September 2020 – Conservation Sense and Nonsense

On November 3rd vote for a friend of the East Bay parks

If you live in Ward 1 of the East Bay Regional Park District, you will have an opportunity to vote for your representative to the Park District’s Board of Directors on November 3rd. Many of the most heavily visited parks in the East Bay–such as Tilden Park, Point Isabel, Point Pinole, Eastshore Park–are in Ward 1. The future of those parks will be in the hands of the Board member who wins this election.

Elizabeth Echols is the incumbent who is running for election. Echols was appointed to the Board by the Board after the unfortunate death of Whitney Dotson.** Dotson had represented Ward 1 with distinction since 2008, after defeating Norman La Force in the race for that seat on the Board. Now Echols must be elected to keep her seat on the Board.*

There was intense competition for the temporary appointment to the Board when Echols was appointed by the Board. Norman La Force asked for the temporary appointment, but was not selected by the Board. La Force has a long track-record that probably explains why the Board did not appoint him:

Norman La Force advocates for the destruction of non-native trees in East Bay Regional Parks and the use of herbicides to eradicate non-native plants and prevent trees from resprouting after they have been destroyed.
As a lawyer and the co-founder and CEO of SPRAWLDEF, Norman La Force has sued East Bay Regional Park District many times to impose his personal vision on the parks. These lawsuits were costly to taxpayers and the Park District and they delayed the implementation of park improvements.
Norman La Force is consistently opposed to many types of recreation. He advocates for parks that prohibit public access.
Norman La Force has an antagonistic attitude toward park visitors who do not share his personal vision.

Norman La Force sued FEMA and the Park District to destroy all non-native trees

East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is thinning non-native trees to mitigate wildfire hazards by reducing fuel loads and FEMA is funding many of these projects. Norman La Force is not satisfied with merely thinning trees. He sued EBRPD and FEMA to force the removal of all non-native trees on 3,500 acres of park land. That lawsuit is available HERE. La Force appealed after losing the lawsuit, but lost again on appeal.

Norman La Force tried to make Sierra Club endorsement of the renewal of a parcel tax to fund the Park District contingent on a commitment to destroy all non-native trees rather than thin them:

“Hence, the Sierra Club believes it is critical that in any renewal of Measure CC funding for vegetation management should be increased for the removal of non-natives such as eucalyptus and their replacement with restored native habitat. If the Park District wants to continue with a program that merely thins the non-native ecualyputs (sic) and other non-native trees, then it must find other funds for those purposes. Future tax money from a renewal of Measure CC funds should not be used to thin eucalyptus but must be allocated to the restoration of native habitat.” La Force’s full letter is available HERE.

Norman LaForce sued the Park District to prevent recreational improvements at Albany Beach

In an op-ed published by Berkeleyside, one of La Force’s many lawsuits against the Park District is described. The lawsuit attempted to prevent the construction of a path with recreational access: “SPRAWLDEF is an acronym for Sustainability, Parks, Recycling and Wildlife Legal Defense Fund. On Jan. 17, [2013] the group, founded by Norman La Force and David Tam, filed a lawsuit against the East Bay Regional Park District, opposing a plan to acquire a small strip of property along the shoreline behind the track to complete a missing link in the Bay Trail between Berkeley and Richmond. The Park District’s Plan would also add some parking to the Albany Beach area, build some wheelchair access to the water’s edge, and expand and protect the dune area behind the beach. There’s something in this lawsuit to alienate just about everyone: Bicyclists and hikers who use the Bay Trail; environmentalists with an interest in dune habitat; kayakers and kiteboarders who launch from the Albany shoreline; the ADA constituency who find beach access generally impossible; and, most of all, dogs and their owners who rely on Albany beach for a place to play in the water. Read the filing. It has all the earmarks of a spoiled child throwing a tantrum because they did not get their way.” Emphasis added.

According to this article in the East Bay Times, the SPRAWLDEF lawsuit to prevent the Albany Beach project was eventually dismissed after two unsuccessful SPRAWLDEF appeals. The Park District’s defense of the project required the preparation of a second, Supplemental EIR. Park District resources were wasted to defend the project against Norman La Force’s frivolous lawsuits.

