The term
"weed" carried no threat. Nobody minded their presence. It was just a
way some plants behaved, often solitary or in defined bunches, usually in the
margins where it didn't much matter anyhow. And anyway, there were county road
crews with spray wands taking care of weeds on the broader scale; they didn't
act any more concerned than the rest of us did; it kept the roadways
clear.
State universities
had a Weed Specialist on their faculty rosters, but these worthies generally
had the sunburned aspects of field hands rather than pale academics, and were
vaguely apologetic in their meetings with the public.
And then the 60s
happened. Somnolent academia, entrenched in boring, plodding facts, discovered
the celebrity of sensationalism. Bright lights, eager interviews, notoriety,
publicity: all at once an obscure professor or discipline could be vaulted to
the forefront of public fame, simply by stretching a few unremarkable facts
into something a little more...appealing. Appealing to the public, that is; it
was a much more exciting audience than a bunch of fellow academics who already
had the answers. Possibly the facts would be stretched a bit beyond rigid
definition, but if the intent was legitimate, who would mind a bit of
overstatement?
Universities began to
break out in unlikely flowers with sensationalized names such as Carson and
Ehrlich, leading a charge entirely separate from their acknowledged
disciplines, as if they had somehow been smitten with True Revelation. An
obscure statistician could announce the unexpected discovery of the imminent
demise of Biology; a butterfly specialist could announce the alarmingly-near
End of the World As We Know It.
Suddenly, that
faculty Weed Specialist or his replacement became a leader in the shrill war
on people who helped plant things without asking
first. Without getting approval from those alarm-ringers, for instance.
With all the new publicity, a weed couldn't be just a weed; now it had
to represent the Greater Threat (trademark) into which so much sensation was
being invested. Living up to the spirit of the times; academia quickly
discovered the effectiveness of a new term: "invasive species". The
term is loaded with vague threat, implying another looming catastrophe unless
extreme measures are immediately taken! Call your congresspeople! Demand
action! Generate funding!
It's about here where
responsible academia would step in to insist on clear, scientific definition
and response. The term sounds exact; "species" is one of biology's
oldest defined terms. "Invasive", on the other hand that "invasive" is largely a matter of opinion. As such it has
been used to forcefully leverage projects and programs worldwide, disguised as
legitimate science. And don't forget a generous budget.
Is
"invasion" bad? Who says? Is occupying a barren space an invasion or
an evolution? Is mobility necessary? Over how much time? When plants evolved
out of the primal seas to occupy land, did they invade? How is that different
from today's plants striving to occupy land? What about conifers and birches
occupying a barren? (And who decides it's barren?) By most efforts at a
scientific definition of "Invasive Species", only one species fits
every case: the species reading this column.
Back to those
dandelions in our yards: the Weed Specialists of yore would offer
explanations, not shrill alarms. Our current Invasive Species Specialists wield
a much bigger stick; and alarms generate more recent human inventions:
"influence" and "money".
Eric Schwennesen is a commercial beef rancher in the Mogollon Rim
country. He grew up in Belgium, cowboyed in Nevada, and helped Navajos
and many African peoples with rangeland conflicts for over 35 years. He
recently published "The Field Journals: Adventures in Pastoralism" about
his experiences.
No comments:
Post a Comment