[APWG] Altering is too kind, destroy not strong enough

[Bob Beyfuss]

Hello Karen
I think one of the key issues you have identified is the "time" one. The 
invasive phenomena is a relatively short term episode following varying 
periods of time from establishment to explosion. For many of these plants 
we are in the explosion stage right now but I am pretty certain that will 
change in time as dynamic ecosystems change.  I think we all agree that 
ecosystems are dynamic.
Since 90% of our plant food supply are exotic plants you might conclude 
that they would not have "natural or native" predators or pest or problems 
from diseases and insects, yet the opposite is true. American farmers 
applied 5 billion pounds of pesticides to protect these mostly exotic 
plants from pests in the year 2,000.
Obviously, exotic plants are not immune to native pests or diseases, given 
time. Our crops are grown in monocultures that invasive species also seem 
to create at the expense of native species. These apparent monocultures are 
most susceptible to insects and diseases.
I work with many home gardeners as well as farmers and often I get calls 
from frantic gardeners who are observing an insect explosion in their 
gardens by something like aphids, for example.  In many cases the aphid 
populations will soon be brought down to acceptable levels by natural pests 
such as lady beetles and other predators. Unfortunately the immediate 
reaction of many gardeners, fueled by TV and radio advertisements that sell 
the chemicals is to reach for the pesticide spray and wipe them out. The 
spray that wipes out the aphids will need to reapplied within a week or so 
because the aphids have many generations per season but if the spray kills 
the lady beetle predators, they are gone for the year at the very least. 
The gardener is now chemically dependent upon the pesticide.  I fear we are 
trying to use the same tactics with exotic weeds.
  As for those of us who use a couple of quarts of Round Up each year, it 
seems trivial compared to the benefits but in 2005 over 310,000 pounds of 
the active ingredient in Round Up (glyphosate) were applied in California 
alone.
Now my home state of NY has just awarded $500,000 to groups for 
"terrestrial invasive plant eradication"  My feeling is that this money 
will only result in delaying the natural ecosystem adjustments that will 
occur and will do far more harm than good in the long run,.
It is  true that we do not know the long term consequences of invasive 
plants on our ecosystems but is equally true that we also do not know the 
long term effects of applying thousands of pounds of weed killers. Indeed, 
there are risks involved. I accept these risks to the food system because I 
need to eat and I don't want to pay more for food than I have to but I am 
not so sure I accept these risks on public property.  I trust the ecosystem 
response more than the human one.
I know that nature abhors a vacuum. When I observe the sheer biomass that 
some of the invasives produce I cannot help but assume that this biomass 
will soon be utilized by some other organism. I suspect that this will 
happen in time.
I really do not mind if my opinions on this issue are in the minority. That 
does not necessarily mean that I am wrong. as for Science supporting the 
opposing view, I disagree with you. I don't think real science is based on 
value judgements and inflammatory rhetoric.
Bob


At 12:41 AM 3/6/2008, Karen Adair wrote:
>I write from the perspective of a land steward who is working on the 
>ground in these ecosystems and fighting these invasives "with my bare 
>hands" every day. I have agreed with points that people from both sides of 
>the "roundup can" have made and wanted to comment on a few of the recent 
>statements.
>
>.."Environmental changes (man made or not) dictate that different life 
>forms will be favored at the expense of others." Invasive exotics are not 
>favored - they have nothing to stop them. Entirely different. Their 
>invasiveness does not come from an ecosystem promoting them, but rather 
>that it has none of the weapons that the natives (which have co-existed 
>and co-evolved over the centuries) have to maintain "balance."