In response to a public records request, the Park District provided this estimate of the cost of defending the District against La Force’s lawsuits regarding Albany Beach: “In total, we estimate that the attorney’s fees incurred directly as a result of the litigation filed by SPRAWLDEF relating to Albany Beach were between $321,358 and $346,358. In addition, the court ordered the Park District to pay Petitioner SPRAWLDEF $60,587.50 in attorneys’ fees as the prevailing party in the 2013 litigation.” The Park District was forced to waste nearly $400,000 of taxpayers’ money to defend its improvement project at Albany Beach. The project was needlessly delayed by the lawsuits and money that could have been used to improve parks was wasted.

Norman La Force does not want people in the parks

Norman La Force was instrumental in creating the Berkeley Meadow at the foot of University Ave. in Berkeley. The Berkeley Meadow was at one time part of the San Francisco Bay, until it was created with landfill and used as a city dump until the 1960s. Over a period of 5 years at a cost of $6 million “non-native vegetation was scraped away, then the land capped with clean fill and contoured to form naturally filling seasonal ponds.” Then the meadow was planted with native grasses and shrubs to create an “approximation of the historic landscape that might have been present a half mile inland.” The Berkeley Meadow is surrounded by a fence. Public access is restricted to two narrow, fenced trails running diagonally through the 72-acre fenced enclosure. Bicycles and people walking dogs on or off-leash are prohibited on the fenced trails.

The Berkeley Meadow is a 72-acre fenced vacant lot.

Berkeleyside described the Berkeley Meadow and contrasted it with a heavily visited adjacent park, owned by the City of Berkeley: “What you won’t see [in the Berkeley Meadow] is more than a handful of the 2 million annual state park visitors, though this prime spot is just a short bike ride from West Berkeley. The adjacent, city-owned César Chávez Park on the north waterfront gets most of the visitors along its paved trail. But here, only a few hundred yards away, the Meadow, our state park managed by the East Bay Regional Parks District, is an almost wild place, trisected by two wheel-chair accessible paths.” Indeed, the Berkeley Meadow does look wild, much like a vacant lot looks wild.

Norman La Force has a confrontational attitude toward park visitors

In his letter to FEMA objecting to the withdrawal of funding for a tree-removal project that was implemented before being authorized by FEMA, Norman La Force says that those with whom he disagrees are “like climate change deniers.” Ironically, he is defending the unauthorized clear cutting of approximately 150 trees in his letter, actions that contribute to climate change. La Force is actually the “climate change denier” in his accusatory letter. The letter is available HERE.

In an earlier letter to FEMA about the same projects, La Force begins by asking FEMA to ignore those with whom he disagrees: “We urge FEMA to discount the views of any individual or group that uses sophomoric name calling tactics in the press or in their FEMA scoping comments to categorize people or advocacy groups as ‘nativists’ (or other similar pejorative labels)…” The letter is available HERE: FEMA-DEIS for East Bay Hills predisaster mitigation – public comments

When La Force ran for the Ward 1 Board seat in 2008, Berkeley Daily Planet published an op-ed by someone who had observed Norman La Force in action. Here are a few relevant quotes from her op-ed (emphasis added):

“La Force is not only ‘a thorn in the side of park officials,’ he is fiercely aggressive and known for vengeful acts.”
“If La Force is elected, he will threaten the park access of every person who walks a dog, rides a horse, seeks accessible trails, and bikes on the lands of the East Bay Regional Parks. His scientific background is nothing, as he has demonstrated in public hearings many times. He has worked harder to keep humans out of parks than any other “park proponent” I know. He definitely will try to crush any “opponent,” including the disabled, the young and the elderly. Not because they are right or wrong, but because they oppose him. I urge everyone to watch their back if he’s elected.”
“One can have honest debates about how to create urban edge ecosystems that allow both human uses and wild life to thrive together (yes, it can be done beautifully), but Norman’s rigidity will never consider other perspectives or creative solutions.”

Vote for Elizabeth Echols for the Park District Board of Directors

On November 3^rd, please vote for the parks in the East Bay, not against them. Please do not install an enemy of the parks who does not want people or trees in our parks and is willing to spray our parks with herbicide to get the landscape he prefers. When we vote for President of the United States on November 3rd, we must decide who to vote for at the same time we are voting against another candidate. Both decisions are equally important.

