I attended my first Beyond Pesticides forum in 2014 in Portland, Oregon. I have been a member of and donor to Beyond Pesticides ever since. And I have purchased only organic food since attending that forum, because of a field trip to a community of farm workers that convinced me that growing our food without using pesticides benefits both consumers and producers of America’s food.
In a recent letter to the National Invasive Species Council, Beyond Pesticides describes their organization and mission:
“Founded in 1981 as a national, grassroots, membership organization that represents community-based organizations and a range of people seeking to bridge the interests of consumers, farmers and farmworkers, Beyond Pesticides advances improved protections from pesticides and alternative pest management strategies that reduce or eliminate a reliance on pesticides.” (The letter is available HERE: Beyond Pesticides – ISAC Comment )
I receive emails from Beyond Pesticides at least once a week, alerting me to opportunities to influence the laws and policies that regulate pesticide use in America. As you might expect, the frequency of those alerts has accelerated a great deal in the past year, as the federal government is actively engaged in the process of dismantling many federal regulations, including those that regulate pesticides.
The National Invasive Species Council recently invited the public to submit public comments in answer to a few specific questions, in preparation for the next meeting of the Invasive Species Advisory Council. Today I am publishing an excerpt of the letter of Beyond Pesticides in answer to those questions (some emphasis added). I am doing so because I consider this letter a wise and informed critique of the entire concept of “invasive species” and the pesticides used to eradicate them.
“The National Invasive Species Council (NISC) posed four questions for public input to the forthcoming meeting of the Invasive Species Advisory Council (ISAC). We find it most helpful to begin with the fourth: “How can NISC foster the development and application of innovative tools and technologies to enable the prevention, eradication, and control of invasive species in a more timely and effective manner?”
In order to address this question, NISC and ISAC need to first address the question, “What is an ‘invasive species’?”
‘Invasive species’ have frequently provided a reason for dispersing toxic chemicals in the environment, often with a sense of urgency and an assumed indisputable benefit. This unsupported (and sometimes unstated) assertion of benefit is a claim to virtue that allows environmental harm instead of preventing it.
In the context of other federal, state, and local laws, the regulatory definition of ‘invasive species’ gives broad authority to agencies to use all means at their disposal to rid the jurisdiction of non-native organisms causing economic harm, as well as harm to health and the environment. Many local ordinances that ban or restrict pesticide use make an exception for ‘invasive species,’ presumably under the mistaken assumption that in doing so they are protecting the environment. Instead, they are allowing environmental harm through the spread of toxic substances.
The use of the term ‘invasive species’ as a claim to virtue that is used to promote any and every attempt to exterminate any unwanted organisms is very disturbing. It is important to understand the problems that lead to the use of toxic chemicals, beginning with the cause. In the case of situations involving so-called ‘invasive species,’ we find that few, if any, involve species that are truly ecologically invasive—that is, capable of invading and persisting in intact ecosystems. Instead, such situations usually involve species that can take advantage of disturbed habitats (‘weeds’ or ‘weedy species’). As such, the emphasis should be placed on healing the disturbance (to which end, so-called ‘invasives’ may sometimes be helpful), rather than killing the opportunist colonizer.
We do not take the position that such opportunist colonizers should never be removed or managed. We do believe that the decision concerning whether such action should be taken should be based on the situation at hand and not on a claim to virtue that makes extermination of non-natives a righteous cause.
Redefining ‘invasive species’ to be limited to those species that can invade and damage intact ecological communities will directly ‘foster the development and application of innovative tools and technologies to enable the prevention, eradication, and control of invasive species in a more timely and effective manner’ (NISC) because resources will be directed only at those species that truly present an ecological threat. It will prevent those resources from being squandered in ways that are ecologically destructive.
The sharper focus that this redefinition will bring to the NISC and ASIC will enable them to explore approaches such as those that Beyond Pesticides has used in working with National Parks, local governments, and tribes to manage ecological problems in a way that is truly protective of biodiversity.”
Terry Shistar, Ph.D.
Board of Directors
Beyond Pesticides
Beyond Pesticides will soon hold its annual forum in Irvine, California, April 13-14, 2018. As usual, the forum will include highly qualified speakers who are knowledgeable about so-called “invasive species,” and the evolutionary principles that raise questions about the necessity and futility of trying to eradicate them. Two of the speakers are important to our local effort to stop the use of pesticides to eradicate non-native plant species: Dr. Scott Carroll and Professor Tyrone Hayes.
Dr. Scott Carroll is an evolutionary biologist affiliated with UC Davis. He has published several influential studies about the speed of adaptation and evolution that enables introduced plants to join native ecosystems without long-term negative consequences of their introduction. He has coined the concept of “Conciliation Biology,” which advocates that we turn from efforts to eradicate non-native species in favor of a new approach which manages the co-existence of native and non-native species.
Professor Tyrone Hayes (UC Berkeley) is best known for his criticism of the herbicide, atrazine, which is harmful to the frogs that he studies. Unfortunately, Professor Hayes’ opposition to atrazine does not extend to the pesticides being used in the San Francisco Bay Area to eradicate non-native trees and prevent them from resprouting. Professor Hayes accepts the premise that eucalyptus trees are detrimental to native plants, which justifies the use of herbicides to destroy them, in his opinion. The herbicide that is used for that purpose (Garlon with active ingredient triclopyr) is just as toxic as atrazine. Both are organochlorine products that bioaccumulate, persist in the environment for decades, and are endocrine disruptors.
The Beyond Pesticides forum is likely to generate some lively discussion of the issues that are relevant in the San Francisco Bay Area. Details about the conference are available HERE. Beyond Pesticides makes every effort to make these forums affordable for activists. I have attended two of these conferences. They were excellent opportunities to learn more about pesticides, to meet other activists, and to get ideas about how to advocate more effectively for more responsible pesticide use in our community.
I am very grateful to Beyond Pesticides for their leadership in the effort to reduce pesticide use in the United States. They are a reliable source of information about pesticides and their activism is an inspiration to those who are engaged in this effort on a local level.
This photo generated some discussion among the readers of Million Trees about nativism in the natural world. Is it related to nativism in the human realm? This is a timely question because American politics are presently consumed by anti-immigration sentiment, AKA “nativism.” As members of our communities are unceremoniously rounded up in immigration raids and deported from America, this is an association that is getting more attention.
We are pleased to publish a guest post by Professor Art Shapiro (UC Davis) in answer to this question. Although Professor Shapiro is a renowned expert on the butterflies of California, he is knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, including philosophy and history.
Professor Shapiro offers us a nuanced answer to the question at hand. This is an example of a general principle about such debates: the more we know, the more complicated every issue becomes. I have had the pleasure of a few long conversations with Professor Shapiro that were similar experiences. Professor Shapiro teaches us that we must examine issues from every angle, considering the pros and the cons. More often than not, we can’t reach a definitive conclusion that does the issue justice.
But I will demur on the issue of nativism. I will venture my opinion that nativism in the natural world is ultimately as pernicious as nativism in the human realm. They both do more harm than good. They are both fundamentally unjust. However, I do NOT generalize about the motivation of native plant advocates. I doubt that the majority are appropriately called “native-plant Nazis.”
I remain grateful to Professor Shapiro for sharing his knowledge and wisdom with me and with the readers of Million Trees.
Million Trees
Various observers have noted similarities in the rhetoric used by native-plant activists and that used by xenophobes. The comparison has generated a derisive term, “native-plant Nazis,” to describe the most strident of those opposed to the use of non-native plants in gardens. But were the real Nazis “native-plant Nazis?” The answers are rather complex and in some ways surprising.
The German Romantic Movement stressed the “organic unity” of the German people and their landscapes. In 1818 the artist Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell in his book Beitraege zur bildenden Gartenkunst (“Contributions to Instructive Garden Art”) prescribed the planting of “patriotic species” to create landscapes of “patriotic character.” The great explorer-naturalist-geographer Alexander von Humboldt referred in 1806 to vaterlaendische Pflanzengestalten (plant character reflecting the Fatherland) and stressed that “the natural character of different regions of the earth is most intimately connected with the history and culture of the human race,” a notion that persists today, as witness the excellent book Landscape and Memory, by the historian Simon Schama, and is not in itself reflective of xenophobia.