>
>I think it is important to use caution when suggesting that a native 
>living among an invasive population is benefiting or thriving. While there 
>may be instances when that's true (none that I've experienced), I suspect 
>that most managers would say that's the exception rather than the rule. If 
>you maintain the thinking that focusing on a few plants is not the way to 
>go and focusing on the overall integrity of the ecosystem is, then I would 
>suggest those rare incidences should not be given such weight in the 
>invasives aren't bad debate. What is usually missing from those opinions 
>is time. People decide that something is benefiting from the sheer fact 
>that it is present at the point of their one observation. I would be 
>interested to know if it is doing so well in 5, 10, or 20 years. 2) 
>Studies regarding exotic shrubs as resources for birds (as one example) 
>have shown that the lipid content in the fruit of the exotic shrubs 
>studied was less than that in the fruit of native shrubs. So while these 
>birds are consuming the same quantity, the quality is not the same. This 
>has profound effects when you consider the caloric needs of birds in 
>migration. Additionally, the study showed that nest placement was 
>different in exotic shrubs due to their structure and consequently nest 
>predation was higher when compared to nests in natives. You might find a 
>nest in every multiflora rose you see, but whether birds actually hatched 
>and survived is the important factor. I have yet to hear of a study that 
>shows invasives provide even equal benefits to wildlife.
>
>The topic of herbicides being bad relates directly to whether you think 
>invasives are bad. The effects of an infestation allowed to thrive and 
>spread for decades is far worse than a couple applications of one of the 
>common and low toxicity herbicides that most managers use. In keeping with 
>this mindset, a handful of natives that are inadvertently killed by 
>over-spray is insignificant when the entire landscape is considered and 
>when considering the long-term benefits of eradicating the infestation. 
>Those who apply herbicide know that over-spray can easily be avoided or 
>minimized by adhering to the label and best management practices.
>
>I thought this point that Gena made was excellent among others: The path 
>of objectivity is not to deny our value-laden beliefs:  it is to declare 
>them openly and thereby make them open to scrutiny, discussion, and 
>refinement. I would suggest that's the derivation of the stance that the 
>plants present pre-European settlement are native and anything after is 
>not. Scientists noticed what they perceived to be a problem and had to 
>come up with a starting point. Part of these emails have been about 
>discussing and scrutinizing that pre-European settlement judgment.
>
>I'll end with this - it's important to remember than nobody can impose 
>their value judgment on you. We each have the power to listen or not. 
>Agree or not. We have the power to not let other peoples' opinions affect 
>us if we so choose. I think those of us who think invasive exotics are bad 
>should always be open to the opposing opinion and always question if what 
>we are doing is what's best; I think the folks with the invasives aren't 
>bad opinion should know that you are going up against a far greater number 
>of people who do not share your view. It will take good scientific support 
>to change such a widely accepted opinion. If you can prove something 
>different than what I see out there every day, I'll put down my roundup.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Karen Adair
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>
>From: apwg-bounces at lists.plantconservation.org on behalf of Gena Fleming
>Sent: Wed 3/5/2008 5:32 PM
>To: Bob Beyfuss
>Cc: apwg at lists.plantconservation.org
>Subject: Re: [APWG] Altering is too kind, destroy not strong enough
>
>
>
>Hi:
>
>I really appreciate this contribution from Bob.  He said it all so
>well, but  I would like to add some comments too, all in the
>affirmative.    In the sake of brevity, I'm summarizing his points,
>not always exact quotes.  Hope that's o.k. (his full text is below).
>
>a) Re: ecosystem = interactive system:.  Yes, it is.  And that's why
>ecosystems are constantly changing.  That's part of their resilience.
>It is the integrity of the ecosystem itself that we should be
>safeguarding, not just select plants.
>
>b)  Re:  It's possible to destroy an ecosystem by bulldozing, etc.
>Yes.  But genetic engineering involves the actual invasion and
>deconstruction of DNA code.  This is a type of compromise to the
>integrity of the ecosystem that can hybridize, mutate, interact with
>pollinators, soil fertility, in all kinds of unpredictable ways.
>These plants don't look different from other plants, so aerial photos
>are going to be no help at all in detecting them.  This is
>deconstruction of ancestral heritage.  What's at risk is the integrity
>of the entire system, not just a habitat.