The meetings of the Board of Directors of the Park District are open to the public. They are collegial events in which the Board works cooperatively with the staff and the public is treated with respect. The Park District does not deserve to have a “spoiled child throwing a tantrum” imposed on them, especially not someone who has sued them many times to get what he wants. East Bay Regional parks are open to everyone with a wide range of recreational interests. Let’s keep them that way by voting for Elizabeth Echols on November 3^rd.

*Full Disclosure: I have not met Elizabeth Echols. I do not know her. I have not consulted with her about the preparation of this article. I have no reason to believe she would agree with my assessment of her opponent in the race for the Board seat in Ward 1. My recommendation to vote for her is based primarily on the fact that she was selected by the Board for her temporary appointment to the Board, which suggests that she is supported by the Board and Park District staff. I have read her credentials on her candidacy website and I have watched her participation in Board meetings since she was appointed to the Board. This limited information about her gives me confidence that she will represent Ward 1 well.

**Update: I have been informed that Elizabeth Echols was appointed to the Board after Whitney Dotson retired and that Mr. Dotson died about 2 weeks after Ms. Echols was appointed. September 30, 2020

Update: East Bay Times endorsed Elizabeth Echols for the seat on the Board of East Bay Regional Park District to represent Ward 1. Their explanation for their endorsement is half praise for Echols and half condemnation of Norman La Force. The article is behind a paywall, so here are a few quotes: “In approach, she and her opponent, attorney and former El Cerrito Councilman Norman La Force, couldn’t be more different. At the park district, La Force is best known as the guy who files legal challenges. La Force claims in his campaign material that he led the Sierra Club campaign to have the district purchase more land to double the size of the Point Isabel Dog Park, perhaps the East Bay’s most popular escape for canine owners. Actually, when the park at Point Isabel was expanded in the early 2000s, La Force sought to block dog access to the new area.”

After explaining some of the many lawsuits La Force has filed against the Park District, East Bay Times concludes, “Now, La Force says, he wants to join the board so he can change the park district from the inside and lead it in a different direction. But we’re quite happy with the district’s current direction. Echols is the candidate who will keep it on track.” September 30, 2020

Update: Tom Butt, the Mayor of Richmond, has endorsed Elizabeth Echols for the seat on the Board of the Park District. In his newsletter, he explains why he has endorsed Echols:

“The editorial in the East Bay Times at the bottom of this email recommends Elizabeth Echols for the District that includes Richmond. I agree that Echols is the only reasonable choice for this position. Echols is opposed by a really bad candidate, Norman La Force, who is no friend of Richmond.”

Mayor Butt explains why La Force is persona non grata in Richmond in his newsletter to the people of Richmond:

“In 2010, Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP) entered into a litigation settlement agreement with Upstream Point Molate, the prospective developer of the gigantic and sprawling Point Molate Casino, including parking garages for over 7,500 vehicles. The settlement agreement that LaForce negotiated traded unqualified early support of the casino for tens of millions of dollars targeted for acquisition of open space at other locations. At the time, LaForce was a founding member of the CESP board. He was able to get other environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club to support the settlement terms in exchange for sharing the settlement proceeds. See Contra Costa County Case No. MSN09-0080”

Mayor Butt explains why the Sierra Club backed the agreement with casino developers, according to Richmond Confidential: “The plan for the casino has made strange bedfellows over the years it’s been debated. Some environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, have backed the plan to develop Point Molate as a massive gaming resort complex because the plan would fund extra protections for native habitats and the removal of invasive plant species.”

Mayor Butt describes the casino project in his newsletter. Does this project sound like it protects the environment? “The project includes a 4,000-slot machine casino, 1,100 hotel rooms, a convention center, a performing arts center, entertainment venues, retail space, a tribal government center and tribal housing. Under the agreement, three-fourths of the 412-acre site would be preserved as open space. The tribe has agreed to restore and protect natural habitat and to provide a continuous shoreline trail that would be a new addition to the Bay Trail.”

Mayor Butt concludes, “La Force has proven himself as someone who would sell out Richmond in a heartbeat.” September 30, 2020. Posted October 3, 2020.

Update: Berkeleyside has published 4 op-eds about the race for a seat on the Board of East Bay Regional Park District. Here, in the order in which they were published:

Although the op-eds are instructive, the comments on the op-eds are far more revealing. Many influential stakeholders in land use decisions in the East Bay have stepped forward to tell us about their personal experiences with Norman La Force during specific land use policy debates, going back decades. It isn’t a pretty picture. The few who defend La Force appreciate his confrontational style of civic engagement and they applaud lawsuits as a means to get what they want.