During the Romantic period the intense longing for the unification of the fragmented German polity bred not only intense patriotic feeling but a concomitant disdain for the alien. Thus Fichte argued that the Germans’ “natural disposition to freedom dates back to prehistoric times, when they had been a pure and untainted race…before the influence of foreigners and the introduction of class division.” After the establishment of the First Reich in 1871, all things German were ever more aggressively touted as superior to all else, and this included landscapes. The writer Willy Pastor and the art historian Josef Strzygowski enthusiastically promoted these ideas in the early 20th Century. Pastor invoked the Ice Age as the crucible in which the German national character was forged; the glaciers “not only influenced the racial breed of humans, but also selected trees and plants….the European primeval forest, which finally evolved as the strongest out of this severe school, was no less of Germanic, Nordic race than the people…”
Nature garden designed by Willy Lange
The quintessential embodiment of such ideas was the work of the landscape architect Willy Lange. Lange and Pastor were friends and shared their nationalistic vision. Pastor published a collection of essays entitled Lichtungen (clearings) and a book The Earth in the Time of Man, in which he argued that the natural habitat of the true Teuton is a clearing in the forest. Lange translated that view into a prescription for garden design: he utterly repudiated the formalism of most European gardens and argued instead that the ideal form of garden was a well-designed, visually pleasing simulacrum of a natural forest clearing, employing whenever possible (but not exclusively) native plants characteristic of the natural landscape. His ideas were taken up by Alwin Seifert, who rose after the Nazis came to power to be the ultimate arbiter of garden design. In 1939 Hans Hasler’s book Deutsche Gartenkunst (German Garden Art) spelled out the essential unity of the German national soul and the surrounding environment. Heinrich Friedrich Wiepking, who held the landscape design chair at the College of Agriculture in Berlin during the war, taught this doctrine as the rationale for gardening and invoked ancient Teutonic artifacts, burial mounds, and such as proof of this essential “organic unity.” Wiepking’s student Werner Lendholt “proved” that Germans already had a refined sense of landscape unity in the Bronze Age.
The idea of the “nature garden” arose repeatedly as a byproduct of romanticism, not only in Germany but throughout Europe and even in America; it can be seen as a reaction against formalism, with its rigidity and symmetry. But only in the Reich did it become so tightly fused with nationalism. There is nothing inherently political in Lange’s definition of his philosophy as “the derivation of ideas from nature and their translation in an artistic manner into garden design.”
Lange and his successors drew inspiration from the earlier work of the Irish garden writer William Robinson, who in turn was influenced by Gertrude Jekyll. And they in turn were influenced by William Thompson, who promoted the idea of the semi-natural “English flower garden” as early as 1852. The Austrian Robert Gemboeck, beginning in the 1880s, advocated “the reproduction of nature in the garden,” and was quite influential; he gave detailed prescriptions for how to create a simulacrum of wilderness—what kind of wilderness being dependent on the soil type available.
But none of this meant that the German garden had to be composed exclusively of native plants!
The era of both Robinson and Lange was the era of the “grand tour,” and both men traveled widely and assimilated their observations into their concepts of the natural garden. Lange’s disciple Hasler wrote that the master developed his art “as a result of his experiences and knowledge he gained on a north-south tour of Europe and North Africa.” After 1907 he explicitly advocated the introduction and naturalization of plants he regarded as esthetically in harmony with the true Teutonic landscape. During the 1930s the Nazi regime, primarily under the guidance of Heinrich Himmler, sponsored a series of famous expeditions to the Himalaya. There were several reasons for doing so. Himmler was entranced by the crackpot Welt-Eis Lehre (world ice theory) of Hanns Hoerbiger, which amplified the Romantic notion of the Ice Age as the crucible of German character. Himmler was interested in learning as much as possible about the Ice Age by studying what he viewed as the people living most like the ancient Teutons: the Tibetans, whom he imagined to be a pure and unadulterated race. But a subsidiary objective of the expeditions was to collect living material of Himalayan plants deemed suitable for naturalization in the Fatherland. In a sense, this represented an attempt to restore an imagined Edenic past.
Only those non-native plants judged to be inconsistent with the German landscape-character nexus, as largely defined by Alwin Seifert, were to be excluded. Seifert’s official title was Reichslandschaftsanwalt, or national landscape advocate. When he first received the title he presented two proposals to his superior, Fritz Todt: one embraced the use of non-native plants while the other did not. Seifert is a complex and problematic figure. He was anti-Semitic but never a really enthusiastic Nazi and he had a strong independent streak which often led him into trouble. He was a passionate advocate of organic gardening and sympathetic to anthroposophy, the cultish philosophy of Rudolf Steiner (today best known for the Waldorf School movement). His many contradictions led his biographer Thomas Zeller to call him “The Nazis’ environmental court jester and Cassandra, rolled into one.” His attitude on non-native plants hardened somewhat late in his tenure, when he took to calling Colorado blue spruce “public enemy #1.”
There was much in German garden philosophy and design to be admired, if one strips out the pugnacious racial and nationalistic rhetoric. There is really little difference from the natural-garden traditions developed elsewhere. Nazi Germany, early in its history, enacted what would today be characterized as the most progressive legislation in the world dealing with conservation, esthetics, and environmental health. Hence we have such books as The Green and the Brown and How Green Were the Nazis? that explore the contradiction between those facts and everything else we know about the regime. The contradiction becomes less bizarre when we remember the roots of Nazism in the Romantic movement.
At any rate, the real Nazis were never thoroughgoing “native-plant Nazis!”
Arthur M. Shapiro
Further Reading:
Bruggemeier, F.-J. and M. Cioc. 2005. How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment and Nation in the Third Reich. Ohio University Press.
Uekoetter, F. 2006. The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany. Cambridge University Press.
Wolschke-Bulmahn, J. 1992. The ‘wild garden’ and the ‘nature garden’ – aspects of the garden ideology of William Robinson and Willy Lange. Journal of Garden History 12: 183-206.
Wolschke-Bulmahn, J. 1997. Nature and Ideology: Natural Garden Design in the Twentieth Century. Dumbarton Oaks collection on the history of landscape architecture, vol. 18.
I am pleased to publish the following report of one of our readers who attended the conference of the California Native Plant Society in Los Angeles at the beginning of February 2018.
Million Trees
I attended the last conference of the California Native Plant Society in San Jose in January 2015. It was interesting to note a few significant new themes in the recent conference in 2018. Both fire and climate change were much more prominent themes in the recent conference. While both are relevant to the future of native plants, neither seemed to have any effect on the “restoration” goals of the native plant movement. For example, there were several presentations about massive die offs of native oak trees, resulting from higher temperatures, drought, and disease. These presentations ended with urgent pleas to plant more oaks. That seemed a fundamental contradiction and a denial of the reality of climate change. When the climate changes, the landscape changes, but native plant advocates are not willing to acknowledge that. In fact, the greater the threats to native plants, the greater the commitment to their preservation and “restoration.”
Beautiful pictures support nativist ideology
The conference began on a low point for me, but a high point for most attendees of the conference. The keynote speaker was Doug Tallamy. He was introduced as a “rock star” of the native plant movement, and indeed he is. His presentation was very effective in delivering his message, which is that most insects are “specialists” with mutually exclusive relationships with native plants that evolved over “tens of thousands of years.” If you believe that claim, you also believe that the absence of native plants will result in the absence of insects and ultimately the collapse of the entire food web.
Most native plant advocates believe that gloomy scenario, but few scientists still do, which creates a tension within this community of native plant advocates composed predominantly of amateur “botanists” and a smattering of academic ecologists. For example, one of the first presentations after Tallamy’s keynote was an academic ecologist from UC Berkeley who advocated for accommodating the movement of plants outside of historical native ranges to accommodate climate change. (1) He said that restoring only with local natives is “maladaptive” and that a bioregional perspective is needed to create sustainable landscapes. Allowing Monterey pines to grow in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they have grown in the past and are presently deemed “native” just 150 miles away, seems a good example of such a broader definition of “native.” An amateur nativist, parroting Tallamy, asked this hostile question: “But if we move the plants how will wildlife survive?” The academic delivered this tart dose of reality: “There are few mutually exclusive relationships in nature. Wildlife will also move and will adapt to changes in vegetation.”
Science debunks a myth about eucalyptus
The high point of the conference for me was a presentation by Jennifer Yost, Assistant Professor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. She and her graduate student studied the claim that nothing grows under blue gum eucalyptus trees because of allelopathic chemicals emitted by eucalyptus that suppress the germination of other species of plants. Two studies of this hypothesis were done in the 1960s, but the analytical methods used by those studies were misleading.
CNPS Conference 2018
Rigorous methods used by Yost’s team included planting seeds of 5 native plant species in the soil of eucalyptus forests and comparing germination rates of seeds planted in the soil of oak woodlands. They also tested the effect of blue gum volatile leaf extracts, and water-soluble leaf extracts on germination and early seedling growth.