>
>c)  Re:  definition of "destroy" = "to reduce (an object) to useless
>fragments, a useless form or remains" .  Yes, and relevant to this,
>genetic engineering is cutting and pasting the DNA code between genera
>and kingdoms.  That's destruction through fragmentation and introduces
>chaos, undermining the very organizational foundations of life.
>
>d) Re:  many of the most hated exotics provide profound ecological
>benefits...:  Yes, they do.  That's why they're there.  A living
>system is an intelligent system and it tries to self heal.  In fact,
>iff we were more botanically literate, we would understand that many
>of these plants are also incredibly useful to us in other ways--- in
>terms of animal feed, medicine, etc.  We would be harvesting them and
>worried about running them into extinction.  However, since we rely so
>heavily on established industries, petrochemicals for fuel, drugs,
>etc., we are doing little to harvest these valuable plants for our own
>benefit.
>
>e) RE: "Efforts and resources aimed at eradicating plants that alter
>ecosystems detract from efforts and resources that might be focused on
>activities that actually do "destroy" ecosystems."    Yes!  Herbicides
>and even the introduction of biologic predators  are quite harmful.
>And we are being distracted from bigger threats.  Genetic engineering
>is posing a real threat, not to just certain plants, but to the
>integrity of the ecosystem itself.   I believe our concern about
>invasive species would be better placed here.
>
>f) RE;  "language affects tactics" "Our culture in America teaches to
>hate our enemies" etc.  Yes! Yes! Yes!  The war paradigm is everywhere
>in everything.  It is in the video games, in the movies, in our
>strategies, in our rules for effective composition, in our rules for
>intelligent "debate", in our sports, in our "problem solving"
>strategies,  etc. etc.
>
>Why are we worried about TAKS scores when our children all over our
>country (and now other countries too) are walking into school armed to
>the gills, and shooting one another and then themselves.  These are
>the problem-solving tactics we have taught them.   And they are taking
>it literally.  The subconscious mind tends to do that.
>
>
>So, if we can just put down that Round-up can for a moment.... that's
>right..... just back up slowly now.... easy. . .  nobody needs to get
>hurt here . . .
>
>: )
>
>best regards,
>
>Gena Fleming
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On 05/03/2008, Bob Beyfuss <rlb14 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> >
> > This is an interesting topic for discussion and it seems to have 
> awakened many readers on this listserve. I do think that language matters 
> in discussions and I think that thoughtful discussions may prevent rash 
> actions that end up doing more harm than good.
> >
> > The term ecosystem was coined in 1930 by Roy Clapham, to denote the 
> physical and biological components of an environment considered in 
> relation to each other as a unit. British ecologist Arthur Tansley later 
> refined the term, describing it as the interactive system established 
> between biocoenosis (a group of living creatures) and their biotope (the 
> environment in which they live).
> >
> > It certainly is possible to "destroy" an ecosystem by bulldozing and 
> paving it over, thus removing the living components.  When a Utility 
> company blows the top off a mountain in West Virginia to mine coal, I 
> would say that the Mt top ecosystem has been destroyed. If left alone, 
> i.e. not paved over, a new ecosystem will arise. That new ecosystem may 
> consist mostly of exotic plants. I don't think any ecosystem is destroyed 
> when  living organism such as plants are introduced. I also believe that 
> humans are integral parts of ecosystems. The ecosystem is changed or 
> altered when exotic plants are introduced but ecosystems are never static 
> to begin with and are constantly changing. Environmental changes (man 
> made or not) dictate that different life forms will be favored at the 
> expense of others.
> >
> > Efforts and resources aimed at eradicating plants that alter ecosystems 
> detract from efforts and resources that might be focused on activities 
> that actually do "destroy" ecosystems. There is an important distinction 
> here. We can only fight so many battles at one time, the tricky part is 
> deciding where to fight and how much one is willing to spend on the fight.
> >
> > Please see my comments below following Phillips accurately quoted 
> definitions of "destroy".
> >
> > tto reduce (an object) to useless fragments, a useless form, or 
> remains...(I contend that no plant can render an ecosystem as useless. 