The debates on these op-eds are a window into the Bay Area community of “environmentalists.” It is an extreme version of environmentalism that believes the purpose of urban public parks is to provide protected reserves for native plants and animals. It’s a misanthropic approach that opposes all new housing and views humans as intruders in nature.

Added October 28, 2020

Observations of the Blue Ridge Naturalist

I’ve been a nature writer/photographer in Crozet, Virginia, for more than 25 years. My freelance articles have been published in numerous national and state magazines and newspapers, and I’ve written nature columns for many newspapers, as well as Virginia Wildlife, the magazine of our state wildlife department. My yard was featured on Virginia PBS stations in 1994 and again in 2005, and is the basis of my book, The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books, 2006). In all of these venues, I discussed nonnative plants, including some considered “invasive”, without suffering much, if indeed any, blowback.

Home of Marlene Condon in Crozet, Virginia. Photo credit Marlene Condon

However, over the past quarter century, there has been more-and-more of a push by native-plant societies to get government entities and environmental groups to rid the natural world of so-called invasive plants, including even native plants considered “thugs” because their growth is exuberant. Because I was concerned about the destruction of habitat and the often-extensive use of pesticides to accomplish their mission, I started writing explicitly about this movement, as in the article below.

After the publication of this article last year, nativists mounted a smear campaign against me personally, a sure sign of how weak their invasive-plant arguments are. The lead writer never even publicly disclosed her affiliation with the Blue Ridge PRISM, a group “targeting common invasive plants in the Blue Ridge”, which would have allowed readers to question whether her comments about me were suspect. My editor certainly was duped, placing a headline of “Blue Ridge Naturalist–NOT!” over their comments. And perhaps not coincidentally, shortly thereafter, he fired me, even though I’d written for–and received high praise from–him for 11 years.

Since then, I’ve found it virtually impossible to write openly about any nonnative plants. Media and environmental groups are cowed by these people, thanks to their numbers and involvement with various organizations and governments (local, state, and federal). Sadly, this movement is highly detrimental to our natural world that is already in very bad shape and can hardly withstand yet more negative impacts upon it. Folks who understand the senselessness of destroying functioning habitat and poisoning the Earth with pesticides must speak out publicly for the benefit of nature.

Marlene Condon, Blue Ridge Naturalist

FEBRUARY 2019
The Blue Ridge Naturalist
© Marlene A. Condon

Bees and other kinds of insects obtain nourishment from the blooms of Weigela, a spring-blooming shrub native to Asia. Photo credit Marlene Condon

Ecologists Recognizing Value of Alien Plants

Scientists are either waking up to what I’ve been saying for years, or finally becoming brave enough to speak out against the wide-spread invasive-plant movement. In an opinion piece signed by 19 ecologists in the journal Nature, they argue that “policy and management decisions must take into account the positive effects of many invaders.”

Recognizing that “It is impractical to try to restore ecosystems to some ‘rightful’ historical state”, they go on to point out that eradicating or drastically reducing the abundance of invasive plants is “an impossible goal.”

Critical thinking is a must for deciding invasive-plant policy to avoid harming wildlife and wasting millions in tax dollars. A situation in California illustrates the foolishness of blindly pushing an agenda without giving any thought to the real-world consequences of doing so.

In the name of “saving” the environment from so-called invasive plants, a movement has sprung up to remove Eucalypt (Eucalyptus globulus) trees from California. These trees, brought in from Australia, now serve as the most frequented overwintering sites for the western Monarch butterfly population.

Monarchs originally roosted in native conifer stands of Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata), Monterey Cypress (Cupressus maculatum) and Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). Sadly, extensive development, logging, and poor land-management decisions have reduced the number of these native-tree stands, leaving the butterflies to rely upon non-native Eucalypts.

Ignoring the fact that overwintering Monarchs are very much dependent upon isolated stands of these trees, government plans are mandating removal of them. Does this make environmental sense? Absolutely not; eradication of the Eucalypts means no wintering habitat for Monarchs, which means they will die.

In other words, this deliberate destruction of habitat is taking place because of ideology, an illustration of the danger posed by people who have been led to believe they are part of an environmentally moral crusade. Native-plant folks out west have managed, as they have here in the East, to convince environmental organizations and government entities at every level that it is a moral imperative to remove plants deemed invasive.