They concluded, “In these experiments, we found that germination and seedling growth of the species tested were not inhibited by chemical extracts of blue gum foliage, either at naturally-occurring or artificially concentrated levels.” (2)
CNPS Conference 2018
Yost observed that the lack of allelopathic effects of blue gum on the soil implies that blue gum forests theoretically can be successfully planted with native plants after removal of the trees. However, she cautioned that those who destroy the blue gums should carefully consider what will replace them. Will an aggressive non-native weed quickly colonize the bare ground? If so, what is the benefit of destroying the blue gums?
Nativism dies hard because of lack of scientific studies
There appeared to be three distinct groups of people in the crowd of about 900 conferees. There was a large contingent of grey-haired volunteers who are the backbone of every native plant “restoration.” They are the dedicated weed pullers. There is an equally large contingent of young people who are making their living writing the “restoration” plans and directing the activities of the volunteers. The smallest contingent is a few academic scientists who study the underlying issues in their ivory tower. The goals and conclusions of these three groups are increasingly divergent as scientific studies disprove the assumptions of the citizen “scientists.”
The tension between science and the citizenry is as evident within the native plant movement as it is in American politics at the present time. The general public rejects scientific evidence at its peril. The rejection of science will not end well. In the case of uninformed nativism in the natural world, the result will be a barren, poisoned landscape.
“Climate change and open space conservation: Lessons from TBC3’s researcher-land manager partnerships in the San Francisco Bay Area,” David Ackerly1, Naia Morueta-Holme5, Sam Veloz3, Lisa Micheli2, Nicole Heller4 1University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, 2Pepperwood, Santa Rosa, CA, USA, 3Point Blue Conservation Science, Petaluma, CA, USA, 4Peninsula Open Space Trust, Palo Alto, CA, USA, 5University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Matt Chew has written another guest post for Million Trees about the International Compassionate Conservation Conference that recently took place in Australia, where he gave a presentation. Dr. Chew is a faculty member of Arizona State University’s Center for Biology and Society and an instructor in the ASU School of Life Sciences. He has written two popular posts for the Million Trees blog about the “restoration” industry and about the controversial projects that are eradicating tamarisk trees.
Arian Wallach, Dingo for Biodiversity Project
I was introduced to compassionate conservation by one of its proponents, Arian Wallach. Dr. Wallach is the Project Director of the Dingo for Biodiversity Project in Australia. Dingoes were the top predators of smaller animals in Australia for about 5,000 years until Europeans introduced new predators in the 19th century. Colonists to Australia have been killing dingoes since they arrived because dingoes are also predators of their sheep.
Eradicating top predators has serious consequences for the entire ecosystem. In the case of dingoes, smaller predators introduced by colonists have taken that role and are now the target of poisonous campaigns to eradicate them. For example, Australia recently made a commitment to kill 5 million cats with poison. Killing dingoes has put Australia on the killing treadmill.
We have examples in the United States of similar cascading effects of killing top predators. When wolves and bears were killed in some of our national parks, populations of grazing animals such as deer and elk exploded. Vegetation was browsed to death and ultimately the grazing animals were without sufficient food.
Dr. Chew tells us that defending top predators is one of several tenets of compassionate conservation. Two important themes emerge from his description of the conference:
Traditional conservation tends to focus on the preservation of a species, sometimes at the expense of individual members of that species. Compassionate conservation invites us to re-evaluate that emphasis, to also take the lives of individual animals into consideration. In an extremely individualistic society such as America, this would seem an entirely appropriate approach to conservation.
Modern methods of conservation tend to focus primarily on rare animals, sometimes at the expense of common animals. Common animals are often blamed for the fate of rare animals. Shooting barred owls based on the belief that endangered spotted owls will benefit is an example of such projects.
These are ethical questions that deserve our thoughtful consideration and Dr. Chew’s guest post invites us to think deeply about them.
Million Trees
The third International Compassionate Conservation Conference took place in Australia last November. Over 100 pre-registrants represented thirteen countries of current residence. Every occupied continent and a few archipelagoes were accounted for. Nearly half of the roster bore “Doctor” or “Professor” credentials. About two-thirds were Australian, one-sixth from the USA, and the remainder distributed in single digits. The final tally, including walk-in registrants, has not been compiled.
Some Background
Traditional resource conservationists and animal welfare advocates celebrate separate histories and espouse distinct philosophies. In a given circumstance their views may coincide, but they more often conflict. Sometimes it’s a mix of both. Professionals in either discipline are more attuned and (perhaps) committed to the distinctions than are members of the general public. Some advocates on both sides are more confrontational than others. Given all that, it may be unsurprising that the concept of compassionate conservation arose in the unique context of a British charity organized by the starring actors of the 1966 film Born Free. The predicament of Elsa the lioness they helped publicize provided a unique nexus of predator conservation and captive animal welfare to build on. Their Born Free Foundation , which at one point actually trademarked the term “Compassionate Conservation” has helped underwrite three meetings: a symposium in Oxford, U.K. (2010); a conference in Vancouver, British Columbia (2015), and the most recent conference in Leura, New South Wales.
Leura, Australia
The latter two events were co-sponsored and organized by the Centre for Compassionate Conservation (Centre) at the University of Technology in Sydney (UTS). The Centre was founded in 2013 by UTS conservation biologist Dr. Daniel Ramp, who continues as its Director. His unusual goal, succinctly (indeed, laconically) stated, is “to better conserve nature by protecting the welfare of individual animals in captivity and in the wild.” The Centre currently lists a core management team of five, plus six affiliated researchers. Five conference attendees identified themselves as Centre Ph.D. candidates, and another as an unspecified Centre student. Before organizing the Centre, Daniel and most of his present colleagues comprised something called THINKK, focused more narrowly on ethical kangaroo conservation. Coincidentally, a documentary film emerging from that effort just opened in selected U.S. theaters.
Alloying animal welfare advocates and conservationists this way requires effort. Alloying them into a fully coherent interest group is unlikely. Conservationists, including conservation biologists, are rarely concerned with the comfort or fates of individual organisms. For example, the Society for Conservation Biology is “dedicated to advancing the science and practice of conserving Earth’s biological diversity”. It emphasizes populations, species, biotic communities and other aggregations rather than individual organisms. This view accommodates Darwinian natural selection and economic sustainability of recreational and commercial exploitation, including so-called ecosystem services. Except where the population of some species is approaching zero and every extant individual contributes substantially to its genetic diversity, whether any of them are particularly well off beyond their ability to breed or produce gametes for propagation purposes is a subsidiary concern.By contrast, animal welfare begins with sentient organisms and recognizes fewer aggregate or emergent properties. Strictly speaking, to welfare advocates, preserving a species or population is secondary to protecting individuals from experiencing pain or suffering, especially that related to human actions or influences.
California Condor with tracking tags on wings
Logically extended, the difference between conservation and compassion can be illustrated by the California condor recovery effort. Condors incapable of breeding are useless to conservation biologists other than for public relations purposes. Any “display” animal is subject to the particular dangers inherent in repeated transportation and public contact. Presented as an example or representative of the taxon Gymnogyps californianus it nevertheless becomes a named or nicknamed individual entity in the minds of the people who “meet” it. Once transferred permanently for display to (e.g.) a zoo, the welfare of a named, non-breeding condor takes on a significance that it never had before. Should it fall ill, hundreds or thousands of people will fret. Should it die unexpectedly, they will mourn and hold its keepers responsible. Meanwhile, potential breeding condors may be released to cope with hazards of “wild” survival their captive counterparts never face. The processes of breeding contribute further stresses and risks. The value of a display condor is tallied in goodwill and monetary contributions. The value of a breeder is tallied in viable offspring, much as the value of a laying hen is tallied in eggs produced. The contentment of a named bird is judged differently from that of a numbered one. Should “recovery” succeed, individual condors will someday become as anonymous as turkey vultures, their welfare officially unmonitored. With all that in mind, a compassionate conservation conference is necessarily a coalition exercise. A stable, hybrid entity like the UTS Centre remains exceptional.
In the Event
The three-day Leura schedule included ten presentation sessions, a poster session and six workshops. Each presentation session opened with a half-hour keynote talk from an invited speaker followed by a series of shorter contributions.
