[APWG] NYT opinion--exotics are good, and are we immigrant bashers?

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear All,

I am forwarding this from another alien-list server, with my comments above.
As predicted, here is another one of these “Exotics are good for you and
good for the environment too” stories.

Maybe this was a day-late April Fool’s joke?  When I see these stories, it
is like they are saying,--Just go to sleep and don’t worry about the
exotics, or if you continue to be concerned, we are going to label you as
“Anti-immigrant”.

Hopefully this results in some informative letters to the editor?

 Sincerely,  Craig Dremann


   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/opinion/03Raffles.html

   Mother Nature’s Melting Pot

 By HUGH RAFFLES

 Published: April 2, 2011

   The anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping the country, from draconian laws
in Arizona to armed militias along the Mexican border, has taken many
Americans by surprise. It shouldn’t -- nativism runs deep in the United
States. Just ask our non-native animals and plants: they too are
commonly labeled as aliens, even though they also provide significant
benefits to their new home.

   While the vanguard of the anti-immigrant crusade is found among the
likes of the Minutemen and the Tea Party, the native species movement
is led by environmentalists, conservationists and gardeners. Despite
cultural and political differences, both are motivated -- in Margaret
Thatcher’s infamous phrase -- by the fear of being swamped by aliens.

   But just as America is a nation built by waves of immigrants, our
natural landscape is a shifting mosaic of plant and animal life. Like
humans, plants and animals travel, often in ways beyond our knowledge
and control. They arrive unannounced, encounter unfamiliar conditions
and proceed to remake each other and their surroundings.

   Designating some as native and others as alien denies this ecological
and genetic dynamism. It draws an arbitrary historical line based as
much on aesthetics, morality and politics as on science, a line that
creates a mythic time of purity before places were polluted by
interlopers.

   What’s more, many of the species we now think of as natives may not be
especially well suited to being here. They might be, in an ecological
sense, temporary residents, no matter how permanent they seem to us.

   These ‘native’ species can have serious effects on their environment.
Take the mountain pine beetle: thanks to climate change, its population
is exploding in the West, devastating hundreds of thousands of square
miles of forest.

   It’s true that some non-native species have brought with them expensive
and well-publicized problems; zebra mussels, nutria and kudzu are prime
examples. But even these notorious villains have ecological or economic
benefits. Zebra mussels,  for example, significantly improve water
quality, which increases populations of small fish, invertebrates and
seaweeds -- and that, in turn, has helped expand the number of larger
fish and birds.

   Indeed, non-native plants and animals have transformed the American
landscape in unmistakably positive ways. Honeybees were introduced from
Europe in the 1600s, and new stocks from elsewhere in the world have
landed at least eight times since. They succeeded in making themselves
indispensable, economically and symbolically. In the process, they made
us grateful that they arrived, stayed and found their place.

   But the honeybee is a lucky exception. Today, a species’s immigration
status often makes it a target for eradication, no matter its effect on
the environment. Eucalyptus trees, charged with everything from
suffocating birds with their resin to elevating fire risk with their
peeling bark, are the targets of large-scale felling.

   Yet eucalyptuses are not only majestic trees popular with picnickers,
they are one of the few sources of nectar available to northern
Californian bees in winter and a vital destination for migrating
monarch butterflies.

   Or take ice plant, a much-vilified Old World succulent that spreads its
thick, candy-colored carpet along the California coast. Concerned that
it is crowding out native wildflowers, legions of environmental
volunteers rip it from the sandy soil and pile it in slowly moldering
heaps along the cliffs.

   Yet ice plant, introduced to the West Coast at the beginning of the
20th century to stabilize railroad tracks, is an attractive plant that
can also deter erosion of the sandstone bluffs on which it grows.

   There are plenty of less controversial examples. Non-native shad,
crayfish and mud snails provide food for salmon and other fish.
Non-native oysters on the Pacific Coast build reefs that create habitat
for crab, mussels and small fish, appearing to increase these animals’
populations.

   And in any case, efforts to restore ecosystems to an imagined pristine
state almost always fail: once a species begins to thrive in a new
environment, there’s little we can do to stop it. Indeed, these efforts
are often expensive and can increase rather than relieve environmental
harm.

   An alternative is to embrace the impurity of our cosmopolitan natural
world and, as some biologists are now arguing, to consider the many
ways that non-native plants and animals -- not just the natives --
benefit their environments and our lives.

   Last month, along with 161 other immigrants from more than 50
countries, I attended an oath-swearing ceremony in Lower Manhattan and
became a citizen of the United States. In a brief speech welcoming us
into a world of new rights and responsibilities, the presiding judge
emphasized our diversity. It is, he said, the ever-shifting diversity
that immigrants like us bring to this country that keeps it dynamic and
strong.

   These familiar words apply just as meaningfully to our nation’s
non-native plants and animals. Like the humans with whose lives they
are so entangled, they too are in need of a thoughtful and inclusive
response.

   Hugh Raffles, an anthropologist at the New School, is the author of
‘Insectopedia.’