But, the whole point of conservation of the environment is conservation of wildlife, without which the environment cannot function properly. Yet, absolutely no thought is given to how much so-called invasive plants support wildlife or serve important environmental functions in degraded areas.

Thus, for example, in the city of Waynesboro, Virginia, the Parks and Rec department decided it had to remove Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica, formerly known as Polygonum cuspidatum) from growing along the South River greenway (Waynesboro News Virginian, March 9, 2018, “War on Weeds”). The main reason given for the removal of these plants was that they are preventing native plants from growing, but this statement is nothing more than invasive-plant folklore that gains credence by the act of repetition.

Read about virtually any “invasive” species and you will find that these plants are typically growing in disturbed areas where man or a weather event destroyed the original soil profile. As a result, the plants that had been growing there previously did not come back because they could not handle the altered physical conditions of the site. It’s why you see so-called invasive plants mainly along roadways, in parks, and along river trails—all areas easily seen by people who then mistakenly believe the exotic plants pushed out native species.

The newspaper stated that knotweed is a “formidable culprit to the river’s health”, but the true threat lies in its removal. This plant has superbly performed erosion control of soil in which native plants struggle to grow; feeds numerous kinds of pollinators when it blooms; and provides wonderful cover and nesting sites for numerous species of birds and the non-herbivorous insects that feed them. One need only to walk the trail with open eyes and an open mind to ascertain the truth of this statement.

Additionally, park employees would use herbicides to kill the knotweed. How can poisoning the Earth be less harmful than allowing alien plants to grow in areas where they are currently the most suited to thrive and thus provide badly needed habitat for wildlife?

You might wonder how the invasive-plant movement became so entrenched in environmental and governmental circles. The answer lies in the treatment of it as a moral cause in which those who agree with removing “bad” plants are virtuous; those who disagree must be bad like the plants themselves. Under these circumstances, it is difficult for folks to take a stand in opposition; no one wants to be considered immoral.

However, this undertaking is deeply flawed. Rather than critically analyzing each situation and dealing with it in the most appropriate manner, plant nativists (people who practice a policy of favoring native plants over nonnative) take the simplistic approach that demands removal of every plant designated as “invasive”, no matter what function it is fulfilling in the local environment or how well it fills what would be an otherwise empty ecological niche.

Earlier this year, for example, someone removed a Leatherleaf Mahonia (Mahonia bealei) that was growing in a swath of red dirt along the road where I exercise. It was one of the few plants that had survived the highway department’s installation of a new guardrail. No native plants had been able to grow in the poor, dry soil exposed a few years earlier by construction, leaving an area several feet wide and long mostly devoid of plants to assist wildlife.

The Mahonia (a native of China) would have provided a very early source of nectar desperately needed by the first pollinators to become active in spring at a time when native plants in bloom are very few. Its fruits would later feed birds, such as Cedar Waxwings and American Robins. Now, not much exists in this area to feed either insects or birds, making the land a wasted resource.

Native or not, plants provide habitat whereas bare ground does not. Nativists disregard the reality that native plants struggle to survive under the adverse conditions of road salt, mowing, drought, and disturbed, compacted, and depleted soil. They would do better by the environment if, instead of pulling and pesticiding, they focused on eliminating the actual causes of alien-plant spread.

Removing the Mahonia near the bridge resulted in no benefit to the environment, whereas it very much negatively impacted ease of survival for many insects and birds. And in California, removing Eucalypts may well doom the wintering Monarch butterfly population.

Doug Tallamy’s Nature’s Best Hope denies the value of hybridization

In Nature’s Best Hope, Doug Tallamy concedes that there is no evidence of extinctions of native plants being caused by the introduction of non-native plants in the Continental US. However, he accuses non-native plants of something more nefarious: “There is one biological phenomenon associated with some plant invasions that is so pernicious, even continental scales are not protecting natives from invasive species. I speak of…introgressive hybridization, where the invasive species hybridizes with a closely related native, and then through repeated backcrosses and directional gene flow, the gene pool moves closer and closer to that of the invader.”

Jake Sigg calls this phenomenon, genetic pollution. Both Tallamy and Sigg consider such hybridization a loss of the native species and, indeed, it can be the end of localized variants of a species. However, hybridization is often instrumental in the creation of a new species, one that is often superior to its ancestors because it is better adapted to present environmental conditions.