Presentations:
Australian waterfall
Presentation sessions were organized around conservation ethics (2); novel ecosystems (2); animal welfare science and issues (2); laws and policies; agriculture and wildlife, predator-friendly ranching and finally “cultivating compassion”. Keynote speakers (six men, four women) came from the USA (5), Australia (3), Malaysia (1) and the UK (1). Nine are university faculty or affiliates; two represent independent conservation NGOs (yes, we turned it up to 11). Few of us can comfortably label ourselves without hyphenating. Our credentials include (alphabetically) Animal Science, Conservation Biology, Ecology, English, Environmental Ethics, Environmental Science, Ethnography, Evolutionary Biology, History, Humanities, Law, Natural Resources, Philosophy, Wildlife Biology, and Zoology and doubtless some that I overlooked. Our keynote talks ranged from practical legal and management case studies to aspirational exhortations. That may not be a defensible continuum, but it will have to do.
A conference program with abstracts is available for download here. Since there were about sixty presentations over two and a half days, I can hardly even list them, much less say anything pithy about more than a few. Their diversity made for an intense, eclectic, even exhausting experience. The general quality of presentations struck me as higher than the average at many more traditional, disciplinary conferences. Perhaps it takes “more” of something or another to survive the rigors of interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary work.
What I can do is highlight a couple of impressive research projects of particular interest to Million Trees followers in the western U.S. In his keynote address, Conservation as creative diplomacy: Raven and tortoise futures in the Mojave Desert, University of New South Wales Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities Thom van Dooren looked at “new technology” attempts to dissuade the big black birds from preying on juvenile, endangered reptiles. Artificial tortoises conceived as the equivalent to exploding, joke cigars featured heavily in this thought-provoking and entertaining analysis. Understanding introduced megafauna in the Anthropocene: Wild donkeys as ecosystem engineers in the Sonoran Desert by Arizona State University graduate turned Centre Ph.D. candidate Erick Lundgren showed how “feral” burros in western Arizona create water sources used by “native” wildlife by digging down to shallow aquifers in dry washes. Photos and infrared video made the case for this completely new and gratifying application of the term “ass holes” and discussion of the demonstrable positive effects of “alien” animals. An early presentation of Erick’s findings can be viewed here.
Posters:
Poster of Non-Nativist Landcare
For readers unfamiliar with poster sessions, the basic idea is to summarize a project, argument or proposal in the minimum necessary words and graphics to convey the important ideas. Posters can be perused at the convenience of conference-goers, and (as in this case) can be strategically hung in proximity to coffee and snacks; but a period is usually specified for poster authors to literally stand by their work and answer questions. What constitutes a poster is evolving rapidly. Mechanically pasted-up arrangements have been superseded by single, large format prints, which in turn may soon give way to looped or even user-navigable videos on flat screen displays. Only a handful of posters were presented at Leura. One included a description of low-disturbance riparian revegetation techniques; another explained a new proposal to legally protect captive whales, porpoises and dolphins in the U.S.A.; a third took data-driven issue with Argentina’s official over(?)-emphasis on lethally suppressing European rabbit populations; and the fourth combined a poster with a video loop to demonstrate the surprising calmness of red foxes living in proximity to dingoes, their only wild predators.
Workshops:
Befitting a gaggle of academics, three of the six workshops initiated collaborations meant to produce papers for peer-reviewed publication. “Welfare in the wild” focuses on the challenges of assessing the condition of free-living wild animals, a necessity for practical compassionate conservation. “The Australian Wildcat Project” seeks to reframe feral cats as wild animals and find “compassionate and effective solutions” that supersede traditional (and ineffectual) lethal culling. “Transforming wildlife management policies” envisions a compassionate alternative to the present Australian Pest Animal Strategy.
For attendees not leashed to the “publish or perish” treadmill, “A framework for human-wildlife health and coexistence in Asia” built on the related presentation session to propose guidelines for further research and development. “Predator friendly ranching skills and technologies” demonstrated an array of time-tested, new and proposed methods for keeping livestock without resorting to lethal predator control. “Bringing ethics into conservation with argument analysis” offered an introduction to rhetorical and logical analysis of the claims underlying conservation decision-making.
Reflections
Banksia in Australia
On July 31, 1947, Aldo Leopold finalized a paragraph that appeared about seven eighths of the way through his introduction to a proposed book of essays. It began “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” There, Leopold styled himself as “the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well, and does not want to be told otherwise”. Perhaps ironically, less than nine months later (at age 61) he succumbed to heart failure aggravated by the exertion of fighting a grass fire, leaving the still unpublished anthology in other hands. Nearly two decades on, editors transplanted the paragraph into the much-revised text of a Leopold essay titled “The Round River” for re-publication by Oxford University Press, where his overwrought sentiment blossomed into a gnostic axiom of conservation biology.
Practically anyone could recognize an injured animal. Only Leopold, selected colleagues and their presumptive heirs could diagnose the arcane injuries of populations, species, communities or ecosystems. The welfare of an organism didn’t “amount to a hill of beans” next to the integrity of the greater collective. It was a more than convenient fit into the value system of academic biology, where individuals are traditionally considered mere examples of taxa, available for collection, experimentation, or “scientific” interference pretty much at will.
As a group, biologists have likely devised more (and more esoteric) ways than anyone else to kill, injure or discomfit organisms. Way back in 1865, physiologist Claude Bernard, fountainhead of the indispensable idea of homeostasis, reflected, “the science of life…is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen.” Recipes beyond his darkest dreams have since been tested there. In that regard, conservation biology is unexceptional. Conservation biology in practice consists largely of subsidizing the (Darwinian) fitness of too-rare species by forcibly taxing that of too-common ones. The move from culinary to macroeconomic metaphors indicates only that we are now cooking on a vast, institutional scale. Both figuratively and literally, conservation biologists break a lot of eggs in service of making too-rare species more common and supposedly too-common ones more rare. Consistent with basic economic wisdom, individuals of scarce species are more highly valued than those of common species. But much of biology is still concerned with examining formerly living objects to find out what experimenting on them accomplished. The drafters of laws like the U.S. Endangered Species Act made “experimental, nonessential” individuals or populations available for scientific “take”. At best, such exceptions allow for research that might stave of extinction. At worst, they provide cover for otherwise anathema activities like “scientific whaling.”
What will become of compassionate conservation? I can’t answer that question. Its advent represents an interesting cross-pollination among otherwise ramifying points of view. I’m sympathetic to the basic aims of its proponents. My own work wasn’t really conceived to abet them; but if it does, I say “well and good.” There’s more than enough casually rationalized cruelty in the world already.
Art Shapiro is no stranger to the long-time readers of Million Trees. Professor Shapiro is Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution at UC Davis, and a renowned expert on the butterflies of California. He is the author of a seminal, frequently cited study of California butterflies that reported the results of 30 years of observing butterflies in his research transects. (1) He summarized this study in his Field Guide to the Butterflies of the San Francisco and Sacramento Valley Regions:
“California butterflies, for better or worse are heavily invested in the anthropic landscape [altered by humans]. About a third of all California butterfly species have been recorded either ovipositing [laying eggs] or feeding on nonnative plants. Roughly half of the Central Valley and inland Bay Area fauna is now using nonnative host plants heavily or even exclusively. Our urban and suburban multivoltine [multiple generations in one year] butterfly fauna is basically dependent on ‘weeds.’ We have one species, the Gulf Fritillary that can exist here only on introduced hosts. Perhaps the commonest urban butterfly in San Francisco and the East Bay, the Red Admiral is overwhelmingly dependent on an exotic host, pellitory. And that’s the way it is.”
Professor Shapiro has given us permission to reprint his Amazon review of the most recently published critique of invasion biology, Inheritors of the Earth, by Professor Chris Thomas (University of York, United Kingdom). We recommend Professor Thomas’s book to our readers. Although it is learned, it is accessible to the general public. This book is another step forward in the long march to acceptance of the reality of existing landscapes that are adapted to present climate conditions.
Million Trees
2011 Chris Thomas published a paper in the journal “Trends in Ecology and Evolution” entitled “Translocation of species, climate change, and the end of trying to recreate past ecological communities.” I immediately e-mailed him (April 11, 2011): “I have been delivering the same message in my advanced courses in Community Ecology and Biogeography for years, and have found the students by-and-large highly receptive, especially when they have internalized the overwhelming evidence for wild fluctuations in climate and vegetation since the end of the Ice Age 10-20,000 years ago. But over and over I have been told ‘but of course that is not the Party line…restoration ecology,’ blah, blah….Thank you for giving me a respectable citation, since merely citing one’s self can never do.” He e-mailed back: “…the conservation community in Britain seems mainly to be treating me with bewildered patience! I think that it will take time for everyone to become re-programmed to accept change as a reality.”
