[PCA] TV: David Mizejewski on the Today Show
Sara Tangren
satangren at chesapeakenatives.com
Tue Sep 28 17:58:39 CDT 2004
Dear Colleagues,
I am volunteering on a committee in the Chesapeake Watershed that is
presently writing guidelines for conservation landscaping. I would
appreciate your input between now and October 19th, at which time I
will make my final recommendations to the committee.
People are going to garden. So many people are asking the question is
there any environmental benefit to gardening with natives? But the
question we really need to ask is would it be better for people to
garden with natives than with aliens? Here in the DC metro area the
garden aliens have escaped into the parks and along the roadsides and
now even back into the furthermost recesses of our farm lands, woods
and wetlands. Everywhere we look we see old garden favorites and fewer
and fewer natives. Each year the situation is noticeably worse. Where
the damage is not directly due to garden escapes, it is due to diseases
or insects that were imported with alien garden plants. Now we are
facing the very real threat of losing the entire Eastern Deciduous
Forest to sudden oak death. It seems to me that this hemorraghing
could be slowed if people were gardening with real, local, native
plants. Then at least garden escapes would not be the harbingers of
new invasions.
I do not understand the argument that if we garden with natives, then
20 years from now some botanist will not be able to tell if a native
plant population is a garden escape or naturally occurring population.
If we don't turn this invasive plant situation around fast, our
hypothetical botanist will have a hard time finding a native plant
population at all. Perhaps because I live in the
DC-Baltimore-Annapolis metro area, I see this as a three alarm fire.
It's past time to sound the alarm.
One of the questions we face on the committee is in the definition of
native plant. To me the definition that seems most defendable is a
plant that occurred within the local region at the time the Europeans
began to explore the Western hemisphere. To me this is practical
because it precedes species introductions by European settlers, and it
dates back to the first written botanical records. Does anyone have an
argument for or against this definition? If you argue that the date
should be the arrival of humans (Native Americans) as they immigrated
from the west, or the previous ice age, how do you propose we make
determinations of what is and isn't native based on that date, given
that there are no records? Why do you feel that date is more
appropriate, or is it just that it is not less appropriate than the
date of the first European explorers? If anyone has a reference for a
thought out discussion on this topic, please pass it on.
Another question is whether or not a cultivar obtained from a native
species is to be considered a native plant. My thoughts are that while
a few cultivars are really direct clones of wild species, most
cultivars have been "improved" in some way that separates them from the
original species. In either case, the cultivars are clones and do not
have the same genetic diversity that wild plants do. I would prefer to
see gardeners start working with direct descendants of local ecotype
stock, so that even our gardens contain some genetic diversity. The
issue and the usual objection I encounter is that local ecotype
material is not commercially available. Anybody got any thoughts or
references on the cultivar topic?
And this brings me to the next question, which is whether we should
garden with native species that are locally rare. I think not. I
particularly hate to see folks gardening with cultivars of species that
are rare in our area. Some plants that are rare to our area are so
beautiful and so compelling that they are hard to resist. Examples are
red turtlehead, false blue indigo and wild lupine. I think most of you
will agree that we should not garden with locally rare species, but I
could use a reference or two of refereed research articles that have
documented damage to the genetic composition of wild populations as a
result of such activities. So pass them along if you have them...
Thanks for your time.
Sara
Sara Tangren, Ph.D.
Chesapeake Native Nursery
Mailing Address Only: 326 Boyd Ave. #2, Takoma Park, MD 20912
Phone 301 580 6237
Fax 301 270 4534
On Jul 19, 2004, at 6:29 PM, Ed Guerrant wrote:
> Hi All,
> Great conversation! The devil (or angel?) is, of course, in
> the details.
> I'd like to take a step back and think about what it means for
> something to have 'conservation' value. The various points of view
> represented so far might not be as far apart as it seems they might
> be. I see in this discussion at least two different conservation
> values being expressed. One is more biological/ecological, and has to
> do with whether the particular native plants in home gardens must
> directly (and positively) contribute to the genetic continuity of the
> species in question: if it doesn't reduce the extinction risk and/or
> enhance 'genetic connectedness' of wild populations, it's not
> conservation. Another 'conservation value' is more social, and thus
> contributes what is perhaps a more indirect (but not necessarily any
> less real or valuable) benefit to the genetic continuity of the
> species in question. Gardening with natives helps (in my opinion) a
> wider public begin to see value in native species that is not found in
> non native species or horticultural varieties. Ultimately, our
> success in conserving wild species (and by extension the habitats on
> which they ultimately depend) rests very much on the degree to which
> our society values native species. If we as a society feel that it is
> important to conserve biodiversity, I think we have a fighting
> chance. If society at large doesn't value biodiversity, then there is
> precious little we as conservationists can do to significantly slow
> the loss now underway.
> The gardening with natives phenomenon is potentially of great
> value in getting more folks interested in conserving wild diversity,
> thus moving society to allocate more resources toward that end.