> Useless to who? to what? Many of the most hated invasive, exotic plants 
> such as Tatarian honeysuckle, Autumn olive, multiflora rose, etc provide 
> profound ecological benefits to native wildlife. The 50+ species of 
> wildlife that feed on these and other invasive plants would not consider 
> it useless at all.)  As for fragmentation, we build roads into pristine 
> environments literally "destroying" parts of that ecosystem with 
> blacktop, truthfully fragmenting those ecosystems into pieces that needed 
> to stay connected to function as they once did and when the roadsides are 
> colonized by exotic plants we blame them for the ecological damage?
> >
> > 2. to put an end to; extinguish (since ecosystems are comprised of 
> living organisms integrating with the environment, unless the living 
> things are all killed by paving, the ecosystem can never be extinguished 
> by invasive plants)
> >
> > 3. to kill; slay (invasive plants don't kill all the existing plants, 
> some allelopathic invasive plants may actually kill some species of 
> existing plants but never will they kill the entire living components of 
> any ecosystem)
> >
> > 4. to render ineffective or useless; nullify; neutralize; invalidate ( 
> see definition # 1)
> >
> > 5. to defeat completely ( I do not see how an ecosystem, can be 
> defeated as one might defeat an opponent in a football game, i.e. we 
> destroyed those guys!)
> >
> > 6. to engage in destroying things
> >
> > The value judgments implied by language that concern me are when 
> someone decides that a plant is good or bad based entirely on the origin 
> of the plant and then tries to impose those values on me!
> > People who are allergic to poison ivy or oak may very well hate the 
> plant. They have the right to eradicate it if they want on their property 
> but those people who are not allergic and who appreciate the value of 
> poison ivy as food for wildlife or its pretty fall color have a right not 
> to have someone else come onto their property to eradicate it.
> >
> > Although seemingly unrelated, a couple of recent posts to this 
> listserve are really relevant to this discussion. It is highly likely 
> that Thomas Jefferson would be appalled to see the current efforts to 
> eradicate periwinkle from his estate in Monticello simply because it is 
> exotic. Hating anything because of its ancestry is not something I 
> condone. Especially when "nativeness" is so arbitrarily defined as "prior 
> to 1750". The plant resulting from a bird flying north from Mexico 
> depositing a seed in California in 1749 is "native' but if that same bird 
> deposited the same seed in 1750 or 1760 , what results is an "exotic" 
> plant?  The "definitions" of "native" and "exotic" imposed by the Clinton 
> administration in the 1990's are so arbitrary as to render them 
> completely indefensible.
> >
> > Language affects tactics. Our culture in America today teaches us to 
> hate our enemies . We engage in a war on "terror" as if terror were some 
> sort of specific entity. Now we are encouraged to engage in a war on 
> "alien,  invasive exotic plants" Emotional language elicits emotional 
> responses. It is hard not to hate  "exotic, invasive aliens that are 
> destroying our ecosystems". The natural response is to kill them off but 
> we have no idea what will follow when we have killed all the bad guys. We 
> do know that killing off the bad guys is expensive in terms of resources 
> used and does not necessarily result in the outcome we desire.
> >
> > I show students a slide of a patch of the invasive, exotic, garlic 
> mustard growing on the edge of a forest I walk in. I ask the students 
> what they would do when seeing this on their property. Some say, just 
> spray it with herbicide to get rid of it. I then show them a slide of the 
> same patch of garlic mustard where I have pushed the foliage aside with a 
> stick to reveal the rare trilliums growing beneath it.  The herbicide 
> spray would surely have dripped down and killed of the native perennial 
> trillium forever since this plant rarely reproduces by seeds but the 
> biennial garlic mustard would come back even more vigorously due to its 
> huge soil seed bank. In this case the garlic mustard is actually 
> protecting the trillium from the ravages of the oversized local deer 
> population which have eaten all the other trillium in this forest that 
> are not protected by the weeds the deer do not eat. This issue was also 
> touched on by a recent post regarding the periwinkle extermination in Mo!