But of course change is not only a reality, it is the norm in ecology. Belief in equilibrium states and a “balance of nature” has been a dogma without a rationale beyond sentimentalism for many decades. There are coevolved segments of communities that are intimately synchronized and interdependent (say, figs and fig wasps or yuccas and their moth pollinators), but a great deal of any community is the product not of coevolution but of what Dan Janzen calls “ecological fitting,” whereby things haphazardly thrown together by the vicissitudes of geology, climate or commerce just happen to click. We are surrounded all over the globe by functioning communities and ecosystems with little to no history in geologic time. For about 40 years I have asked my students on their final exam how one might go about telling the difference between coevolved communities and “communities” assembled by chance. It is an exceedingly difficult question.
So this book is an expansion of the TREE [Trends in Ecology and Evolution] paper, and its message is vital. Resources for conservation are limited, and one must prioritize. The vast majority of naturalized alien species are harmless and many may be potentially beneficial. The ones that are genuinely harmful should be fought tooth and nail, but of course we do that anyway–we call it “pest management” and “public health.” The blanket indictment of “invasive species” makes no more sense than the blanket condemnation of human immigrants. Of course, when we say this, Thomas and I and Fred Pearce and “that Marris woman!” are immediately called out as shills for the extractive industries or the nursery industry or the Bilderbergers or the Zelosophists (conspiracy theory villains!!) or some despicable cartel of nature-haters. Pure poppycock. Truth-tellers attract trolls. That’s just the way it is.
Quite a few years ago a group of us took a prominent visiting British ecologist (not Thomas) on a field trip to the Sierra Nevada. We had half a dozen grad students and a few faculty crammed in a van. On the way up, one of the students sort-of apologized for the predominance of naturalized alien plant species in the lower foothill landscape. Our guest demurred forcefully: “Why must you consider this some kind of tragedy? Why don’t you see it as an opportunity for all kinds of evolutionary novelty to arise?” Indeed.
Thomas asks (p. 104): “How long will it be before the environmental police force of ecologists and conservationists is prepared to step back and decriminalize introduced species that have had the temerity to be successful?” An excellent question.
Stevie Nicks got over her fear of change: “Time makes you bolder…children get older…I’m getting older too.” Maybe conservationists can mature after all.
Arthur Shapiro
Professor Thomas’s book is very much in the mainstream. The Economist magazine included it in their list of important books published in 2017. It is one of only a few books in the category of “Science and technology” and it is at the top of the list. The Economist says of the book, “Humans have consigned species to extinction at an alarming rate. But hybridization and speciation is happening quickly too. An ecologist at the University of York shows how humans are bringing about a great new age of biological diversity. Extinctions ain’t what they used to be.”
The New York Times published a review of “Inheritors…” on New Year’s Eve. The reviewer summarizes Thomas’s main argument: “He argues that new species are arriving and evolving faster than old species are dying out globally…Instead of the sixth extinction, it’s a sixth genesis.” The reviewer faults Thomas for not portraying the “wonder of nature” and for giving oceans short shrift. But, the reviewer concludes with this observation about the unhelpful role that humans often play in conservation efforts: “It is human concerns that determine everything here on Earth now. An animal that arrived in a particular location hundreds or thousands of years ago is fine with us, while a more recent immigrant, like garlic mustard, is cause for alarm and extensive campaigns to extirpate the interloper. Nostalgia is deadly, as people kill to preserve or restore some ill-remembered but more natural past, and we disdain new species as weeds.” That observation about human attempts to control nature says it all. Plants and animals are not to blame for the damage we are doing to satisfy our ideological commitment to the distant past. They are symptoms of change, not the cause of change.
Happy New Year!
Million Trees
Update: Professor Thomas gave a presentation to the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco on June 19, 2018. HERE is a video of the introduction to his presentation.
And HERE is a presentation at the National Academy of Sciences, “Moving Times for the World’s Biodiversity.” If you haven’t read his book, his presentation is a good summary of the issues he covers in his book. MT
Anise Swallowtail butterfly in non-native fennel. Courtesy urbanwildness.org
Arthur M. Shapiro, “Exotics as host plants of the California butterfly fauna,” Biological Conservation,110, 413-433, 2003
East Bay Regional Park District is in the process of selecting the projects that will be funded by the renewal of Measure CC, the parcel tax that has funded park improvements. Measure CC will be on the ballot for renewal in November 2018 and will provide funding for “park improvements” for the next 15 years. YOUcan have some say about those projects by making your suggestions to the park districtby the end of December. Send your suggestions to publicinformation@ebparks.com.
The original parcel tax was passed in 2004. Over 22% of the money raised by that parcel tax was used to destroy healthy non-native trees in the parks. Meanwhile, many of our native trees, most notably our Coast Live Oaks, are dying of Sudden Oak Death. Destroying our non-native trees, while our native trees are dying, predicts a treeless future for the Bay Area. Since dead trees are more flammable than living trees, destroying living trees while leaving dead trees in the parks means that fire hazards are being increased.
We published a letter from a park advocate about Sudden Oak Death to the park district recently, which is available HERE. Today we are publishing an update from the park advocate who has learned more about the dead oak trees in East Bay parks. A scientist who is studying Sudden Oak Death in East Bay parks tells us that there are tens of thousands of dead oak trees in the parks and that the park district is not removing them. The dead trees are now fuel for fires in the parks.
It’s been a rough year and we are sorry to end it with this unhappy news about trees in the East Bay. We send you our best wishes for a better year in 2018. Thank you for your readership.
Source: Brice McPherson, December 7, 2017
TO: Rick Seal, Fire Chief; Robert Doyle, General Manager; Board of Directors
CC: publicinformation@ebparks.org
FROM: Park Advocate
RE: Please hire arborist/forester with Measure CC renewal
I attended the presentation of Brice McPherson to San Francisco IPM Technical Advisory Committee about Sudden Oak Death (SOD) on Thursday, December 7th. Mr. McPherson is Associate Specialist in “Organisms & the Environment” at UC Berkeley. He has been studying SOD since 2000 and more recently has inventoried the trajectory of the disease in 5 EBRPD parks and conducted experiments in those parks, with the park district’s permission.
Mr. McPherson began his study of SOD in Marin County, where SOD infections were first seen in 1994, before beginning his research in East Bay parks. Comparing the progression of the disease from Marin County to the East Bay has enabled Mr. McPherson to project the future of SOD in the East Bay.
Wildcat Canyon is the park in which Mr. McPherson has inventoried infected and dead trees most recently. In 2017, Mr. McPherson found that 16.2% of coast live oaks were infected and 20.5% were dead. The number of dead and dying oaks in Wildcat Canyon is staggering: 18,750 oaks are infected and 21,360 oaks are dead.
Source: Brice McPherson, December 7, 2017
The number of dead and dying trees in the other 4 East Bay parks that Mr. McPherson is studying is smaller. However, his inventories in those parks are much older. Since SOD infections have increased exponentially in 2016 and 2017, we should assume that his data underestimate the current status of oaks in those parks. As you probably know, the pathogen that causes SOD is spread by rain and wind. For that reason, the rate of SOD infections has soared during the past two wet winters.
Mr. McPherson predicts that the infection rate in Wildcat Canyon will increase 10.2% per year in the future, causing 10,600 new infections per year. Mr. McPherson predicts that +/- 50% of all coast live oaks will be lost in East Bay parks in the next 20 years, resulting in “major changes in stand structure.” In other words, most oak forests will be replaced by other vegetation types.
Source: Brice McPherson, December 7, 2017
In response to a question, Mr. McPherson said that the park district is not doing anything about the dead oak trees because there are not sufficient funds available to remove the dead trees. He was also asked how the dead wood can be removed without spreading the infection and/or creating piles of dead fuel throughout the parks. He could not answer that question.
This new information requires that I repeat what I have written to you on earlier occasions: “These changes in the environment require the park district to revise its strategies for fire hazard reduction because dead trees are significantly more flammable than living trees that contain more moisture…Removing trees infected with or killed by Sudden Oak Death should now be a higher priority than continuing to destroy healthy trees, as the park district has done in the past. Protocols for removing the dead wood must be developed because the wood is fuel when left on the ground…”
As you know, the park district has spent about $22 million dollars destroying healthy, living trees in the parks with Measure CC funding. If the park district has the money to destroy living trees based on the claim that it will reduce fire hazards, it obviously has the money to remove dead fuel in the parks.