In a recently published study of the evolution of oaks, scientists traced the 56 million year evolutionary history of roughly 435 species of oak across 5 continents where they are found today. Oaks are wind-pollinated, leaving pollen fossil records of their presence where they may no longer live. Using DNA analysis of fossil pollen, scientists tell us when and where oaks have lived. Their presence or absence was determined by changes in climate that created or eliminated land bridges between continents enabling movement of plants and animals, as well as providing the climate conditions in which oaks can survive.

Hybridization was instrumental in the formation of oak species and the ability of oaks to survive in different climate conditions. The article in Scientific American about the genetic study of oak species concludes: “A firm grasp of when, where and how oaks came to be so diverse is crucial to understanding how oaks will resist and adapt to rapidly changing environments. Oaks migrated rapidly as continental glaciers receded starting around 20,000 years ago, and hybridization between species appears to have been key to their rapid response. The insights we can gain from elucidating the adaptive benefits of gene flow are critical to predicting how resilient oaks may be as climate change exposes them to fungal and insect diseases with which they did not evolve.”

In fact, a recent study suggests that assisted species migration and intentional hybridization are necessary to prevent the extinction of plants in Arctic regions, where the climate is warming the fastest. Intentionally planting species from warmer regions into colder regions in anticipation of climate warming is called assisted migration. It is not a new concept. The study acknowledges that intentional hybridization is a radical suggestion that contradicts conventional wisdom: “Traditionally, hybridization is viewed as negative and leading to a loss of biodiversity, even though hybridization has increased biodiversity over geological times.” This study acknowledges the role that hybridization plays in increasing biodiversity.

In the Bay Area, we are surrounded by examples of hybridization, some intentional and tolerated and some natural, but not tolerated:

Sycamores are the most common street tree in the United States and we have many here in the Bay Area. They are a hybrid of London Plane Trees and our native Sycamore. The California native was intentionally bred with the London Plane Tree to increase its drought tolerance. Sycamore street trees are one of the most popular because they are extremely hardy and tolerant of challenging conditions in urban settings. They are also the host trees of one of our native butterflies, Western Tiger Swallowtail. The Tiger Swallowtail probably used our native Sycamore in the past, but made a seamless transition to the hybrid.

Update: I learned about the hybrid origins of our local Sycamore street tree in an urban forestry class at UC Berkeley. Peter Del Tredici has sent me this correction: “The london plane tree, Platanus x acerifolia is generally considered to be a hybrid between the european species, P. orientalis and the eastern species, P. occidentalis. the west coast species, P. racemosa is not part of the mix.”

Spartina alterniflora is a marsh grass that is native on the East Coast. It grows taller and denser than our native marsh grass, Spartina foliosa that also dies back in winter, unlike the East Coast native that does not. In other words, non-native spartina is superior protection from winter storm surges compared to native spartina. Yet, non-native spartina is being eradicated using herbicides along the entire West Coast of the country because it hybridizes with the native spartina species. The herbicide used for that purpose has been sprayed for about 15 years, which is probably why attempts to plant native spartina as a replacement have been unsuccessful. The result of the eradication project has been bare mud that provides no protection from erosion caused by rising sea levels and more intense winter storms. In other words, if non-native spartina were permitted to hybridize with native spartina on the West Coast, the result would be a new species that is better adapted to face the threats of rising sea levels and intense storm surges.

Doug Tallamy’s closing photo of his keynote speech to the California Native Plant Society Conference, 2018

Fear of hybridization is akin to fear of mongrelization–the mixing of races–by racists and xenophobes. It is closely related to the fear of non-native plant and animal species, a short-step away from the fear of human immigrants. Concern about racial purity is not far from fear of “genetic pollution.” State laws in the US prohibiting interracial marriage were not repealed until 1967, when the US Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that such laws were unconstitutional in the 16 states in which these laws still remained. These are cultural fears, not grounded in biological science.

In conclusion

Doug Tallamy’s intended audience is home gardeners. Although he urges his readers to remove invasive species, he does not endorse the use of herbicides. Unfortunately, his work is used by public land managers to justify their eradication projects that usually use herbicides. If Tallamy’s work stayed in its home gardening lane, it would do less damage to the environment.