> Nevertheless, and getting back to details, gardening with natives in
> inappropriate ways (what are they, and who gets to make the call?) can
> have serious negative impacts on the genetic integrity of wild
> populations.
>
> Cheers, Ed
>
>
> At 05:29 PM 7/16/2004 -0400, Bruce Sorrie wrote:
>
> Grinches all - I completely agree with Robert, and have thought the
> same way for many years. Although backyard gardeners may make a small
> difference with local wildlife populations (mostly suburban bird
> species, which are common), I doubt that gardeners can significantly
> impact "wilder" species. Additionally, there are particularly knotty
> problems with planting native flora in backyards, as Robert has
> pointed to - how is a 22nd century botanist to know that a woodlot
> population is naturally-occurring or originally planted in a nearby
> yard?
> To those who suggest that planting additional pops of plants or
> captive breeding of animals is a remedy for declining flora and fauna,
> I say think carefully before you act. Don't misconstrue my message -
> I applaud efforts to prevent the extinction of species and of disjunct
> and peripheral populations. No one can say that we'd be better off
> without them in the gene pool. But backyard gardening and wildlife
> plantings are not comparable to preserving genetic diversity of
> threatened species.
> My biggest knock against the practice is the notion that
> "wildlife garden" plants and animals have equal value, or nearly equal
> value, as truly wild ones. As any zoo animal or potted plant knows,
> to be a real member of a species you must live in natural habitat.
>
> Bruce A. Sorrie
> North Carolina
>
>
>
> Robert Dana wrote:
>
>
>
> Call me a grinch, but I'm having a hard time understanding why
> anyone
> thinks that gardening has much to do with conservation. Most gardens
> will last only so long as people keep them going--without continuing
> maintenance they will quickly be taken over by the numerous exotic
> "weeds" that are so comfortable in human-dominated landscapes.
> In their
> often naive enthusiasm (abetted by commercial vendors) folks are
> planting "natives" helter skelter, even well outside their
> natural
> ranges. This creates problems for us trying to conserve the plants
> where
> they naturally occur as it becomes more difficult to deal with the
> challenge of demonstrating that the occurrence is really natural
> and
> not a garden escape (or an intentional planting). There is also the
> specious challenge that since we can plant things why worry about
> conserving natural habitats anyway. People rarely have any idea what a
> tiny fraction of the species richness of n
> atural communities is present
> in gardens (or "restorations"). In my view, the whole wildlife
> gardening
> business just diverts energy from what we really need to be doing for
> conservation.
>
> I'll be interested to see whether these issues get any discussion in
> the book.
>
> Oh, good luck, Dave!
>
> Robert
>
> *************************************************************
> Robert Dana, Ph.D.
> MN DNR
> Natural Heritage and Nongame Research Program
> 500 Lafayette Rd, Box 25
> St. Paul, MN 55155
> 651 297-2367
> Email:
> robert.dana at dnr.state.mn.us
> *************************************************************
>
>
>
>
> Plant Conservation
> <plant at plantconservation.org>
> 7/16/04 10:40:07
>
>
>
> AM >>>
> Just FYI.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 11:39:55 -0400
> From: David Mizejewski <mizejewski at nwf.org>
> To: David Mizejewski <Mizejewski at nwf.org>
> Subject: Today Show this weekend
>
> Dear Friends and Colleagues - I wanted to let you know that I'm going
> to
> be making my debut on national television this weekend. I'll be
> appearing on the weekend edition of the Today Show this Sunday (7/18)
> between 8:30-9 a.m. to promote my book and National Wildlife
> Federation's Backyard Wildlife Habitat program.
>
> The book is called "Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard
> Wildlife." It's all about sustainable gardening, native plants, and
> of
> course all of the cool critters (not just birds and butterflies) that
>
> can share your yard. Check it out on NWF's bookstore at the URL below
> (it's also available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble).
>
> https://m1.buysub.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?
> catalogId=10701&storeId=10701&productId=14713&langId=
> -1&parentCategoryId=10067&topCategoryId=10066
>
>
> Wish me luck!
>
> Dave
>
>
> ******************************************
> Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program
> ******************************************
> David Mizejewski
> National Wildlife Federation
> 11100 Wildlife Center Drive
> Reston, VA 20190
> (703) 438-6499
> fax 703-438-6468
> www.nwf.org/backyardwildlifehabitat
>
>
>
> ___
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>
> --
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Bruce A. Sorrie
> North Carolina Natural Heritage Program
> 3076 Niagara-Carthage Rd.
> Whispering Pines, NC 28327
> 910-949-2625
> bsorrie at earthlink.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> Ed Guerrant PhD, Conservation Director, The Berry Botanic Garden,
> 11505 SW Summerville Ave., Portland, OR 97219-8309.
> phone (503) 636-4112 x 29, FAX (503) 636-7496, e-mail
> ed.guerrant at berrybot.org
> Visit our website at: www.berrybot.org
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