Finally, we learned from Mr. McPherson that the park district does not employ a single certified arborist or forester. Given the resources the park district devotes to native plant “restorations” and spraying pesticides, surely it can also employ someone who knows something about trees. The landscape in the East Bay is undergoing a radical change to species that are adapted to current climate conditions that, sadly, will replace our beautiful oak forests. We need the guidance of qualified arborists to identify the most hazardous trees and make the transition to a new landscape. The employment of such expertise about trees would be a worthy expenditure of new Measure CC funding.
Public land managers in the San Francisco Bay Area are destroying non-native trees and vegetation in our public parks and open spaces because of their preference for native plants. These projects are harmful to wildlife because they destroy habitat, eliminate food sources, and spray herbicides that are harmful to wildlife.
Bev Jo is a frequent visitor to all of the parks of the Bay Area. She knows our parks and the wildlife that lives in them. She cares deeply about our wildlife. We are publishing an excerpt of her comment to East Bay Regional Park District about the damage being done to wildlife, as a result of killing non-native trees and vegetation.
East Bay Regional Park District is in the process of selecting the projects that will be funded by the renewal of the parcel tax, Measure CC. Measure CC will be on the ballot for renewal in November 2018 and will provide funding for “park improvements” for the next 15 years. YOU can have some say about those projects by making your suggestions to the park district by the end of December. Send your suggestions to publicinformation@ebparks.com.
Once upon a time, people in the San Francisco Bay Area were thrilled to live in a place where so many exquisitely beautiful and edible plants from all over the world could survive. It’s not a tropical region, but sub-tropical, so there are limits to what grows here and it depends on the area. But, still there is so much magnificent variety here that cannot live in other parts of the US.
People loved to plant what they missed from their homelands. In our small yard, the previous Lebanese owner had planted a Greek Bay Laurel, Olive, Sour Orange, Apricot, Nectarine, Apple, Pear, and Plums. Our poor neighborhood that was once mostly barren dry grass and juniper hedges, now has so many beautiful herbs and plants that just taking a walk is like a trip to a botanical garden. There also has been an increase in birds and other native animals.
Ice Plant (Carpobrotus), NPS Photo
Visitors used to be stunned that even the California freeways could be beautiful, with South African Ice Plant in glowing bloom and large trees and shrubs that bloom throughout the year to help clean the air from the traffic and soften the noise.
And then, something very disturbing happened. A movement began to spread that many of us recognized as being frighteningly similar to the racist hatred against immigrant people, but this time it was about nature, in the guise of being for nature. Most of the luminous Ice Plant has been eradicated. Flowering plants, including edible herbs, who most rational people would revere for their beauty and ability to survive in an increasingly dry land are being called “trash” and killed.
Ground squirrel
It’s not just innocent plants who are being reviled and killed, but animals are also being poisoned, trapped, and shot for no rational reason. The killing frenzy even includes important keystone native animals, like the California Ground Squirrel.
Why do we have to see parks we have loved for decades ruined, with most of the trees cut down for no reason other than that they are the “wrong” species, especially when many of the “right” (native) species are dying from global warming, disease, and insect infestation? Most parts of the US, as well as the world, treasure trees and are planting more, but not the Bay Area. Even while temperatures are increasing horrifically–and anyone can easily feel the twenty degrees difference between being in the sun versus being under trees–we are cutting down our trees.
Monarch butterflies over-winter in California’s eucalyptus groves
With so much of the land in the Bay Area covered by concrete, asphalt, and buildings, shouldn’t we value and love every tree we have? Aren’t the trees who most help native animals even more important to protect? Of course I’m talking about the majestic Blue Gum Eucalyptus. In spite of myths saying no native animals use Eucalyptus, they are clearly crucial to the survival of the Monarch Butterfly. Their flowers are an important food source for hummingbirds, and they are the preferred nesting tree for large raptors, like Golden and Bald Eagles, Great Horned Owls, and Buteos. Raptors haven’t been indoctrinated in the nativist cult. They just want the safest nest for their babies. A survey in Tilden Park found 38 different plant species beneath the canopy of Eucalyptus forests, compared to only 18 in Oak woodlands.
Monterey pines are also villainized, even though they are native, with fossil records throughout the Bay Area. They give throughout their life cycle, as they irrigate other plants with their extensive fog drip. They enrich the soil more than most other trees, and feed and shelter a diverse population of animals, including woodrats. The woodrat’s intricately constructed pyramid nests provide homes for many other species like mammals, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, etc. The pines are a self-replenishing forest, continually creating baby trees, while their dead snags are perfect granary trees for acorn and other woodpeckers, as well as being lookouts for hunting birds. Visit Monterey pines to see the rich wildlife around them, from kingfishers to tree creepers. In one small area of local pines, it’s possible to find over forty mushroom species.
Cedar waxwings in crab apple
The advantage of having plants from all over the world is that someone is always blooming, fruiting, and setting seed. One of our most beloved, but not often seen birds, the Cedar Waxwing, travels in flocks from one berry-bearing shrub or tree to another. I have seen Waxwings eating non-native Cotoneaster, Ligustrum, and Pyracantha berries, and only once native mistletoe. Almost all our birds are benefiting from non-native species, for nesting and food.
Our most common spider species, so essential for a healthy eco-system, are non-native. Honeybees are forgotten in the vendetta against non-natives, but they are European and valuable as the chief pollinators of our agricultural crops. They are another example of a beloved species who survives because of the many non-native plants we have. Eucalyptus provide valuable food for honeybees during the winter, when little else is blooming in California. And bees help plants reproduce, which provides more food for native animals, not to mention fruit and vegetables for humans.
Eucalyptus and bee. Painting by Brian Stewart with permission.
As the park district plans future projects for funding by Measure CC, I ask that the projects quit destroying non-native trees and vegetation, particularly by using herbicides. Our wildlife needs these plants. The park district does not “improve” the parks by killing plants and animals.
In the 20-plus years we have advocated for the preservation of our urban forest, my collaborators and I have been accused of many nefarious motivations and deeds. Here is a small sample of what we have been accused of:
The Sierra Club leadership has accused us of being “climate-change deniers” in their publications, in radio interviews, and in written public comments. (We firmly believe in the reality of climate change and that is one of many reasons why we are opposed to the destruction of our urban forest.)
We have been accused of being funded by the Koch brothers by commenters on this blog and other associations with the right-wing, such as Fox News and more recently Kellyanne Conway. (I am not politically conservative.)
Discrediting one’s opponents is a standard debating tactic and we are neither surprised nor dissuaded by such name-calling. So, why are we raising the issue today? Because this name-calling has migrated into the realm of academic science. We find that shocking because academia is a place where we expect reason to prevail and debates to be based on evidence, rather than ad hominem attacks.
Academic scientists in New Zealand resort to name-calling
We have published several articles about the projects that are dumping rodenticides on islands all over the world to kill animals believed to be the predators of birds. The most aggressive projects are found in New Zealand where rodenticides have been aerial bombed on small islands for over 60 years. Recently New Zealand has made a commitment to expand that program to the mainland of New Zealand to kill all wild mammals that have been introduced by humans for over 700 years.
New Zealand intends to be “predator free” by 2050. As you might expect, many people in New Zealand object to this program because rodenticides are an indiscriminate killer of animals, such as the native species of parrot, the kea, and many domestic animals such as dogs. There are other concerns as well, such as the feasibility of such an undertaking and the toxicity of rodenticides to the environment and to humans.
Defending New Zealand’s native parrot, the kea
One of the authors of that aggressive program is an academic at University of Auckland in New Zealand, James C. Russell. His defense of his program and the academic discipline of invasion biology on which the project was based was published by an academic journal. (1) It is an unusual defense, one that we wouldn’t expect to find in an academic journal, because it does not use scientific evidence to defend the annihilation of non-native animals. Rather it accuses those who question those projects of having ulterior motives: “Where evidence is disregarded, or motivations are disingenuous, arguments against [the negative impacts of] invasive alien species take the form of science denialism,” which Russell defines as “the rejection of undisputed scientific facts” such as the causes of climate change or the risks of smoking tobacco.
Russell then tells us what he believes motivates critics of invasion biology:
“Science denialism typically originates from groups with a vested interest in opposition to the scientific consensus…” In other words, the profit motive explains the criticism of invasion biology, in Russell’s opinion.
“…there is a strong correlation with support of free-market ideologies such as laissez-faire. ” Russell paints critics of invasion biology into a right-wing corner.
