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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. <br><br>
The term ecosystem was coined in
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/1930">1930</a> by
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Roy_Clapham">Roy Clapham</a>,
to denote the physical and biological components of an environment
considered in relation to each other as a unit. British ecologist
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Arthur_Tansley">Arthur
Tansley</a> 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).<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
Please see my comments below following Phillips accurately quoted
definitions of "destroy". <br><br>
*1. to 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? <br><br>
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) <br><br>
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) <br><br>
4. to render ineffective or useless; nullify; neutralize; invalidate (
see definition # 1) <br><br>
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!) <br><br>
6. to engage in destroying things <br><br>
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! <br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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
Monticello urging caution when eradicating anything. <br><br>
At 02:55 AM 3/5/2008, Philip Thomas
(<a href="http://www.hear.org/" eudora="autourl">www.HEAR.org</a>)
wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">If we're going to talk
semantics, let's be sure and get it right. See below* for my
Webster's definitions for "destroy."<br><br>
Not one of the definitions states or implies anything about anything
being "bad."<br><br>
However, definition 2 is certainly applicable, with respect to the native
ecosystems (if the native ecosystem is "replaced," as you
suggest).<br><br>
Definitions 2 and 4 also apply, if "use(fulness)" includes the
sustenance of native species or systems.<br>
<br>
pt@hear.org<br><br>
<br>
*1. to reduce (an object) to useless fragments, a useless form, or
remains...<br><br>
2. to put an end to; extinguish<br><br>
3. to kill; slay<br><br>
4. to render ineffective or useless; nullify; neutralize;
invalidate<br><br>
5. to defeat completely<br><br>
6. to engage in destroying things<br><br>
Now<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Bob Beyfuss <rlb14@cornell.edu><br>
To: Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company <Craig@astreet.com>;
apwg@lists.plantconservation.org<br>
Sent: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 4:22 pm<br>
Subject: Re: [APWG] Altering is too kind, destroy not strong enough<br>
Hi Craig and all,<br>
Replaced is the correct term.<br>
Destroying implies a value judgment that the invasive plants are
"bad" and <br>
the plants that they are replacing are "good". In science there
are no <br>
"good" or "bad" plants as there are no
"good" or "bad" ecosystems. Nature <br>
lovers may not like or may not find attractive the ecosystems that occur,
<br>
for example, in a vacant lot in an inner city but that does not make
those <br>
ecosystems "bad'. There are particular ecosystems that humans want
to <br>
protect for many reasons and that is fine but these are human value <br>
judgements. If a scientist studying any particular ecosystem did not know
<br>
ahead of time that it was dominated by invasive, exotic plants, it would
be <br>
impossible for he or she to determine if the plants present on site were
<br>
native or exotic based on the biology of the plants and their <br>
interactions. Let me cite a real life example to make my point. A
few <br>
weeks ago a client called me looking for information on how to eradicate
<br>
invasive, Asiatic bittersweet that she had found on her property. I
asked <br>
her if she was certain that it was the Asiatic variety and not the native
<br>
bittersweet. She replied that she no idea how to distinguish them. I
asked <br>
her if it turned out that the bittersweet on her property were the native
<br>
variety, would she still want to eradicate it? Her answer was "of
course <br>
not". Her only criteria for wanting to eradicate the plant was the
<br>
supposition that it was exotic. In my mind that is not a good reason to
<br>
eradicate anything, especaill\y when there are no guarantees that the
<br>
plants eradicated will not be replaced by something even less desirable.
<br>
When science is reduced to name calling to provoke an emotional
response, <br>
it is not science.<br>
Bob<br><br>
<br><br>
At 03:13 PM 3/4/2008, Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company
wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Dear All,</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""></blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I am very surpised to read the
discussions on the semantics, of what to</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">call exotic plants and their
impacts on local native ecosystems.</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""></blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I can only speak from the
California perspective, where 99% of the</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">understory of our native
ecosystems between 2 and 2,000 feet elevation,</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">have been replaced by over 1,000
species of exotic plants.</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""></blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">What do you call that effect,
using words that express such a complete</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">extermination of native
ecosystems, within only 150 years or less?</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""></blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Ecosystem genocide?
Permanent native vegetation extinction, continuing</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">through geologic
time?</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""></blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Sincerely, Craig Dremann
(650) 325-7333</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""></blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""></blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
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-- <br><br>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-<br><br>
Philip
Thomas Hawaiian Ecosystems at
Risk project (HEAR)<br>
pt@hear.org P.O. Box
1272, Puunene, Hawaii 96784 USA<br>
<a href="http://www.hear.org/" eudora="autourl">http://www.hear.org/</a>
<br><br>
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