>  nticello urging caution when eradicating anything.
> >
> >
> > At 02:55 AM 3/5/2008, Philip Thomas (www.HEAR.org) wrote:
> >
> > If we're going to talk semantics, let's be sure and get it right.  See 
> below* for my Webster's definitions for "destroy."
> >
> > Not one of the definitions states or implies anything about anything 
> being "bad."
> >
> > However, definition 2 is certainly applicable, with respect to the 
> native ecosystems (if the native ecosystem is "replaced," as you suggest).
> >
> > Definitions 2 and 4 also apply, if "use(fulness)" includes the 
> sustenance of native species or systems.
> >
> > pt at hear.org
> >
> >
> > *1. to reduce (an object) to useless fragments, a useless form, or 
> remains...
> >
> > 2. to put an end to; extinguish
> >
> > 3. to kill; slay
> >
> > 4. to render ineffective or useless; nullify; neutralize; invalidate
> >
> > 5. to defeat completely
> >
> > 6. to engage in destroying things
> >
> > Now
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bob Beyfuss <rlb14 at cornell.edu>
> > To: Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company <Craig at astreet.com>; 
> apwg at lists.plantconservation.org
> > Sent: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 4:22 pm
> > Subject: Re: [APWG] Altering is too kind, destroy not strong enough
> > Hi Craig and all,
> > Replaced is the correct term.
> > Destroying implies a value judgment that the invasive plants are "bad" and
> > the plants that they are replacing are "good". In science there are no
> > "good" or "bad" plants as there are no "good" or "bad" ecosystems. Nature
> > lovers may not like or may not find attractive the ecosystems that occur,
> > for example, in a vacant lot in an inner city but that does not make those
> > ecosystems "bad'. There are particular ecosystems that humans want to
> > protect for many reasons and that is fine but these are human value
> > judgements. If a scientist studying any particular ecosystem did not know
> > ahead of time that it was dominated by invasive, exotic plants, it would be
> > impossible for he or she to determine if the plants present on site were
> > native or exotic based on the biology of the plants and their
> > interactions.  Let me cite a real life example to make my point. A few
> > weeks ago a client called me looking for information on how to eradicate
> > invasive, Asiatic bittersweet that she had found on her property.  I asked
> > her if she was certain that it was the Asiatic variety and not the native
> > bittersweet. She replied that she no idea how to distinguish them. I asked
> > her if it turned out that the bittersweet on her property were the native
> > variety, would she still want to eradicate it? Her answer was "of course
> > not". Her only criteria for wanting to eradicate the plant was the
> > supposition that it was exotic. In my mind that is not a good reason to
> > eradicate anything, especaill\y when there are no guarantees that the
> > plants eradicated will not be replaced by something even less desirable.
> > When science is reduced  to name calling to provoke an emotional response,
> > it is not science.
> > Bob
> >
> >
> >
> > At 03:13 PM 3/4/2008, Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dear All,
> >
> >
> >
> > I am very surpised to read the discussions on the semantics, of what to
> >
> > call exotic plants and their impacts on local native ecosystems.
> >
> >
> >
> > I can only speak from the California perspective, where 99% of the
> >
> > understory of our native ecosystems between 2 and 2,000 feet elevation,
> >
> > have been replaced by over 1,000 species of exotic plants.
> >
> >
> >
> > What do you call that effect, using words that express such a complete
> >
> > extermination of native ecosystems, within only 150 years or less?
> >
> >
> >
> > Ecosystem genocide?  Permanent native vegetation extinction, continuing
> >
> > through geologic time?
> >
> >
> >
> > Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
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> >
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> > --
> >
> > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> >
> >     Philip Thomas        Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project (HEAR)
> >      pt at hear.org         P.O. Box 1272, Puunene, Hawaii  96784  USA
> >                                   http://www.hear.org/
> >
> > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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>
>
>
>--
>Gena Fleming, MS, LAc
>www.plantbyplant.com
>
>
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