Finally, Russell advises invasion biologists how to respond to “denialism” of their projects: “engage the criticisms but shift the debate from questions of scientific fact to questions of policy response.” And THAT is at the heart of the matter. Russell advises his colleagues to emphasize the policy goals, such as exterminating all wild mammals from New Zealand, rather than debate the scientific justification for that project. Since there is little scientific justification for this project, that seems like good advice. So, what is this advice doing in a scientific journal? That is the final question.
Academic scientists respond to Professor Russell
A few months after Russell’s ad hominem attack on academic critics of invasion biology, the same scientific journal published four rebuttals to Russell and Blackburn, written by 11 academic scientists.
“We disagree that there is scientific consensus around invasive species, and propose that much debate in this field stems from legitimate disagreement and not from disingenuous rhetoric.” (2)
“Constructing an ostensible category of ‘denialists’ reflects invasion biology’s traditional reliance on inflammatory exaggeration to impose and enforce a dichotomous doctrine.” (3)
“…society’s spectrum of diverse perspectives, aspirations, and personal trade-offs, which effectively constitute what Russell and Blackburn impugn as ‘vested interests,’ could and should influence society’s debates rather than be discredited.” (4)
“The organizations and individuals that continue to bemoan biodiversity loss are misleading the public and are directing conservation support away from the foremost problem, the precarious existence of species with remnant populations that are the result of habitat destruction and overexploitation.” (5)
Threats to mammal species. Source: International Union for Conservation of Nature
Another academic publication also published a response to Russell and Blackburn: “Superficial understanding of the relationships between evidence and values creates exactly the dichotomization between science ‘believers’ and ‘denialists’ that Russell and Blackburn ostensibly seek to avoid. Rather than ‘standing up for science’ such dichotomization undermines it, rendering aspects of scientific enterprise ‘off limits’ to the kind of rigorous critical (self) examination fostered by science at its best.” (6)
Update:James Russell has come to the attention of the US military, according to a press report published on December 4, 2017. Russell says of his collaboration with the US military, “’And obviously we’re in the business of eradicating entire populations of animals from an island and so they have cocked their ear towards me once or twice. You don’t have to be a genius to see that there’s potential military application in that.’ In this instance, Russell’s work was being measured for suitability against a US$100 million research pot made available by the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).”
As psychologists have informed us for decades, it is a short step from animal abuse to human abuse. The child who kills animals often becomes a killer of humans as an adult.
Professor Russell seems to be proud of his collaboration with the US military. In any case, he stands to profit from that collaboration. That’s ironic, given that one of his criticisms of the critics of invasion biology is that they have “vested interests” in their criticism. It seems that a grant from the US Military should be viewed as a “vested interest” in his advocacy for killing animals. And, as he says, he is “in the business of eradicating” animals.
Little scientific basis for invasion biology
Invasion biology as presently defined by academic science originated in the late 1950s. It began as a collection of hypotheses about the harm that non-native plants and animals were doing to native plants and animals. Like all hypotheses, it was based on speculation that had to be tested in the real world. In the past 25 years, many studies have been conducted that were designed to prove that non-native species are harmful to native species. With few exceptions, these studies came up empty. More often than not, studies found pros and cons to introduced species, just as we would expect of similar studies of native species. There is little evidence that invasion biology is an accurate description of how ecosystems operate.
When academic scientists are forced to resort to name-calling to defend invasion biology it no longer deserves the status of scientific hypothesis. And when it is discredited as a scientific discipline, it must be just a matter of time before the public realizes that there is no legitimate reason to kill non-native plants and animals.
We don’t see any sign of that paradigm shift, but we are hopeful that public policy will eventually be revised to reflect the reality that has been revealed by scientific studies. In the absence of scientific justification for eradication projects, they must be treated as public policy decisions. In a democracy, public policy decisions must reflect the public’s wishes. In the absence of public support, these projects will continue to cause conflict.
James C Russell and Tim Blackburn, “The Rise of Invasive Species Denialism,” Ecology & Evolution, January 2017
Sarah Crowley, Steve Hinchliffe, Steve Redpath, Robbie McDonald, “Disagreement About Invasive Species Does not Equate to Denialism: A Response to Russell and Blackburn,” Ecology & Evolution, April 2017
Mark Davis and Matthew Chew, “’The Denialists Are Coming!’ Well, Not Exactly: A Response to Russell and Blackburn,” Ecology & Evolution, April 2017
Jacques Tassin, Ken Thompson, Scott Carroll, Chris Thomas, “Determining Whether the Impacts of Introduced Species are Negative Cannot be Based Solely on Science: A Response to Russell and Blackburn,” Ecology & Evolution, April 2017
John Briggs, “Rise of Invasive Species Denialism” A Response to Russell and Blackburn,” Ecology & Evolution, April 2017
Susanna Lindstrom, “An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Invasive Alien Species,” PLoS Ecology Blog, October 2017
East Bay Regional Park District is preparing to put a parcel tax on the ballot in 2018 that will extend the funding of park improvements for another 15 years. The public has been invited to tell the park district what improvement projects should be funded by the parcel tax in the future. We are publishing a series of such public comments that we hope will inspire the public to submit their own suggestions to the park district.
TO: publicinformation@ebparks.org
CC: Board of Directors
FROM: Park Advocate
RE: Suggestion for Measure CC Projects
Climate change is the environmental issue of our time. The climate has changed and it will continue to change. If park improvement projects are going to be successful, they must have realistic goals that take into consideration the changes that have occurred and the changes anticipated in the future.
The restoration of native grassland is an example of a project that is not realistic, given current environmental conditions. Grassland in California has been 98% non-native annual grasses for over 150 years. Mediterranean annual grasses were brought from Mexico to California by the cattle of the Spaniards in the early 19th century.
David Amme is one of the co-founders of The California Native Grass Association and was one of the authors of East Bay Regional Park District’s “Wildfire Hazard Reduction and Resource Management Plan” while employed by EBRPD. In an article he wrote for Bay Nature he listed a few small remnants of native grasses in the East Bay and advised those who attempt to find them, “As you go searching for these native grasses, you’ll see firsthand that the introduction of the Mediterranean annual grasses is the juggernaut that has forever changed the balance and composition of our grasslands.” That article is available HERE.
The park district seems to understand the futility of trying to transform non-native annual grassland to native bunch grasses. Here are two signs in two of the EBRPD’s parks that acknowledge the reality of California’s grassland.
Serpentine Prairie, April 2017Tilden Park, Inspiration Point, October 2016
Yet, despite this acknowledgement, the park district continues to expand its efforts to transform the parks into native grassland. Park visitors recently observed a failed experiment to introduce native grasses to one of the parks. Six plots of ground were fenced. Two of the plots were control plots in which whatever non-native weeds had naturalized were allowed to grow unmolested. Two of the plots were mulch/seeded with native grasses and two of the plots were fabric/seeded with native grasses. There was no observable difference in plant composition or abundance between the seeded and unseeded plots. There was no observable difference in the outcome of the two different seeding methods that were used. In other words, native grasses were not successfully introduced to this park. My correspondence with the EBRPD employee who was responsible for this project is attached.
Albany Bulb, April 2017Albany Bulb, April 2017
The park in which this experiment was conducted is Albany Bulb. Albany Bulb is the former garbage dump of the City of Albany. It was built on landfill in the bay. The soil is not native and there were never any native plants on it. It does not seem a promising candidate for a native plant “restoration.” Unfortunately, Albany Bulb is not an atypical park along the bay. There are many other parks along the bay that were built on landfill and in which the park district is attempting to establish native plant gardens. This does not seem a realistic objective for these parks.
Albany Bulb April 2018
Update: One year after the experimental planting of native wildflowers at Albany Bulb, there is no evidence of that effort. The trail-sides are mowed weeds and the upslope from the trail is studded with blooming non-native oxalis and wild radish.
Albany Bulb. Non-native wildflowers. April 2018
Albany Bulb will soon be closed to the public for a major “improvement” project. Albany Landfill Dog Owners Group and Friends expects the park to be closed for about one year. They are unsure if the park will allow dogs off leash when the park re-opens. More information about the “improvement” project is available on their website: http://www.aldog.org/announcements-2. They suggest that you sign up on their website to be notified of the progress of the project and the status of the re-opening of the park.
This is not to say that there aren’t many worthwhile park improvement projects that are both realistic and needed.Dredging Lake Temescal is an example of a worthy project. As you know, Lake Temescal was a popular place for people to swim until recently. In the past few years it often has been closed to the public because of toxic algal blooms. The algal blooms are caused by two closely related factors. The water is warmer than it was in the past because of climate change and the lake is shallower than it was in the past because of sediment deposited into the lake.
