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Hi Craig<br>
I read your article and it is good! I am very pleased to see your
alternative verbiage to the "war" rhetoric. I still do not
understand your bias against all exotic plants. The overwhelming majority
of exotic plants are either harmless or helpful and I see no need to ban
the planting of useful or harmless plants regardless of their origin.
I also don't want or trust the federal government to tell me which
exotic plants are good or bad in all situations, all the time. As you are
well aware some of the most problematic plants in many parts of the U.S.
were deliberately imported by the feds! It is also true that national
policies fail to address specific situations most of the time. A highly
desirable plant, either native or exotic in one place may be the opposite
someplace else. For example striped maple (<i>Acer
pennsylvanicum</i>) is considered a serious weed in many NY forests
whereas it is considered as an endangered native species in Ohio. the
same is true for many species of wildflowers that are native perhaps in
the midwest,. but weeds elsewhere. <br><br>
In terms of Natural Resource management and policy, one federal size does
not fit all. I also question the whole issue of "restoration
ecology". While it may be possible to restore specific plants to any
given area by killing exotics and replanting natives, it is not possible
to restore the entire ecosystem since that ecosystem is comprised not
only of the flora and fauna but also of other elements such as soil
chemistry which has been changed irrecoverably by things like acid rain
and even more importantly, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Carbon
dioxide levels have increased by 50% in the past 50 years or so and since
the establishment and continuation of any plant life is directly affected
by environmental conditions, "restoration" of native plant
species that are ill suited to cope with a different environment seems
somewhat pointless in the large scale. When I hear of the huge amounts of
money that would be needed to "restore" native plant
communities that may be doomed due to soil chemistry or some other
"un-addressed" element in the complex equation, I must question
the logic for the expenditures. <br><br>
I also question the often cited "costs" of invasive plants to
society that are based not on the ecological costs of the weed's presence
but the costs of eradication. If I spend $50 on a brand name herbicide to
eradicate an invasive weed, lets say garlic mustard, along my road and my
neighbor buys the generic equivalent of that herbicide for $25 to do the
same thing, how does one calculate the cost of that weed's
presence? and what if a third neigh spends nothing at all? What is
the garlic mustard actually costing? <br><br>
This is not science. This is pseudo science generated by entities which
make money on "eradication" schemes. <br><br>
Science is complex and the "lumping" together of non desired
imported insects, diseases, weeds, microbes, etc under the general
headline of '"invasive" biology is not biology at all. It
muddies the issues which need specific responses and not some simplistic
strategy such as the often declared, ridiculous "war on
invasives". <br>
Bob<br>
<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I completely agree with your use
of the word "war" in connection with<br>
the word "weeds", and I ghave a talk at the Bureau of Land
Management<br>
2003 "War on Weeds" meeting in Monterey, CA on that
subject.<br><br>
What I suggested at my talk, is that no war on weeds can ever be
won,<br>
and I used the flora that has regrown at Ground Zero at the Trinity<br>
site, the first atomic bomb that was detonated point-blank above the<br>
desert, as an example, at<br>
<a href="http://www.ecoseeds.com/juicy.gossip.fifteen.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ecoseeds.com/juicy.gossip.fifteen.html</a>.<br><br>
If you read that AP article on the four governors and the cheatgrass
at<br>
<a href="http://www.lvrj.com/news/8961792.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.lvrj.com/news/8961792.html</a>, they are blaming a recent
grazing<br>
court decision won by the environmentalists, for all the cheatgrass<br>
infestations they have in their states !<br><br>
The governors can talk all they want, but they don't have any money
to<br>
do anything about the cheatgrass.<br><br>
The cheatgrass mostly infests federal lands in the western States, and
I<br>
didn't see any efforts of the four governors to ask Congress to
start<br>
giving BLM a sufficient annual budget to start converting the
cheatgrass<br>
areas back to native grasses, or any estimate what the necessary
amount<br>
of money is going to be.<br><br>
The ecosystems of the 200 million acres of BLM land in the arid
west,<br>
are extremely degraded, with a lot of empty places for cheatgrass to
get<br>
established where the native grasses have been wiped out, based from
my<br>
1997 survey at <br>
<a href="http://www.ecoseeds.com/megatransect.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ecoseeds.com/megatransect.html</a>.<br><br>
I've estimated that it would cost about twenty billion dollars per
year,<br>
for the next 20 years at least, to get those BLM ecosystems rebuilt
and<br>
to convert the cheatgrass areas. <br><br>
That only totals $2,000 per acre for the 200 million acres, which is
a<br>
really good price for ecological restoration!<br><br>
Furthermore, the cheatgrass AP article talks about the nearly one<br>
million pounds of seeds that BLM already sows out there annually,
but<br>
fails to mention that over 50% of those seeds are perennial exotics,<br>
that permanently damage the ecosystems, perhaps worse than fires,<br>
because once sown in an area, the native species cannot get<br>
re-established.<br><br>
Sincerely, Craig Dremann, Redwood City, CA (650)
325-7333</blockquote></body>
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