Notes from an Environmentalist; "Invasives" in a warming world.

                              “Invasives”

If you drive down the East Coast in spring, you will be surrounded on both sides by the beautiful white blooms of Bradford Pears.

If you take a train down the East Coast and look to your left, all you will see are the towering stalks of phragmites, and the colorful blossoms of purple loosestrife.

All of them are considered to be invasive species and we are being encouraged cut, chop, root up and destroy such non-native species and return the our coast to the natural world we grew up with.

The problem is that the natural world we grew up with has long since disappeared. We are living in the Anthropocene era dominated by global warming caused by human activities.

We can try to eradicate all these non-native species, but it will be a losing battle. Some like phragmites and Loosestrife have been around since colonial times, which begs the question when does an invasion become simply plant succession.

It is also helpful to remember that ninety percent of non-native species are beneficial to both humans and biodiversity, just look at your flower and vegetable garden.

I like to think of such plants not as non-native invasives but immigrants that stand to increase our bio-diversity. Sure some of the introductions will cause problems, mostly for humans, but most will be better adapted to thrive in our warming world.

Rather than try to eradicate every “non-native invasive” we should try to anticipate which species may help maintain and increase biodiversity in our rapidly warming world.