Black crowned night heron in algal bloom, Lake Temescal, April 2017
The park district has tried to address this issue by using various chemicals to control the growth of the algae. Although that has occasionally been successful for brief periods of time, it is not a long term solution to the problem. Furthermore, it is a good example of why the park district uses more chemicals than necessary. If the park district would address the underlying cause of the problem—that is, the depth of the lake—it would not be necessary to keep pouring chemicals into the lake. Dredging Lake Temescal should be a candidate for Measure CC funding.
And so I return to the point of this suggestion for Measure CC: Please plan projects that take into consideration the reality of climate change, that address the underlying causes of environmental issues, and that have some prospect for success.
Thank you for your consideration.
Send your comments regarding Measure CC renewal to publicinformation@ebparks.org
Send copies to staff and board members of East Bay Regional Park District
Robert Doyle, General Manager rdoyle@ebparks.org
Ana Alvarez, Deputy General Manager aalvarez@ebparks.org
Casey Brierley, Manager of Integrated Pest Management cbrierley@ebparks.org
Board of Directors:
Beverly Lane, Board President blane@ebparks.org
Whitney Dotson wdotson@ebparks.org
Dee Rosario drosario@ebparks.org
Dennis Waespi dwaespi@ebparks.org
Ellen Corbett ecorbett@ebparks.org
Ayn Wieskamp awieskamp@ebparks.org
Colin Coffey ccoffey@ebparks.org
In 2004, voters in Alameda and Contra Costa counties approved Measure CC, a parcel tax, to provide additional funding to East Bay Regional Park District for “Park Access, Infrastructure and Safety Improvements, Resource-Related Projects, and Reserve for Unknown Events.” Measure CC also stipulated that “the overall commitment to natural resources shall be no less than 30% of the revenue raised by the entire measure.” (1) Measure CC is projected to provide about $47 million in the 15 years of its life. (2)
The park district is planning to put Measure CC on the ballot for renewal next year. It’s time to look at how the park district spent our tax dollars and decide if we want to continue to give them our tax dollars for another 15 years. If you want Measure CC funding to be used differently, now is the time to tell East Bay Regional Park District what you want…BEFORE the ballot measure is written.
Fuels Management vs. Resource Management?
The park district budgeted $10.2 million of Measure CC funding for “fuels management,” about 22% of the total available funding from Measure CC. To date, the park district has appropriated $8.8 million of that budget allocation and spent $6.3 million.
The park district describes “fuels management:”“All vegetation/fuels management projects for fuels reduction are in coordination with the protection and enhancement of wildlife habitat in fuel break areas and are therefore considered to be resource related.” (2) In other words, the park district considers destroying vegetation and cutting down trees a part of its “commitment to natural resources.”
These descriptions of Measure CC projects illustrate the close relationship between fuels management and resource management:
“Assess and remove hazardous trees, promote native tree regeneration.” (2)
“Manage exotic plant species and promote fire resistant natives to reduce the risk of wildfires.” (2)
“Manage vegetation for fuels reduction in coordination with the protection and enhancement of wildlife habitat in fuel break areas to provide defensible space and meet Hills Emergency Forum flame length standard.” (2)
The park district’s policies and practices are based on mistaken assumptions:
Most monarchs in California spend the winter months roosting in eucalyptus trees. These trees are being destroyed in East Bay parks where monarchs have roosted in the past, such as Point Pinole.
There is no evidence that destroying non-native trees will “enhance wildlife habitat.” In fact, wildlife habitat is being destroyed by “fuels management” projects.
There is a wide range of opinions about the tree removals that the park district has done since their program began in 2011, after approval of the “Wildfire Hazard Reduction and Resource Management Plan” and the associated Environmental Impact Report. At one extreme, some people want the park district to destroy ALL non-native trees on its property. They consider “thinning” inadequate. The Sierra Club is in that camp and has sued to enforce their wishes. At the other extreme, some people don’t want any trees to be removed, although most would make an exception for dead and hazardous trees.
Tilden Park, Recommended Treatment Area TI001, June 5, 2016. This in one of the projects of East Bay Regional Park District, in process
After observing the park district’s tree removal projects, I have reached the conclusion that they represent a middle ground that I can accept because in many cases the canopy is intact and the forest floor is still shaded. The shade retains the moisture that retards fire ignition as well as suppresses the growth of weeds that ignite more easily during the dry season. In the 20+ years that I have defended our urban forest, I was always willing to accept a compromise and the park district’s methods look like a compromise to me. I still have concerns about tree removals and they are explained HERE. You must reach your own conclusions.
So, what’s the beef?
Unfortunately, coming to terms with the park district’s tree removals has not resolved my misgivings about how Measure CC money has been used. In a nutshell, I believe that the park district’s “resource management” projects are based on outdated conservation practices. I believe the park district is trying to re-create historic landscapes that are no longer adapted to environmental conditions. Their projects are often not successful because they do not take the reality of climate change into consideration, nor do they look to the future of our environment. They are stuck in the past.
One of the projects funded by Measure CC is typical: the effort to eradicate non-native spartina marsh grass from all park properties. The park district has been participating in the effort to eradicate all non-native spartina marsh grass from the entire West Coast for 14 years. In the first few years, EBPRD aerial sprayed from helicopters several hundred gallons of herbicide per year. Now the quantity of herbicide is about 25 gallons per year.
The reason why the rails have been harmed by the eradication of their habitat is that non-native spartina provides superior cover for the rail. The non-native species of spartina grows taller, more densely, and it doesn’t die back in the winter as the native species of spartina does. When the rail begins its nesting season, there is no cover for the birds. They are therefore being killed by their many predators.
The fact that non-native spartina provides superior cover for the birds is related to a second issue. Non-native spartina provides superior protection from winter storm surges compared to the native species which provides no protection, even when it grows and it is NOT growing.
The third issue is that eradicating non-native spartina has not resulted in the return of native spartina. Even when extensive planting has been done, native spartina does not provide habitat or storm surge protection in the San Francisco Bay Area. We should be asking if pouring hundreds of gallons of herbicide on the ground might be a factor in the unsuccessful attempt to bring native spartina back to the Bay Area.
Finally, recently published studies that compared native with non-native marsh grasses and aquatic plants with respect to the ecological functions they perform. These studies both say, “If you look at the role of exotic water plants in an ecosystem, you won’t find any significant differences compared to indigenous species.”
The spartina eradication project is an example of conservation that no longer makes sense. It damages the environment with herbicides. It destroys the habitat of rare birds. It exposes our shoreline to strong storm surges and rising sea levels. Native vegetation does not return when it is eradicated.
Looking forward, not back
The parks are very important to me. I visit them often and I treasure those visits. I would like to vote for Measure CC. I hope that the measure on the ballot will give me a reason to vote for it.
I will be looking for a revised definition of “resource management” in the ballot measure, one that acknowledges that climate change is the environmental issue of our time and that conservation must be consistent with the changes that have already occurred, as well as look forward to the changes that are anticipated in the future. Specifically, “resource management” must respect the landscape we have now, which means not trying to eradicate it, particularly by spraying it with herbicides. Resource management projects must be based on reality, rather than on fantasies about the past.
Opportunities to tell EBRPD what you want from Measure CC
East Bay Regional Park District is holding public meetings about Measure CC to give the public the opportunity to provide input regarding future park needs and priorities:
November 4, 10-12, Harrison Recreation Center, 1450 High St, Alameda
November 8, 2:30-4:30 pm, David Wendel Conference Center, 1111 Broadway, 19th Floor, Oakland
EBRPD asks that the public RSVP by sending an email to Monique Salas at msalas@ebparks.org or call 510-544-2008.
If you can’t attend, please send written feedback here: publicinformation@ebparks.org. Please tell East Bay Regional Park District what you want Measure CC funding to pay for.
Professor Tyrone Hayes (UC Berkeley) is best known for his criticism of the herbicide, atrazine, which is harmful to the frogs that he studies. Unfortunately, Professor Hayes’ opposition to atrazine does not extend to the pesticides being used in the San Francisco Bay Area to eradicate non-native trees and prevent them from resprouting. Professor Hayes accepts the premise that eucalyptus trees are detrimental to native plants, which justifies the use of herbicides to destroy them, in his opinion. The herbicide that is used for that purpose (Garlon with active ingredient triclopyr) is just as toxic as atrazine. Both are organochlorine products that bioaccumulate, persist in the environment for decades, and are endocrine disruptors. 
Conservation Sense and Nonsense 