Honeysuckle is killing forests and ivy is helping, especially in the northeast/midwest. Kill all that shit, help stop it from spreading. And try to volunteer for local groups that are clearing invasive species. It’s pretty amazing seeing a forest before and after invasive species have been removed.
In the Southwestern US tamarisk trees are a huge problem, they spread really fast along rivers and streams and their leaves have a lot of salt in them and shed constantly so they choke out native plant species. When I was a kid I used to play in the river a lot and I can remember tamarisk trees were the only thing that grew there, any other type of tree or plant was pretty much nonexistent. Luckily though there is a species of beetle that feeds on tamarisk and nothing else, they were brought in a few years ago to control the tamarisk population and they seem to be helping a ton. They cleared out all the dead tamarisk trees and now the riverbanks are filled with cottonwoods, willows, and reeds, it’s really nice to see.
I was on a biology field study trip once and my professor turned to us while we were heading down a trail in a national park and said “Okay so this is technically illegal, but we’re going to go over there and rip up a bunch of plants because they’re invasive species”. Cool dude, he was also warning about the insect die off like 10 years before it happened.
Environmental biology professors are almost always cool. They’re always weird and interesting.
Rosa Multiflora was spawned by the devil. Take a fucking chainsaw to it and it still comes back for a couple of years.
If an invasive species is clearing forests then let it run its natural course. Humanity is the virus. :fedposting:
Restoration ecologist here: ask away.
Is the Anglosphere making real progress with this stuff? My gut tells me it’s being left to languish like every other public effort
When I see China doing shit like trying to push back deserts it just makes me think we could’ve wiped out most invasive species ages ago if we actually tried.
I would guess on a small scale, we’re making progress. It’s much easier to manage on a small scale or if there is no exotic seed bank. For example, I’ve seen former agricultural fields look great 3 years after restoration.
There just isn’t a unified response to it. There are so many different entities that own and manage land it, you get different results.
I wish I knew about control of invasives in other countries and how serious they’re taking it.
