Aren't we a nation of colonizing immigrants? #phenology

Ditches and roadside fields have erupted with ox-eye daisies and dame's rocket this past week and those are just the locations we could see as we drove past. Each of those plants are listed as nonnative and invasive, although we admit to being intrigued that the ox-eye is listed as a terrestrial invasive plant by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources while the dame's rocket isn't.

Minnesota has an Invasive Species Council that asserts:

An "invasive species" is defined as a species that is:

1) nonnative to the ecosystem under consideration

2) whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. (Executive Order 13112).

The Minnesota definition is a much abbreviated version of the language in the (linked) federal Executive Order. As near as we can tell, there's no allowance in the language for benefits that could be provided by nonnative species. We think that's unfortunate and would suggest we need a process similar to that used for assessing endangered species be used to declare a species invasive.

Leucanthemum vulgare (Ox-eye Daisy) [white]
Lotus corniculatus (Birds-foot Trefoil) [yellow]

Photo by J. Harrington

As an example, consider this, if ox-eye daisies and dame's rocket weren't growing where they are in Minnesota, what would we see? More grasses? Are there any native wildflowers as prolific that grow where these two nonnative, but naturalized, plants grow? Does either of these plants provide benefits to threatened pollinators?

We suspect we are out of the mainstream in our approach to invasive species. Isn't Kentucky blue grass one of the more invasive plants in North America? Does the massive prevalence of monoculture lawns serve any beneficial ecological role? In Minnesota, and similar locations, we're watching boreal forests move further North as their Southern fringes are replaced by deciduous forests. Isle Royal (officially part of Michigan, psychologically closer to Minnesota) is being overrun by moose. Does that make those moose an invasive species on the Isle? We (dis)respectfully suggest we are much too anthropocentric in our definitions and massively too little too late in our approach to respectful and effective stewardship. The activities that continue to bring aquatic invasive species to the Midwest won't be offset by limiting infestations to the Great Lakes, just as addressing buckthorn won't be effective while significant acreages of public (and private) lands serves as reservoirs for reinfestation. Voluntary conservation efforts for invasive species will be about as effective as relying on voluntary compliance with speed limits or vaccinations.

In the 1968 Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand (with whom we often agree and sometimes vehemently disagree) wrote "We are as gods and might as well get good at it." That observation seems eerily prescient in this early Anthropocene era. Looking at the conditions we've created, and the way we're responding, reminds us of another saying, not attributable to Brand, "Don't start vast projects with half-vast ideas." It's too late for the Earth and its inhabitants for us to avoid the first part of that advice. Now it's time for us to improve the half-vast ideas of what we're doing, why and how.

A poet, Marwa Halal, has crafted a book of poems under the title Invasive species, in which she captures some of the complexity we're posting about today. One of those poems is below. Another can be read at the link above.

poem for palm pressed upon pane

i am in the backseat. my father driving. from mansurah to cairo. delta to desert,
heliopolis. a path he has traveled years before i was born. the road has changed but the
fields are same same. biblical green.

hazy green, when i say: this is the most beautiful tree i have ever

seen. and he says, all the trees in masr are the most beautiful. this is how i learn to see.

we planted pines. four in a row. for privacy. for property value. that was

ohio. before new mexico. before, i would make masr

my own. but after my mother tells me to stop       asking her what is wrong

whenever i see her staring
out of the living room window. this is how trauma learns to behave. how i learn to push
against the page. i always give hatem the inside seat.

so he can sleep. on the bus.                             his warm cheek against the cold

window. when i am old enough to be aware of leaving. it is raining hard.

5000 miles away, there is a palm. in a pot. its leaves

pressed. skinny neck bent. a plant seeking light in an animal kingdom.

Marwa Halal

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