>some of the justifications for the Federal government's intentional
>sowing of the one million pounds of exotic seeds annually sown by BLM
>into natural ecosystems,
>
>And, Bob Beyfuss' messages pointed out, that we need to define the use
>of cultivated exotics seeds, and maybe separate the conversation, when
>we sow exotic seed on cultivated lands, versus sowing them into natural
>ecosystems.
>
>And the proposal that BLM goes "Exotic-Free" by 2011, means that the
>agency doesn't sow any more exotic seeds into "Natural Ecosystems"--that
>we're not discussing stopping sowing exotic seeds or agricultural crop
>seeds into cultivated lands, of course.
>
>Since the purchase and sowing of maybe 50-100 million pounds of exotic
>seeds by the Federal government has been going on for at least sixty
>years---since at least the days of the first kudzu plantings---perhaps
>we need to pull over the seed-wagons, and begin a discussion this year,
>of this very important issue---before too many more millions of pounds
>of exotic seeds get sown into our "Natural Ecosystems" in the USA?
>
>Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333.
>
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